. . . or a Common Bandit? : This ‘rascal darling’ of Anglo myth was hated by his own people.

The school board of Santa Clarita should have been more careful about naming a high school after a supposed bandit hero of the romantic past. Tiburcio Vasquez is an unworthy candidate for canonization.

“Foreigners in Their Native Land: Historical Roots of the Mexican American,” a respected text edited by David J. Weber with foreword by Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, contains this passage wherein Vasquez explained why he was driven to crime:

“Americans . . . would . . . shove the native-born men aside, monopolizing the dances and the women. . . . A spirit of hatred and revenge took possession of me.”

While Weber and Ruiz put forth the argument that Vasquez could be considered a “social bandit,” even their sympathy was tempered: “Although Tiburcio Vasquez is remembered as a romantic Robin Hood figure, there is no hard evidence that he robbed from the rich to give to the poor.”

Vasquez had few redeeming qualities. By the time of his hanging in 1875, he was the rascal darling of California’s Anglo elite, despised by the upper-class Spanish society and feared by poor Mexicans, whom he murdered regularly without a twinge of guilt. He stole from the unwary and innocent and kept everything for himself.

Vasquez was born in Monterey in 1835 to a respected, well-to-do Spanish and English family and had the potential of becoming successful lawyer, businessman, rancher or politician. But he chose another path.

The real story of the dance-hall incident was quite different from that told by Vasquez. In 1852, at age 16, he went to a dance party with an acquaintance named Garcia. Garcia got into a fight over a girl with a rival named Guerra.

A constable tried to break up the fight and was shot and killed (some say by Vasquez). The next day, when all were caught, Vasquez bore witness that Guerra started the fight and that Garcia shot the constable. Guerra and Garcia, from lower-class Mexican families, were both hanged and Vasquez was released after a few months in jail, where he had met the men who were to become his bandit band.

Within a year, he rebelled against his family and joined his jail compatriots in the back-country. Several times he returned home for protection, promising to reform, then met secretly with his bandit band to steal from relatives and neighbors, according Vasquez himself.

Over the next 20 years, Vasquez gained a reputation for selfish cunning. Twice he was caught and jailed but avoided the hangman’s noose by turning state’s evidence against compatriots.

Vasquez was captured at Cahuenga Pass and returned to San Jose to stand trail for killing a bound and gagged hotel-keeper in Tres Pinos.

From jail, Vasquez appealed to the Spanish community for legal defense funds, but was refused help. He gained the sympathy and support of the Anglo press by writing “confessions” glamorizing his own life.

These “jailhouse confessions” are the source of widely quoted stories about Vasquez, and he was promoted by the Anglo press as California’s “Romantic Spanish Outlaw.”

Sympathetic Anglos responded with money for his defense. The best lawyers were retained, but to no avail. Vasquez was sentenced to hang. All appeals failed and he was hanged March 19, 1875, a hero in myth but a vicious outlaw in fact.