A Tale of the Old West

I saw the news that a school district in Salinas, California has raised a controversy.  They are considering naming a school after Tiburcio Vasquez.

Tiburcio Vasquez was born in Monterey, California in 1835 to a family of Californios who owned wide swaths of rugged Californian land.  The Bear Flag Revolt by European settlers resulted in California becoming an independent republic in 1846.  Two years later, Mexico signed the Treaty of Hidalgo ceding California to United States.   Tiburcio was thirteen. 

When I was teaching high school Spanish I explained the story to my students like this.  Suppose the president of our country had a disagreement with present-day Russia.  Suppose that in order to come to terms of a resolution, he agreed to hand over the Pacific Northwest to Russia as part of a treaty for peace.  As of the date of the signature, our state would suddenly become Russian territory.  From one day to the next, your language would no longer be the language of the land, your money no longer the currency, your land deed not honored, and most difficult of all, your culture, your way of life, your values suddenly dismissed, ignored, and obsolete.

When this happened to Tiburcio Vasquez, he was a teen from a well-respected and well to do family.  The upheaval's impact on him was that he chose a life of rebellion against the new societal order.  Beginning at age 19, he stole from the new settlers, robbed stage coaches and stores, and hid out in the hills he knew so well, elusive and impossible to catch.  He fraternized with criminal gangs of other dispossessed Californios, and traveled in a secret network of homes of friends and relatives who would shelter him.  Posses were mounted and rewards offered, and Tiburcio outsmarted the (new) Law. 

An aristocrat by birth, he conducted himself in a romantic and gentlemanly manner where the ladies were concerned.  When robbing a stage coach, he would lay his coat in the dust so the ladies aboard could walk over it while exiting the coach he was stealing.  He was a legendary casanova, with many love affairs.  Even when in prison, he was a celebrity, visited by many.  He sold his autograph to raise money for his defense.

In August of 1873, Tiburcio and his gang robbed Snyder's store in the small town of Tres Pinos.  In the course of the crime, they murdered three bystanders.  One of them was Leander Davison, my ancestor.  He was an innkeeper, who, when he heard the commotion of Tiburcio's gang escaping hot pursuit, barred the wooden entry to his establishment.  Tiburcio shot through the door, and the bullet killed Leander Davison.

Eventually, the crime resulted in Tiburcio Vasquez' hanging in 1875.  He was 39 years old.  When asked before his execution if he believed in an afterlife, he replied, "I hope so, for then I shall see all my old sweethearts again."   For many subsequent years, his lovers and admirers paid their respects and left flowers at his grave.

It's been well more than a century.  The famous old west bandit is enjoying a re-branding as an early crusader for social justice and the rights of the oppressed.  It's a complicated and colorful story.  I can understand why memorializing and honoring this particular man by dedicating his name to a school has caused a bit of a ruckus.  Kind of like old Tiburcio did himself.