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  • Bandido: The Life and Times of Tiburcio Vasquez
  • Victor Dominguez Baeza
Bandido: The Life and Times of Tiburcio Vasquez. By John Boessenecker. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010. Pp. 492. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780806141275, $34.95 cloth.)

Tiburcio Vasquez (1835–75) is considered one of California’s most infamous Hispanic bandits. Regarded as a cultural hero by some and a criminal by others, it is undeniable that he was one of nineteenth-century California’s colorful characters. Beginning with the Vasquez family’s participation in the early Mexican attempts to settle California, John Boessenecker uses extensive resources, including newspaper reports, correspondence, memoirs, biographies, and official documents to tell the captivating story of this “laughing, romantic bandido, seducing young women, robbing the Anglos, outwitting sheriffs, and escaping on horseback into the mountains” (382).

Boessenecker provides varying accounts of events in Vasquez’s life, including the Bandido’s own words, to tell this intriguing story from the early history of California. From Vasquez’s teenage years as a gambler and horse jockey, through his early crimes as a highway robber, and finally his conviction for murders committed while robbing a town in 1873, Boessenecker provides an analytical yet absorbing account of the bandit’s life. The scope of the narrative, although not a historical look at California as it transformed from an isolated Mexican frontier to a booming gold rush state in the American Union, brings to life the California of the mid- 1800’s to provide a more detailed glimpse into the environment that produced Tiburcio Vasquez. Texans will not help but wonder how Vasquez would have fared where there was a growing statewide government law agency like the Texas Rangers, as opposed to a California that “had few jails, no state prison, and little organized government or law enforcement” (163).

Although a lack of good or organized law enforcement aided Vasquez in his career, the assistance he received from the “Spanish-speaking population, and [End Page 93] among some of the Anglo settlers,” (192) also played a part. Due to his popularity and early avoidance of violent crimes, Vasquez has been compared to Robin Hood, forced into his life of crime by events and his environment. On the contrary, Boessenecker argues that Vasquez was not forced to become a criminal, but rather chose to do so. None of his siblings followed a life of crime, instead working hard and living peaceable lives despite the hardships and lawless environment. There was no lack of opportunity for choosing a life of crime in old Monterey, especially for someone who disliked hard work as Vasquez seemed to. Though Vasquez may not have been a Robin Hood, there was no denying his magnetism. Thousands of visitors came to see him after his capture and during his trial, and much to Vasquez’s delight, many were women.

With Bandido, Boessenecker portrays Vasquez as “a true gentleman-bandit” (376), teeming with contradictions. He was a slight and seemingly sensitive man who enjoyed reading and writing poetry, music and dancing, and good clothes. Yet he displayed great toughness and endurance, brutality and insensitivity, and was the downfall of many he knew. He loved and was popular among the women, but still chose to seduce several married women and even impregnated his own niece. This duplicity eventually proved to be his downfall.

Bandido is an entertaining and thorough attempt to clarify much of the myth and legend surrounding Vasquez’s life. Boessenecker tells the story as an academic, but also as a storyteller. There is an index, maps, illustrations, drawings and many black-and-white photographs from the time period that help tell the story. The book is recommended for anyone interested in colorful bandits, Hispanic or not, from the early West.

Victor Dominguez Baeza
Oklahoma State University
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