February 21, 1853 – Mud Springs, California: Murrieta’s Gang Massacres Chinese Miners

In late February 1853, at Mud Springs in El Dorado County, the notorious outlaw Joaquín Murrieta and his bandit gang ambushed a camp of Chinese miners. The bandits brutally “killed five Chinamen and wounded five others, some of them mortally, and robbed them of seven thousand dollars” in gold dust and nuggets. This raid was one of several attacks by Murrieta’s gang on Chinese miners. It exemplified the perilous conditions Chinese immigrants faced during the Gold Rush. Largely unprotected by law, Chinese communities became frequent targets for robbery and racial violence. They were vulnerable “outsiders” carrying valuable gold. The Mud Springs massacre sparked outrage in the press and calls for justice, while feeding the era’s racialized narrative of Chinese as victims in a lawless frontier. Ultimately, these murders by Murrieta’s gang highlight how Chinese miners were the target of some of the earliest racially motivated killings in California.