Murrieta’s Gang Massacres Chinese Miners

In late February 1853, Joaquín Murrieta’s band attacked a Chinese mining camp near Forman’s Ranch at Mud Springs. The Nevada Journal reported that the raiders “killed five Chinamen and wounded five others, some of them mortally,” while robbing the camp of seven thousand dollars in gold dust and nuggets. The attack stands as an early, well-documented massacre of Chinese miners during the Gold Rush, when Chinese camps were exposed to robbery and racialized violence.