MURDER of 2 MEN in Mariposa, by Indians
Mariposa; June 22d, 1860
Stockton Daily Argus
Mr. Editor: Yesterday there was a burial here of 2 men named BEAN and
GIBBS. Noticing 2 coffins in a wagon and but 2 or 3 men starting with them
to the burial ground, I made enquiries and received the following account
of their death:
The 2 men had been living on the Colorado with 2 squaws. Some weeks since
the women ran away from them and returned to their rancheria some 6 or 8
miles from this town [Mariposa]. BEAN and GIBBS while hunting for them,
seized an Indian and tied him to a tree, and stuck knives into him,
torturing him until he told where the squaws were. They then went to the
rancheria and took away the 2 women, who in a short time again run away,
returning back.
BEAN and GIBBS again started after them, being armed with a bowie-knife and
6-shooter, each one having a rifle and the other a shot gun, in addition,
saying they would either have the squaws or kill some of the bucks. They
reached the rancheria on Tuesday, 21st ult.
The next morning an Indian brought word into town that BEAN and GIBBS had
been killed and were hid on the South Fork of the Chowchilla. A party
started immediately after the bodies and found them to be where reported,
hid in the crevice of a rock. They had been thrown into a deep canyon, and
the Indians then had lowered themselves with their riatas and hid the
bodies so securely that they never would have been discovered had no Indian
informed on them.
The bodies were brought to town. They were horribly disfigured. They were
killed by arrows and chopped with hatchets; the eye and portion of the nose
of 1 having been gouged out with a tomahawk in such manner as to present a
hideous spectacle. The Indians who committed the deed left, fearing the
whites would take revenge. The citizens here do not blame the Indians for
the death of the men under the circumstances.
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