User:Asiaticus/sandbox/Pedro Gonzales (Five Joaquins Gang)

Pedro Gonzales (? - 1852), possibly a Sonoran, was a known member of the Five Joaquins Gang riding with Joaquin Murrieta's band, as published in newspapers of the time. Another Pedro Gonzales member of the Gang, a Californio riding with Joaquin Valenzuela was uncovered decades later by the research of Frank F. Latta.

Pedro Gonzales, Murrieta's Band
The Los Angeles Star had noted Pedro's death in an earlier news item noting he had been captured by Harry Love and his partner after tracking him to Mission San Buenaventura. Pedro was shot while fleeing the custody of Harry Love on the Cuesta del Conejo in mid June 1852. Love and his partner had been one of several parties of bounty hunters, hunting the killers of Allen Ruddle for the reward offered by Ruddle's family. The reward was for the apprehension of the killers of their son, who had been killed and robbed on April 27, 1852 by three Mexican men while driving a wagon on the road to Stockton.

Pedro Gonzales was identified as a member of Joaquin Murrieta's company after his death, by a fellow gang member and Murrieta's brother-in-law Reyes Feliz, in his confession published in the Dec. 4, 1852 Los Angeles Star. In the confession in the trial before his hanging, Reyes confessed to robbing with Murrieta and Gonzales. This was at about the same time as Ruddle's killing, before they had all come down to Los Angeles, driving their horses southward to meet the band that would take them to Sonora and under the pressure of the parties and individuals seeking the bounty for Ruddle's killers.

Pedro Gonzales, Valenzuela's Band
According to the sources of Frank F. Latta, Pedro Gonzales was a Californio whose family lived on the Rancho San Ysidro, at what is now Old Gilroy. According to Latta's sources, he was a lieutenant in the band of Joaquin Valenzuela, involved most of the time in the illegal horse trade to Sonora and said to have been the custodian of the Gang's Las Tres Piedras branding iron. He was said to have gone to Sonora with the last of the years herds that were sent south in late spring.