User:Asiaticus/sandbox/Pueblo de Murrieta

Pueblo de Murrieta, a ghost town, is a locality in the Álamos Municipality, in Sonora, Mexico. It was located northward just across the Rio Cuchujaqui from the small town of Casanate, Sonora, formerly the hacienda of the Spanish merchant, miner and Colonel of the militias of the Real Los Alamos, Francisco Julián de Alvarado, the first owner of the Rancho Tapizuelas in the 18th century.

History
Pueblo de Murrieta was a settlement on the Rancho Tapizuelas, founded by one Joaquin Murrieta the grandfather of the famous bandit Joaquin Murrieta, and populated by members of the Murrieta family and relatives that came from Sinaloa. It was the birth place and childhood home of Joaquin Murrieta. The Camino Real of Sinaloa and Sonora ran through Casanate between El Fuerte, Sinaloa and Alamos, Sonora.

From the 1830's raids by the Apache to the north and the revolts by the Yaqui and Mayo people to the south kept Sonora in turmoil. The hacienda of the Rancho Tapizuelas was sacked during a rising of the Mayo in 1843. The blockade and capture of Guaymas by the U.S. Navy during the Mexican American War did more damage to the Sonoran economy. Numbers of Sonorans sought the safer clime of Alta California during this time.

Much of the younger population of the pueblo, including Joaquin Murrieta, his fiance, his brothers and many cousins, left there during the time of the Sonoran migration to California during the California Gold Rush, between 1849 and 1852, and most never returned. Joaquin Murrieta only returned in 1852 to take his parents, sisters and his Aunt and her son Procopio, back to California with him.