Racial hatred and degradation
The story starts with portraying Murieta as hopeful youth admiring Americans and moving to America in search of better life. He is soon met with cruel disappointed, being treated less than a human being because of looking different from his admired Americans. He faces cruel and unjust punishment and degradation and experiences the cruelest fate by witnessing his brother's unjust murder and violation of his loved one which serves as a breaking point, and transforms him into a vicious outlaw out for revenge. The story ends with a rhetorical question about how the poor Rosita could have lived a happy life with her loved one, had a man not wronged his fellow man.
Anti-Hero
Joaquin Murieta represents a classic portrayal of an anti-hero. He is a man whose bad deeds have reasoning behind them; he is a product of the world he lived in. Throughout we get to see the man behind the vicious mask of an outlaw, in his refusal to kill those who have not wronged him and honestly asking for fellow men to not betray him a well as his showcase of kindness towards women. It is undoubted that he earned his reputation, but he is a villain towards the people who wronged and disappointed him, all the while being a hero to his own people who blindly follow him in his cause.
