"Joaquin Miller," photographed by Brady-Handy Photograph Collection, 1870-80. Larger.
It's not unusual for California newcomers to reinvent themselves in the Golden State. But nobody has done a more thorough job than Joaquin Miller, the "poet of the Sierra."
Moving from Oregon to California in 1855, Miller tried out careers as Indian fighter, miner, outlaw, and frontiersman. Finally settling into the role of writer, he created a stagey persona and become a famous orator of his own, sometimes melodramatic, work, like the oddly compelling " Dead in the Sierras."
His footprints have failed us,
Where berries are red,
And madroños are rankest–
The hunter is dead!
The grizzly may pass
By his half open door;
May pass and repass
On his path, as of yore.
The panther may crouch
In the leaves on his limb;
May scream and may scream–
It is nothing to him.
Prone, bearded, and breasted
Like columns of stone;
And tall as a pine–
As a pine overthrown!
His camp-fires gone,
What else can be done
Than let him sleep on
Till the light of the sun?
Ay, tombless! What of it?
Marble is dust,
Cold and repellent;
And iron is rust.
Despite the fact that Joaquin Miller was embraced for his showmanship and hailed as a western Byron, he is now best remembered for his loosely autobiographical Unwritten History: Life Amongst the Modocs, a flawed but pioneering work of social protest.
Hell-bent on accumulating riches, Gold Rush miners were often a little too quick to forget the old adage, "your gold will do you little good, once you're in a grave."
Joaquin Miller, known as the "Poet of the Sierra" and the "Byron of the Rockies," spun a tale of one such greedy miner in his poem, "The Dead Millionaire."
"A man leans over a wooden sluice in California," photographer unknown, 1890-1915. Larger.
The gold that with the sunlight lies
In bursting heaps at dawn,
The silver spilling from the skies
At night to walk upon, n
The diamonds gleaming in the dew
He never saw, he never knew.
He got some gold, dug from the mud,
Some silver, crushed from stones,
The gold was red with dead men's blood,
The silver black with groans;
And when he died he moaned aloud,
"There'll be no pocket in my shroud."
"Dead salmon in spawning season, U.S. Pacific Northwest," photographed by Pete Forsyth, 2007. Larger.
During the Gold Rush, California's natural resources appeared so plentiful it was hard to imagine how they could be despoiled. But it didn't take long to figure it out.
Looking back on his days as a young man in northern California, Joaquin Miller recalled how salmon had dwindled in the rivers there—and the inevitable consequences for the people who depended on them.
This loss of salmon was a greater loss than you would suppose. These fish in the spring-time pour up these streams from the sea in incalculable swarms. They fairly darken the water. On the head of the Sacramento, before that once beautiful river was changed from a silver sheet to a dirty yellow stream, I have seen between Devil's Castle and Mount Shasta the stream so filled with salmon that it was impossible to force a horse across the current. Of course, this is not usual, and now can only be met with hard up at the heads of mountain streams where mining is not carried on, and where the advance of the fish is checked by falls on the head of the stream. The amount of salmon that the Indians would spear and dry in the sun, and hoard away for winter, under such circumstances, can be imagined; and I can now better understand their utter discomfiture at the loss of their fisheries than I did then.
Life Amongst the Modocs tells of Joaquin Miller's adventures in northern California in the 1850s. It first appeared in 1873.
"Studies in Zoopraxography arranged for the Zoopraxiscope: Mule Bucking and Kicking," zoopraxiscope by Edweard Muybridge, 1893. Larger. Make mule go away.
Rooting for the underdog is a tradition among many Californians, and no one rooted more loudly than an emigrant Oregon, Cincinnatus Hiner Miller.
Sensing that the name Cincinnatus lacked romantic verve, Miller chose a more fitting one, Joaquin, after the famous bandit Joaquin Murietta. Not long after, Joaquin Miller was hailed as one of the most important writers of his time. Despite his success, however, he didn't forget the underdogs of the world, even among the animal kingdom.
The mule is the most traduced of all animals. A single mule has more sense than a whole stableful of horses. You can handle a mule easily if the barn is burning; he keeps his head; but a horse becomes insane. He will rush right into the fire if allowed to, and you can only handle him, and that with difficulty if he sniffs the fire, by blindfolding him. Trust a mule in case of peril or a panic long before a horse. The brother of Solomon and willful son of David surely had some of the great temple-builder's wisdom and discernment, for we read that he rode a mule. True, he lost his head and got hung up by the hair, but that is nothing against the mule.
Joaquin Miller's autobiographical tales were not always wholly reliable. But there's usually a kernel of truth to be found in each of Miller's eyebrow-raising stories, which sometimes mix self-deprecation with exaggeration in the best tradition of western storytelling.
"Of course he dropped his gun," illustration forTrue Bear Stories, 1900. Larger.
In 1953 California officially adopted the grizzly bear as its official state animal—over thirty years after the last wild grizzly in California was killed in Tulare County.
A serene, dignified and very decent old beast was the full-grown grizzly as Fremont and others found him here at home. This king of the continent, who is quietly abdicating his throne, has never been understood. The grizzly was not only every inch a king, but he had, in his undisputed dominion, a pretty fair sense of justice. He was never a roaring lion. He was never a man-eater. He is indebted for his character for ferocity almost entirely to tradition, but, in some degree, to the female bear when seeking to protect her young. Of course, the grizzlies are good fighters, when forced to it; but as for lying in wait for anyone, like the lion, or creeping, cat-like, as the tiger does, into camp to carry off someone for supper, such a thing was never heard of in connection with the grizzly.
The grizzly went out as the American rifle came in. I do not think he retreated. He was a lover of home and family, and so fell where he was born.
"The Grizzly as Fremont Found Him" appeared in Joaquin Miller's 1900 collection, True Bear Stories.
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