His father John Ridge had been assassinated in 1839 in Indian Territory, after removal, by Cherokee who condemned his having signed a treaty to cede communal land to the United States.

In his novel and other works, he criticized American racism toward Mexicans, several years after the war by which the United States acquired California and much of the Southwest.

Born in 1827 in New Echota, Georgia, he was the son of John Ridge and his wife Sarah Bird Northrup, a European-American woman from Cornwall, Connecticut.

The tribe had been under pressure to move from state and federal governments, and was ultimately forced to remove to west of the Mississippi River, on what is known as the Trail of Tears.

At the age of twelve, Ridge witnessed his father's assassination in Indian Territory at the hands of supporters of Cherokee leader John Ross, who had vehemently opposed the treaty.

[6] In 1849, Ridge killed Ross sympathizer David Kell, who he thought had been involved in his father's assassination, over a horse dispute.

[1] Published six years after the Mexican-American War, by which the United States acquired California and other large territories in the Southwest, this fictional version explored the life of a notorious Mexican bandit.

[8] Ridge wrote his novel about a Mexican man, based on a legendary figure who was widely discussed in newspapers of the day.

Ridge portrays Joaquin Murieta as a young, innocent and industrious man who is hampered in his attempts to build a life in the United States by the racism of the people.

One expression of this was the 1850 Foreign Miner's Tax Law, passed two years after the Mexican-American War, which severely limited the ability of Mexicans to mine for gold.

Ridge's portrayal of Murieta is a bandit who attracts numerous associates and terrorizes the state of California for several months with acts of violence.

[4] After the war, Ridge was invited by the federal government to head the Southern Cherokee delegation in postwar treaty proceedings.

This part of the nation had supported the Confederacy, which had promised the Native Americans in Indian Territory a state of their own if they won the war.