Largest manhunt in San Bernardino County to date was tracking down and trying to arrest Paiute Indian Willie Boy. Willie wanted Lola/Carlota and her family said no. The newspaper articles from the time said he killed 74 year "old Mike" Boniface(aka William Mike, Chemehuevi Indian) in front of Mike's family. Other stories say he was killed in a fight because Mike was beating Lola and when Willie jumped in to help Mike went after Willie. Regardless Mike was dead and Willie and Lola ran off, without any supplies to trek across the desert some 50 miles worth. No supplies water, food or horses, and a possee chasing them.
At one point they are about to catch Willie, and Willie shoots 4 of their horses to make it easier to get away, unfortunately he shot a lawman in the process. (According to Oct 1909 accounts in the Los Angeles Herald Willie Boy wounded Deputy Marshall Charles Reche of Banning in the hip and killed 3 horses)
Ben de Crevecoeur the Constabele in charge, sent some of the men back with the fallen lawman, Charlie Reche. Willie carrying a .30-30 rifle had used up many of the 15 cartridges he had.
The girl a 14 year old cousin of Willie is killed, either by possee, herself, or Willie. He can run faster now. They are eloping but some say she is ordered out of her house by her mother. Sheriff's statement say she is kidnapped. Willie Boy is shot or uses his last bullet and shoots himself. There are pictures of his dead body in "Lawmen of San Bernardino" and the wanted poster in the Sun Newspaper. It is clear that Willie thought he would get no justice from the Law. It is thought that the indians cremated Willie. The Sheriff's statement to the newspaper said he cremated him to keep him from being disrespected.
The story continues of this law hunt, one report is he escapes and lives out his life on the reservation in Soboba. The movie - 'Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here' made with Robert Redford, Katherine Ross and Robert Blake made in 1969 is a good story.
The San Bernardino Sun reports the monument bears the inscrption "The West's Last Famous Manhunt" Ruby Mountain is near Landers.
Willie Boy was a Chemehuevi Indian (an offshoot of the Southern Paiute) from Twentynine Palms, working in Banning as a fruit picker in the summer of 1909. He was courting a woman named Carlota (also known by other names), against her family's objections. According to Indian law, the two were too closely related to wed. On the night of Sept. 26, Willie Boy went to see her father, Mike Boniface, at the Gilman Ranch.
Willie took along a stolen 30-30 Winchester. Provoked or unprovoked, Willie shot and killed Old Mike, as he was known, then fled into the hills, taking Carlota with him.
The hunt for an Indian who killed another Indian might have been a small matter in those days, except that President William Howard Taft was visiting the area.
The national press picked up on the story of the Indian who outran the lawmen. On the fourth day of the chase, the posse found the body of Carlota, and the press reported that the "Mad Dog of Morongo" had killed again. (Scholars later argued it was more likely the posse shot Carlota by mistake.)
In the oft-told version of the story, Willie Boy ran as far as the Twentynine Palms Chemehuevi village (now the 29 Palms Inn), then circled back and ambushed the posse at Ruby Mountain. Holed up in the rocks, he shot at the men's horses — to put them on even footing, some say. One man was hit, the bullet shattering the handcuffs in his hip pocket and sending shrapnel into his hip. As the posse left to take the injured man for help, they heard a single shot up in the rocks.
It appears that our best Western may be partly fiction. As the ending has been told, Willie Boy took his own life with his last bullet at a place called Ruby Mountain, about five miles west of Landers. But UC Riverside history professor Cliff Trafzer now declares Willie didn't die at Ruby Mountain after all — an opinion supported by a modern forensic discovery.
Local Indians have always claimed that Willie Boy got away, but no one paid attention because it was only talk — oral tradition as opposed to the written word of white men. Trafzer's sources are people such as Katherine Saubel, Joe Benitez, and Dean Mike: Indians who are respected by anthropologists and historians. They say the posse did not get its man.
Southern California Indians consistently said Willie Boy escaped. As early as 1911, a story appeared in the Banning Record about a Chemehuevi chief, Pechoca, who claimed he had smoked a pipe with Willie Boy under a yucca in Arizona. Others said they saw the outlaw at a fiesta; there were rumors that family members took food to his hideouts.
Joe Benitez, an elder of the Chemehuevi tribe, is a grandson of William Mike, Willie Boy's victim. "My mother said Willie Boy went north to be with the rest of his Southern Paiute family," Benitez says. "It was the Mikes' family story. You've got to put faith in that."
The Indians are used to being ignored by white historians, so they've never tried to set the record straight. Alfreda Mitre, tribal chair of the Las Vegas Paiutes, says she also heard from her grandparents that Willie Boy escaped and came to live near Las Vegas. "We don't care if you believe us or not," she says.
In fact, Native American oral tradition has a higher standard of believability than most written history, which sometimes is verified by one writer or editor — or no one at all. Trafzer says people who grow up in an oral tradition are drilled and checked on their facts until they get it right. "That's traditional education," Trafzer says. "You learn to listen and learn your lesson well."
In fact, Cliff Trafzer says Willie Boy was a ghost dancer, a follower of a mystical Indian movement that believed the world would be cleansed of white men and returned to the aboriginals. Stoffle, too, says Willie was a ghost dancer, and ghost dancers could not be killed; they could only be transformed.
http://www.palmspringslife.com/Palm-Springs-Life/August-2008/A-Legend-Undone/
At one point they are about to catch Willie, and Willie shoots 4 of their horses to make it easier to get away, unfortunately he shot a lawman in the process. (According to Oct 1909 accounts in the Los Angeles Herald Willie Boy wounded Deputy Marshall Charles Reche of Banning in the hip and killed 3 horses)
Ben de Crevecoeur the Constabele in charge, sent some of the men back with the fallen lawman, Charlie Reche. Willie carrying a .30-30 rifle had used up many of the 15 cartridges he had.
The girl a 14 year old cousin of Willie is killed, either by possee, herself, or Willie. He can run faster now. They are eloping but some say she is ordered out of her house by her mother. Sheriff's statement say she is kidnapped. Willie Boy is shot or uses his last bullet and shoots himself. There are pictures of his dead body in "Lawmen of San Bernardino" and the wanted poster in the Sun Newspaper. It is clear that Willie thought he would get no justice from the Law. It is thought that the indians cremated Willie. The Sheriff's statement to the newspaper said he cremated him to keep him from being disrespected.
The story continues of this law hunt, one report is he escapes and lives out his life on the reservation in Soboba. The movie - 'Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here' made with Robert Redford, Katherine Ross and Robert Blake made in 1969 is a good story.
The San Bernardino Sun reports the monument bears the inscrption "The West's Last Famous Manhunt" Ruby Mountain is near Landers.
Willie Boy was a Chemehuevi Indian (an offshoot of the Southern Paiute) from Twentynine Palms, working in Banning as a fruit picker in the summer of 1909. He was courting a woman named Carlota (also known by other names), against her family's objections. According to Indian law, the two were too closely related to wed. On the night of Sept. 26, Willie Boy went to see her father, Mike Boniface, at the Gilman Ranch.
Willie took along a stolen 30-30 Winchester. Provoked or unprovoked, Willie shot and killed Old Mike, as he was known, then fled into the hills, taking Carlota with him.
The hunt for an Indian who killed another Indian might have been a small matter in those days, except that President William Howard Taft was visiting the area.
The national press picked up on the story of the Indian who outran the lawmen. On the fourth day of the chase, the posse found the body of Carlota, and the press reported that the "Mad Dog of Morongo" had killed again. (Scholars later argued it was more likely the posse shot Carlota by mistake.)
In the oft-told version of the story, Willie Boy ran as far as the Twentynine Palms Chemehuevi village (now the 29 Palms Inn), then circled back and ambushed the posse at Ruby Mountain. Holed up in the rocks, he shot at the men's horses — to put them on even footing, some say. One man was hit, the bullet shattering the handcuffs in his hip pocket and sending shrapnel into his hip. As the posse left to take the injured man for help, they heard a single shot up in the rocks.
It appears that our best Western may be partly fiction. As the ending has been told, Willie Boy took his own life with his last bullet at a place called Ruby Mountain, about five miles west of Landers. But UC Riverside history professor Cliff Trafzer now declares Willie didn't die at Ruby Mountain after all — an opinion supported by a modern forensic discovery.
Local Indians have always claimed that Willie Boy got away, but no one paid attention because it was only talk — oral tradition as opposed to the written word of white men. Trafzer's sources are people such as Katherine Saubel, Joe Benitez, and Dean Mike: Indians who are respected by anthropologists and historians. They say the posse did not get its man.
Southern California Indians consistently said Willie Boy escaped. As early as 1911, a story appeared in the Banning Record about a Chemehuevi chief, Pechoca, who claimed he had smoked a pipe with Willie Boy under a yucca in Arizona. Others said they saw the outlaw at a fiesta; there were rumors that family members took food to his hideouts.
Joe Benitez, an elder of the Chemehuevi tribe, is a grandson of William Mike, Willie Boy's victim. "My mother said Willie Boy went north to be with the rest of his Southern Paiute family," Benitez says. "It was the Mikes' family story. You've got to put faith in that."
The Indians are used to being ignored by white historians, so they've never tried to set the record straight. Alfreda Mitre, tribal chair of the Las Vegas Paiutes, says she also heard from her grandparents that Willie Boy escaped and came to live near Las Vegas. "We don't care if you believe us or not," she says.
In fact, Native American oral tradition has a higher standard of believability than most written history, which sometimes is verified by one writer or editor — or no one at all. Trafzer says people who grow up in an oral tradition are drilled and checked on their facts until they get it right. "That's traditional education," Trafzer says. "You learn to listen and learn your lesson well."
In fact, Cliff Trafzer says Willie Boy was a ghost dancer, a follower of a mystical Indian movement that believed the world would be cleansed of white men and returned to the aboriginals. Stoffle, too, says Willie was a ghost dancer, and ghost dancers could not be killed; they could only be transformed.
http://www.palmspringslife.com/Palm-Springs-Life/August-2008/A-Legend-Undone/
Largest manhunt in San Bernardino County to date was tracking down and trying to arrest Paiute Indian Willie Boy. Willie wanted Lola/Carlota and her family said no. The newspaper articles from the time said he killed 74 year "old Mike" Boniface(aka William Mike, Chemehuevi Indian) in front of Mike's family. Other stories say he was killed in a fight because Mike was beating Lola and when Willie jumped in to help Mike went after Willie. Regardless Mike was dead and Willie and Lola ran off, without any supplies to trek across the desert some 50 miles worth. No supplies water, food or horses, and a possee chasing them.
At one point they are about to catch Willie, and Willie shoots 4 of their horses to make it easier to get away, unfortunately he shot a lawman in the process. (According to Oct 1909 accounts in the Los Angeles Herald Willie Boy wounded Deputy Marshall Charles Reche of Banning in the hip and killed 3 horses)
Ben de Crevecoeur the Constabele in charge, sent some of the men back with the fallen lawman, Charlie Reche. Willie carrying a .30-30 rifle had used up many of the 15 cartridges he had.
The girl a 14 year old cousin of Willie is killed, either by possee, herself, or Willie. He can run faster now. They are eloping but some say she is ordered out of her house by her mother. Sheriff's statement say she is kidnapped. Willie Boy is shot or uses his last bullet and shoots himself. There are pictures of his dead body in "Lawmen of San Bernardino" and the wanted poster in the Sun Newspaper. It is clear that Willie thought he would get no justice from the Law. It is thought that the indians cremated Willie. The Sheriff's statement to the newspaper said he cremated him to keep him from being disrespected.
The story continues of this law hunt, one report is he escapes and lives out his life on the reservation in Soboba. The movie - 'Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here' made with Robert Redford, Katherine Ross and Robert Blake made in 1969 is a good story.
The San Bernardino Sun reports the monument bears the inscrption "The West's Last Famous Manhunt" Ruby Mountain is near Landers.
Willie Boy was a Chemehuevi Indian (an offshoot of the Southern Paiute) from Twentynine Palms, working in Banning as a fruit picker in the summer of 1909. He was courting a woman named Carlota (also known by other names), against her family's objections. According to Indian law, the two were too closely related to wed. On the night of Sept. 26, Willie Boy went to see her father, Mike Boniface, at the Gilman Ranch.
Willie took along a stolen 30-30 Winchester. Provoked or unprovoked, Willie shot and killed Old Mike, as he was known, then fled into the hills, taking Carlota with him.
The hunt for an Indian who killed another Indian might have been a small matter in those days, except that President William Howard Taft was visiting the area.
The national press picked up on the story of the Indian who outran the lawmen. On the fourth day of the chase, the posse found the body of Carlota, and the press reported that the "Mad Dog of Morongo" had killed again. (Scholars later argued it was more likely the posse shot Carlota by mistake.)
In the oft-told version of the story, Willie Boy ran as far as the Twentynine Palms Chemehuevi village (now the 29 Palms Inn), then circled back and ambushed the posse at Ruby Mountain. Holed up in the rocks, he shot at the men's horses — to put them on even footing, some say. One man was hit, the bullet shattering the handcuffs in his hip pocket and sending shrapnel into his hip. As the posse left to take the injured man for help, they heard a single shot up in the rocks.
It appears that our best Western may be partly fiction. As the ending has been told, Willie Boy took his own life with his last bullet at a place called Ruby Mountain, about five miles west of Landers. But UC Riverside history professor Cliff Trafzer now declares Willie didn't die at Ruby Mountain after all — an opinion supported by a modern forensic discovery.
Local Indians have always claimed that Willie Boy got away, but no one paid attention because it was only talk — oral tradition as opposed to the written word of white men. Trafzer's sources are people such as Katherine Saubel, Joe Benitez, and Dean Mike: Indians who are respected by anthropologists and historians. They say the posse did not get its man.
Southern California Indians consistently said Willie Boy escaped. As early as 1911, a story appeared in the Banning Record about a Chemehuevi chief, Pechoca, who claimed he had smoked a pipe with Willie Boy under a yucca in Arizona. Others said they saw the outlaw at a fiesta; there were rumors that family members took food to his hideouts.
Joe Benitez, an elder of the Chemehuevi tribe, is a grandson of William Mike, Willie Boy's victim. "My mother said Willie Boy went north to be with the rest of his Southern Paiute family," Benitez says. "It was the Mikes' family story. You've got to put faith in that."
The Indians are used to being ignored by white historians, so they've never tried to set the record straight. Alfreda Mitre, tribal chair of the Las Vegas Paiutes, says she also heard from her grandparents that Willie Boy escaped and came to live near Las Vegas. "We don't care if you believe us or not," she says.
In fact, Native American oral tradition has a higher standard of believability than most written history, which sometimes is verified by one writer or editor — or no one at all. Trafzer says people who grow up in an oral tradition are drilled and checked on their facts until they get it right. "That's traditional education," Trafzer says. "You learn to listen and learn your lesson well."
In fact, Cliff Trafzer says Willie Boy was a ghost dancer, a follower of a mystical Indian movement that believed the world would be cleansed of white men and returned to the aboriginals. Stoffle, too, says Willie was a ghost dancer, and ghost dancers could not be killed; they could only be transformed.
http://www.palmspringslife.com/Palm-Springs-Life/August-2008/A-Legend-Undone/
At one point they are about to catch Willie, and Willie shoots 4 of their horses to make it easier to get away, unfortunately he shot a lawman in the process. (According to Oct 1909 accounts in the Los Angeles Herald Willie Boy wounded Deputy Marshall Charles Reche of Banning in the hip and killed 3 horses)
Ben de Crevecoeur the Constabele in charge, sent some of the men back with the fallen lawman, Charlie Reche. Willie carrying a .30-30 rifle had used up many of the 15 cartridges he had.
The girl a 14 year old cousin of Willie is killed, either by possee, herself, or Willie. He can run faster now. They are eloping but some say she is ordered out of her house by her mother. Sheriff's statement say she is kidnapped. Willie Boy is shot or uses his last bullet and shoots himself. There are pictures of his dead body in "Lawmen of San Bernardino" and the wanted poster in the Sun Newspaper. It is clear that Willie thought he would get no justice from the Law. It is thought that the indians cremated Willie. The Sheriff's statement to the newspaper said he cremated him to keep him from being disrespected.
The story continues of this law hunt, one report is he escapes and lives out his life on the reservation in Soboba. The movie - 'Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here' made with Robert Redford, Katherine Ross and Robert Blake made in 1969 is a good story.
The San Bernardino Sun reports the monument bears the inscrption "The West's Last Famous Manhunt" Ruby Mountain is near Landers.
Willie Boy was a Chemehuevi Indian (an offshoot of the Southern Paiute) from Twentynine Palms, working in Banning as a fruit picker in the summer of 1909. He was courting a woman named Carlota (also known by other names), against her family's objections. According to Indian law, the two were too closely related to wed. On the night of Sept. 26, Willie Boy went to see her father, Mike Boniface, at the Gilman Ranch.
Willie took along a stolen 30-30 Winchester. Provoked or unprovoked, Willie shot and killed Old Mike, as he was known, then fled into the hills, taking Carlota with him.
The hunt for an Indian who killed another Indian might have been a small matter in those days, except that President William Howard Taft was visiting the area.
The national press picked up on the story of the Indian who outran the lawmen. On the fourth day of the chase, the posse found the body of Carlota, and the press reported that the "Mad Dog of Morongo" had killed again. (Scholars later argued it was more likely the posse shot Carlota by mistake.)
In the oft-told version of the story, Willie Boy ran as far as the Twentynine Palms Chemehuevi village (now the 29 Palms Inn), then circled back and ambushed the posse at Ruby Mountain. Holed up in the rocks, he shot at the men's horses — to put them on even footing, some say. One man was hit, the bullet shattering the handcuffs in his hip pocket and sending shrapnel into his hip. As the posse left to take the injured man for help, they heard a single shot up in the rocks.
It appears that our best Western may be partly fiction. As the ending has been told, Willie Boy took his own life with his last bullet at a place called Ruby Mountain, about five miles west of Landers. But UC Riverside history professor Cliff Trafzer now declares Willie didn't die at Ruby Mountain after all — an opinion supported by a modern forensic discovery.
Local Indians have always claimed that Willie Boy got away, but no one paid attention because it was only talk — oral tradition as opposed to the written word of white men. Trafzer's sources are people such as Katherine Saubel, Joe Benitez, and Dean Mike: Indians who are respected by anthropologists and historians. They say the posse did not get its man.
Southern California Indians consistently said Willie Boy escaped. As early as 1911, a story appeared in the Banning Record about a Chemehuevi chief, Pechoca, who claimed he had smoked a pipe with Willie Boy under a yucca in Arizona. Others said they saw the outlaw at a fiesta; there were rumors that family members took food to his hideouts.
Joe Benitez, an elder of the Chemehuevi tribe, is a grandson of William Mike, Willie Boy's victim. "My mother said Willie Boy went north to be with the rest of his Southern Paiute family," Benitez says. "It was the Mikes' family story. You've got to put faith in that."
The Indians are used to being ignored by white historians, so they've never tried to set the record straight. Alfreda Mitre, tribal chair of the Las Vegas Paiutes, says she also heard from her grandparents that Willie Boy escaped and came to live near Las Vegas. "We don't care if you believe us or not," she says.
In fact, Native American oral tradition has a higher standard of believability than most written history, which sometimes is verified by one writer or editor — or no one at all. Trafzer says people who grow up in an oral tradition are drilled and checked on their facts until they get it right. "That's traditional education," Trafzer says. "You learn to listen and learn your lesson well."
In fact, Cliff Trafzer says Willie Boy was a ghost dancer, a follower of a mystical Indian movement that believed the world would be cleansed of white men and returned to the aboriginals. Stoffle, too, says Willie was a ghost dancer, and ghost dancers could not be killed; they could only be transformed.
http://www.palmspringslife.com/Palm-Springs-Life/August-2008/A-Legend-Undone/
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