User:Asiaticus/sandbox/Bernardino Garcia

Bernardino Garcia (1821 - 1853?) was a Californio, a Mexican soldier, infamous under the name "four fingered Jack," for his killing of two American prisoners during the Mexican American War. He was believed to have been a member of the gang of Salomon Pico, and later with Joaquin Murrieta and the Five Joaquins Gang. He is said to have been killed, beheaded and his hand cut off by the California Rangers of Harry Love and who called him "three fingered Jack", and Murrieta's right-hand man. He was later named as Emanual Garcia in Love's report to the Governor of California. The Daily Alta California, a San Francisco newspaper, claimed this "three fingered Jack" was the same man that had brutally killed the American prisoners in the Mexican American War.

Early Life

Bernardino Garcia was born on November 10, 1821 in Santa Clara, to Francisco Maria Leon Garcia and Maria Rafaela Soto.

Bernardino Garcia was the grandson of some of the original Spanish soldiers to come to Alta California and of some of the earliest colonists of Santa Clara, California. His father was also a soldier. Bernardino served in the Mexican Army in the Sonoma garrison from 1841 to 1843. It may have been the loss of one of the digits of his hand under the lariat against the pommel of his saddle that caused him to leave the military and caused him to later be called "four fingered Jack" by the Americans. After leaving the military he became a barber at Sonoma.

He was married to Hilaria Carlota Sanchez Reed in 1845, after the death of her husband in 1843. She had inherited the Rancho Corte Madera del Presidio from her deceased husband. Together they had three children, only one daughter, lived to adulthood.

As a former soldier, despite being a civilian barber and with a damaged hand, he joined the forces of Mexico in the north of San Franciso Bay to oppose the Bear Flag Rebellion. In this campaign he was an eye witness and later accused as one of the leaders of the men who determined on their death and then brutally tortured and killed two captured Americans. He was refereed to as "four fingered Jack" by the Monterey Californian, American newspaper that published his account of that atrocity.

When it was clear the Mexican military were abandoning the area north of the Bay, Bernardino Garcia took his family from his ranch at Rancho Corte Madera del Presidio to Yerba Buena. He was was later reported to have been with the Californio forces in the battle of Natividad, and the killer of Captain Burroughs in the decisive melee at the climax of the engagement.

Capture and testimony of Bernardino Garcia

After Natividad Garcia returned to his family and was captured at Yerba Buena. Known as "four fingered Jack", he gave the following account of the killing of Mr. T. Cowie and Mr. Fowler in the Monterey Californian, on Sept. 12, 1846:

"... two young men, Mr. T. Cowie and Mr. Fowler, who lived in the neighborhood, started to go the Bodega; on their way they were discovered by a small party of Californians, under command of one Padilla, and taken prisoners;—they were kept as prisoners for one day and a half, and then tied to trees and cut to pieces in the most brutal manner, a Californian, known as four fingered Jack, has been since captured, and gives the following account of that horrible scene: The party after keeping the prisoners a day or two, tied them to trees, then stoned them, one of them had his jaw broken, a riata (rope) was made fast to the broken bone and the jaw dragged out, they were then cut up, a small piece at a time, and the pieces thrown at them, or crammed in their throats and they were eventually despatched by cutting out their bowels."

Bernardino Garcia, despite his crimes, was later released under an amnesty at the end of hostilities in California, as part of the "Capitulation of Cahuenga," January 13, 1847.

Later Life in California

After the Capitulation of Cahuenga, Bernardino Garcia, was said to have gone to Mexico to become a vaquero for a General that intended to raise an army to recover Alta California from the Americans. However the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the violent suppression of parties attempting to continue the war by the Mexican government ended any chance of that. When Bernardino Garcia returned to Monterey about May 1848, he was said by the correspondent who then first met him there to "appear to be about 28 years old, and had a disagreeable, doggish cast to his features."

The Daily Alta California of July 30, 1853, also refers to this man having been held as a prisoner in San Francisco in 1849, before he escaped, and that he had not been heard of again until the report of his death at the hands of the California Rangers on July 25, 1853.

The Garcia family claim that during that time Bernardino Garcia, became a member of Salomon Pico's Gang. After Salomon Pico was arrested and was bailed out by his relatives, he fled south to Los Angeles and then to Baja California. The Garcia family claim Bernardino Garcia then joined the Five Joaquins Gang.