Felipe Espinosa [outlaw]

Calvin

Welcome to the infamous edition of the Headstones and Microphones where we use AI to step into the past through a researched, first-person simulation done through creative story telling of history's most infamous people. Now, let’s meet our guest.

Calvin

Welcome to the podcast. Let’s start at the absolute beginning, where the public narrative hasn’t yet distorted who you were. When and where were you born, and what was your given name?

White Male Guest

Hi Calvin. I was born around 1827, and my given name was Felipe Nerio Espinosa. Most records show I was born in what is now El Rito, in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico Territory. Back then, it was part of Santa Fe de Nuevo México.

Calvin

What was your hometown and home life like as a child?

White Male Guest

Life was simple and tied closely to the land. My father was Pedro Ignacio Espinosa, born in Abiquiu, and my mother was Gertrudis Chavez. I grew up with my younger brother, Vivian, who later stood right by my side. We were raised in a traditional Hispano community where life was dictated by generational caretaking of the land, long before borders started changing around us.

Calvin

Was there a story behind your name, or a nickname that stuck with you?

White Male Guest

The papers and the terrified white settlers gave me a dark name. They called me "The Axeman of Colorado" or lumped my brother and me together as the "Bloody Espinosas." To my family and neighbors, though, I was just Felipe.

Calvin

What were you like as a child, and how many years of schooling did you actually attend?

White Male Guest

History doesn't record exactly how many years we sat in a classroom, but unlike many on the frontier, both Vivian and I learned how to read and write quite well. We weren't uneducated bandits; we were literate men who understood the world shifting around us.

Calvin

What’s a decision that changed everything for you, but felt small at the time?

White Male Guest

It started with a routine supply wagon belonging to a local priest. We were accused of robbing it, which felt like a local matter, but the priest notified the military. That choice set off a chain of events we couldn't halt.

Calvin

Let's talk about your early run-ins with the law. Before the world knew your name for your most infamous actions, what was your very first arrest or interaction with law enforcement, and what were the consequences?

White Male Guest

In January 1863, a squad of ten soldiers and two officers from Fort Garland marched right into our plaza to arrest Vivian and me for those alleged robberies. The lieutenant tried to trick us, asking us to enlist in the army to avoid a fight. We refused, a gunfight broke out, and a Mexican corporal was killed. We had to flee into the mountains while the soldiers looted and burned our home, leaving our wives and children with nothing. That was the moment everything changed.

Calvin

At what moment did you realize your name would never be forgotten?

White Male Guest

It was during the spring of 1863 when the panic broke out nationally. We struck our first target, a man named Francis William Bruce, near his sawmill south of Cañon City. Soon after, the media and the territorial government realized someone was systematically executing white settlers across Fremont County and the San Luis Valley. The sheer panic in the newspapers made it clear they knew our name.

Calvin

Did fame make you more dangerous, or did it simply expose who you already were?

White Male Guest

The notoriety didn't change me; it just fueled our resolve. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had ceded our ancestral lands to the United States after the Mexican-American War, and suddenly we were treated like outsiders on our own soil. When they took our property and burned our homes, it exposed the raw anger we already held, and we channeled that into our campaign.

Calvin

Who do you believe betrayed you first: a person, society, or your own instincts?

White Male Guest

Society betrayed us first by redrawing the borders, rewriting our land rights, and reducing our handshake deals to worthless paper. But on a personal level, a woman named Dolores Sanchez and a man named Philbrook ran from us during an ambush near Fort Garland. Dolores knew who we were, and her account gave the military the exact intelligence they needed to hunt me down.

Calvin

What did the public never understand about the pressure you were under at the time?

White Male Guest

They saw me as a mindless monster, but I was carrying a heavy spiritual mandate. I wrote a letter directly to Territorial Governor John Evans, demanding 5,000 acres in Conejos County and pardons for my gang. I told him plainly that I had a holy vision from the Virgin Mary, commanding me to kill 600 Anglos to avenge what had been taken from our people. I was under the immense pressure of a divine, bloody crusade.

Calvin

Did you have any known rivalries that defined your career?"

White Male Guest

My ultimate adversary wasn't the regular army, but a hard, fearless army scout and tracker named Tom Tobin. The commanders at Fort Garland kept failing to catch us, so they unleashed Tobin, who was a legendary marksman. It became a personal, deadly race through the mountains between my nephew and me, and Tobin's tracking party.

Calvin

What personal battles were you fighting privately while the world was watching?

White Male Guest

While the law looked for a massive, organized gang of cut-throats, my real battle was grief and isolation. A posse out of Park County had cornered Vivian and me southwest of Cañon City. They killed my brother in the gunfight. I escaped into the brush alone, completely devastated, before recruiting my 14-year-old nephew, Jose, to help me continue the fight.

Calvin

When the law finally closed in, how exactly were you brought to justice? Walk me through the final arrest, the charges that ultimately stuck, and the legal outcome of your trials.

White Male Guest

There was no arrest, and there was no trial for me. On October 15, 1863, Tom Tobin tracked Jose and me down to our camp near La Veta Pass. He crept up through the brush and shot me through the spine. As I fell, I crawled for my gun, but he stepped up, shot Jose, and then finished me by slitting my throat. He cut off our heads, put them in a burlap sack, and carried them back to Fort Garland to claim his reward.

Calvin

What’s the craziest rumor ever told about you, and what part of your story has been exaggerated the most?"

White Male Guest

The wildest rumors claimed we were secret Confederate guerrillas sent from Texas to terrorize Colorado during the Civil War. People couldn't comprehend that our rage was entirely homegrown, born right there from the local injustice in the San Luis Valley.

Calvin

What is the biggest misconception people have about your life?

White Male Guest

The biggest misconception is that we were just bloodthirsty serial killers acting without reason. History completely leaves out the context of the borderlands—the bitter, unresolved battle over land rights, property destruction, and the displacement of Hispano families that drove us into the mountains in the first place.

Calvin

What would surprise people most about your ordinary, human side?

White Male Guest

Before the world knew me for the 32 lives I took, I was a dedicated family man. The 1860 census showed me living a quiet, domestic life in Conejos with my wife, Maria, and our two very young children. I was a husband and a father before I ever became an outlaw.

Calvin

When, where, and how did you pass away?

White Male Guest

I died on October 15, 1863, in the mountains near La Veta Pass, Colorado. I died from a gunshot wound to the back and a severed throat at the hands of Tom Tobin.

Calvin

Was your downfall caused more by your own flaws or by the world changing around you?

White Male Guest

It was entirely due to the world changing around us. The American legal system and military machine marched over our culture, our laws, and our borders. We tried to fight a modern war with old-world vengeance, and the changing world simply outpaced us.

Calvin

Felipe, do you have any closing remarks about the interview or the stories you shared that you would like to share with the listeners before we sign off?

White Male Guest

I just want people to remember that history is always written by the ones who take the heads and collect the rewards. When you look back at the "Bloody Espinosas," don't just look at the blood we spilled—look at the ash of the homes the army burned down first.

Calvin

And that wraps up another conversation from beyond the grave. Thanks for joining us on The Headstones and Microphones Podcast. Remember—Do better with the life you have been given and choose to do good in this life. Please help spread the word by sharing and following the pod.