Revealing the Latinx Origins to America’s Original Caped Crusader
Was there ever a guy who galavanted around Old California wearing a mask and black cape, who went by the moniker “Zorro”?
Short answer: No.
Zorro is fiction. Don Diego de la Vega, the true identity of Zorro, was a product of the pulp fiction writer, Johnston McCulley (1883–1958). The first Zorro tale appeared in the pulps in 1919. Zorro went on to become the star of more pulp stories, feature films, film serials, comics, spoofs, p*rnos, and reboots.
And, of course, Antonio Banderas.
But, have no fear. Zorro — zft, zft, zft — is rooted in real history. There are several real-life individuals who have a lot of similarities to Zorro.
The Irish Zorro?
The first Zorro prototype people often point to is the so-called “Irish Zorro.” The Irishman in question was named William Lamport. His name, however, has many variants: Don Guillen de Lombardo, Guillen de Lampart, etc. What we know is that he lived in the seventeenth century, was born in Ireland, but lived a peripatetic life. He moved to England, then to Spain and, finally, to Colonial Mexico.
Lamport’s fortunes turned sour. He wrote several manifestos proclaiming the Independence of Mexico. He did some peyote, or at least had his Indian friend do some, and finally ran afoul of the Inquisition. Lamport was thrown in a dungeon, briefly escaped, and was finally executed in 1659.
Where does the Zorro connection come in? Vicente Riva Palacio, a Mexican liberal and writer, penned a novel in 1872 called Memoria de un Impostor, which fictionalized the true-life tale of Lamport based on the Mexican Inquisition archival records. In Riva Palacio’s telling, Lamport takes on all the swashbuckling derring-do of a Musketeer a la Dumas. Recently, an Italian historian named Fabio Troncarelli argued that Lamport must have been the inspiration for Zorro, especially the Riva Palacio version of Lamport’s life.
