Terror in Colorado

Charles F. Price’s Season of Terror: The Espinosas in Central Colorado, March-October 1863 is the first full-length book chronicling the Espinosa Family. Well-written and well-documented,

this book showcases what the author views as “America’s First Serial Killers.” Were Felipe and Vivian Espinosa social bandits, patriots or cold-blooded killers?  From March to October 1863, white citizens of southern Colorado were terrorized by the so-called “Bloody Espinosas” and their nephew, Jose Vincente. They boasted of slaughtering 32 whites during the eight-month vendetta. The reason for their outrage is vague, but the likely cause was the encroachment of Americans on “their land.” Price’s biography of the Espinosas is an important chapter in the violence and vigilantism that plagued the West during the Civil War.

—Marshall Trimble, author of Wyatt Earp: Showdown in Tombstone