Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson

If a Brontë sister wrote about colonial California

Ramona, a novel by Helen Hunt Jackson, was a huge success when it was published in 1884, and it has never gone out of print since. Though hardly a well-known work of American literature nowadays, except perhaps in the state of California, hundreds of thousands of copies of the book have been sold. This novel was instrumental in formulating the cultural identity of California: the romance of the Spanish missions, chivalrous Mexican aristocracy, and noble, industrious Indians. Ramona likely inspired the creation of Zorro, just about every Ricardo Montalban movie, and many a work of Mission Revival architecture in the Golden State. Jackson was an outspoken advocate of Native American rights, and Ramona was a vehicle through which she lobbied for that cause. In many ways, what Uncle Tom’s Cabin was to African Americans and slavery, Ramona was to Native Americans and the California genocide of the late 19th century.

The novel takes place shortly after the end of the Mexican-American War. The California Gold Rush is underway, as well as a land rush. Since the United States has recently taken over much of Mexican territory, including California, white Americans are moving to the West Coast in droves and driving Mexicans and Indians from their homes. In Southern California lies the Moreno ranch, run by the widowed Señora Moreno and her son Felipe. The Morenos are well-to-do Californios (Hispanic Californians), but their estate has dwindled significantly since the recent U.S. victory in the war. Residing with the Morenos is Ramona, the illegitimate child of Señora Moreno’s brother-in-law and his Native mistress. When Señora Moreno’s sister died, she entrusted the infant Ramona into her sister’s care, and Ramona has been raised in the Moreno household as a foster daughter ever since.

Though no formal arrangement has been made, it is pretty much taken for granted by all that Ramona will someday wed her foster brother Felipe. At the time of the story, both are in their late teens or early twenties. When a band of Temecula Indians comes to the Moreno Ranch to assist with the sheep-shearing, however, Ramona falls in love with Alessandro Assís, a handsome, hard-working Native American respected by all. The young couple decide to marry. When Mother Moreno finds out, she goes ballistic. Refusing to allow her foster daughter to marry an Indian, she drives Alessandro off the property and threatens to imprison Ramona in a convent. Ramona is firmly resolved, however, that she will spend the rest of her life with Alessandro even if she has to abandon her comfortable home and live among the poor and persecuted Indians.

Jackson gets overly melodramatic at times, but not excessively for her time period. The novel includes some unrealistic depictions of mental illness, people dying of sadness and the like, which was common to books of this era. The reader also has to endure the unreasonable Victorian code under which any woman who holds hands with a man is considered a wanton hussy. The story is quite realistic, however, in its handling of racial and social issues following the Mexican-American War. The white settlers did steal the land from the Indians and the Mexicans (who had previously stolen it from the Indians), and Jackson doesn’t mince words about it. This isn’t a John Steinbeck-quality novel by any means, but Ramona is probably better than at least half of Pearl S. Buck’s novels, and she won the Nobel Prize. Though Ramona is a romance, and in many ways a myth, it is very well-written and engaging, with memorable characters that the reader grows to care about. The book quite effectively conveys the plight of Native Americans, and its popular success must have had quite an impact on public opinion regarding Indian affairs. Ramona was an important book for its time. It deserves at least a mention in American literature courses, instead of the obscurity into which it has fallen.