RAMONA By Helen Hunt Jackson [SOLD]


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Helen Maria Hunt Jackson (1830 - 1885) born Helen Fiske
  • Subject: Southwest
  • Item # C3498Y
  • Date Published: Hardback, gray fabric cover with gold image and red lettering, 1907
  • Size: 498 pages; illustrated.
  • SOLD

RAMONA by Helen Hunt Jackson

 

Publisher: Little, Brown, and Company, Boston

Hardback, gray fabric cover with gold image and red lettering, 1907, 498 pages.

Condition: very good condition

 

SYNOPSIS

Helen Maria Hunt Jackson (October 15, 1830 – August 12, 1885) born Helen Fiske - Image Source: WikipediaJackson wrote Ramona three years after A Century of Dishonor, her non-fiction study of the mistreatment of Native Americans in the United States. By following that history with a novel, she sought to portray the Indian experience "in a way to move people's hearts  She wanted to arouse public opinion and concern for the betterment of their plight, much as Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin had done for slaves.  Her success in this effort was limited.

Jackson intended Ramona to appeal directly to the reader's emotions. The novel's political criticism was clear, but most readers were moved by its romantic vision of colonial California under Spanish and Mexican rule. Jackson had become enamored of the Spanish missions in California, which she romanticized. This story, but fictional, vision of Franciscan churchmen, señoritas and caballeros permeated the novel and captured the imaginations of readers. Her novel characterized the Americans as villains and the Native Americans as "noble savages.”

Many United States migrants had looked down on the Hispanic occupants of California when they arrived in the region. The new settlers from northern and Midwestern states disparaged what they saw as a decadent culture of leisure and recreation among the elite Latinos, who had huge tracts of land, lived in a region with prevailing mild weather and unusually fertile soil, and relied heavily on Native American laborers. The new settlers favored the Protestant work ethic. This view was not universal, however. American settlers and readers in other regions were taken by Jackson's portrayal of the Spanish and Mexican society. Readers accepted the Californio aristocracy as portrayed and the Ramona myth was born.

 

PLOT

In Southern California, shortly after the Mexican-American War, a Scots-Native American orphan girl, Ramona, is raised by Señora Gonzaga Moreno, the sister of Ramona's deceased foster mother. Ramona is referred to as illegitimate in some summaries of the novel, but chapter 3 of the novel says that Ramona's parents were married by a priest in the San Gabriel Mission. Señora Moreno has raised Ramona as part of the family, giving her every luxury, but only because Ramona's foster mother had requested it as her dying wish. Because of Ramona's mixed Native American heritage, Moreno does not love her. That love is reserved for her only child, Felipe Moreno, whom she adores. Señora Moreno considers herself a Mexican, although California has recently been taken over by the United States. She hates the Americans, who have cut up her huge rancho after disputing her claim to it.

Señora Moreno delays the sheep shearing, a major event on the rancho, awaiting the arrival of a group of Indians from Temecula whom she always hires for that work. She is also awaiting a priest, Father Salvierderra, from Santa Barbara. She arranges for the priest so that the Indian workers can worship and make confession in her chapel, rather than leaving the rancho. Ramona falls in love with Alessandro, a young Indian sheepherder and the son of Pablo Assis, the chief of the tribe. Señora Moreno is outraged, because although Ramona is half-Indian, the Señora does not want her to marry an Indian. Ramona realizes that Señora Moreno has never loved her and she and Alessandro elope.

Alessandro and Ramona have a daughter, and travel around Southern California trying to find a place to settle. In the aftermath of the war, Alessandro's tribe was driven off their land, marking the beginning of European-American settlement in California. They endure misery and hardship, for the Americans who buy their land also demand their houses and their farm tools. Greedy Americans drive them off from several homesteads, and they cannot find a permanent community that is not threatened by encroachment of United States settlers. They finally move up into the San Bernardino Mountains. Alessandro slowly loses his mind, due to the constant humiliation. He loves Ramona fiercely, and regrets having taken her away from relative comfort in return for "bootless" wandering. Their daughter "Eyes of the Sky" dies because a white doctor would not go to their homestead to treat her. They have another daughter, named Ramona, but Alessandro still suffers. One day he rides off with the horse of an American, who follows him and shoots him, although he knew that Alessandro was mentally unbalanced.

Ramona was missing from the rancho for two years. Felipe Moreno finds the widowed Ramona and they go back to Senora Moreno's estate with Ramona's child. Felipe has always loved her and finds her more beautiful than ever. Although Ramona still loves Alessandro, she marries Felipe and they have several more children together, although Ramona and Alessandro's daughter always remains their favorite.

 

Text and Image Source: Wikipedia

Example pages from book: Ramona

Helen Maria Hunt Jackson (1830 - 1885) born Helen Fiske
  • Subject: Southwest
  • Item # C3498Y
  • Date Published: Hardback, gray fabric cover with gold image and red lettering, 1907
  • Size: 498 pages; illustrated.
  • SOLD

Publisher:
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