Ramona, a
novelA novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
written by
Helen Hunt JacksonHelen Maria Hunt Jackson was an American writer best known as the author of Ramona, a novel about the ill treatment of Native Americans in southern California.-Biography:...
(
1884The year 1884 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*Edwin Abbott Abbott - Flatland*Henry Brooks Adams - Esther*Aluísio de Azevedo - Casa de Pensão*Richard Doddridge Blackmore - Tommy Upmore...
), is the story of a part-
ScottishThe Scots people and an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland.An ethnic group, historically they emerged from an amalgamation of Picts, Gaels and Brythons....
and part-
Native AmericanNative Americans in the United States is the phrase that describes indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of...
orphan girl growing up and getting married in
Southern CaliforniaSouthern California, or SoCal, is defined as the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its population centers around three major metropolitan areas, each of which have over 3 million people; the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area with over 12 million inhabitants, the San Bernardino-Riverside...
, suffering racial discrimination and hardship. Originally
serialThe term "serial" refers to the intrinsic property of a series – namely, its order. In literature, the term is used as a noun to refer to a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication.More generally, "serial" is applied...
ized in the
Christian Union on a weekly basis, the novel became immensely popular. Overall, it has had more than 300 printings, been made into four film versions, and has been performed as an
outdoor playThe Ramona Outdoor Play, formerly known as The Ramona Pageant is an outdoor play staged annually at Hemet, California since 1923. The script is adapted from the novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson. It is held over three consecutive weekends in April and May in the Ramona Bowl, a natural...
annually since 1923. The impact the novel had on the culture and image of Southern California was enormous. Its sentimentalisation of Mexican colonial life gave the region a unique cultural identity and its publication coincided with the arrival of railroad lines to the region, bringing in countless tourists who wanted to see for themselves the locations in the novel.
Plot summary
In
Southern CaliforniaSouthern California, or SoCal, is defined as the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its population centers around three major metropolitan areas, each of which have over 3 million people; the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area with over 12 million inhabitants, the San Bernardino-Riverside...
, shortly after the Mexican-American War, a part-Native American and part-Scottish orphan girl, Ramona, is raised by Señora Gonzaga Moreno, sister of Ramona's deceased foster mother. Señora Moreno has raised Ramona as part of the family, giving her every luxury, because Ramona's foster mother had requested it. Because of Ramona's Native American heritage, Moreno does not love her. That love is reserved for her only child, Felipe Morena, whom she adores. Señora Moreno still considers herself a
MexicanThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, even though
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
is no longer a
provinceA province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state.-Roman provinces:The word is attested in English since c.1330, deriving from Old French province , which comes from the Latin word provincia, which referred to the sphere of activity which a...
of that country, and she hates the
AmericansThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, who have cut up her huge
rancho and taken away lands.
Señora Moreno delays the sheep shearing that year so the band of Indians from
TemeculaTemecula is a city in southwestern Riverside County, California, United States with a population of 102,604. It was incorporated on December 1, 1989....
that she always hires can arrive, as well as the
priestA priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities. Their office or position is the priesthood, a term which may also apply to such persons collectively.Priests and priestesses...
, Father Salvierderra, from
Santa BarbaraSanta Barbara is a city in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the west coast, between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the sea, and having a Mediterranean climate, it is called California's...
. She does this to ensure that the "heathens" have
massThe Mass is the Eucharistic celebration in the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church. The term is used also of similar celebrations in Old Catholic Churches, in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Anglicanism, in many Lutheran Churches, and in a small amount of High Church Methodist parishes...
in her
chapelA chapel is a building used as a place for fellowship and of worship for Christians. It may be attached to an institution such as a large church, a college, a hospital, a palace, a prison or a cemetery, or may be an entirely free-standing building, sometimes with its own grounds...
and an opportunity to give
confessionThe confession of one's sins is a religious practice important to many faiths, e.g., Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.- Christianity :...
. Ramona falls in love with a young Indian sheepherder, Alessandro, who is also the son of the Chief of the tribe, Pablo Assis. Señora Moreno is outraged. Ramona realizes that Señora Moreno has never loved her and, to the old woman's chagrin, she and Alessandro elope.
Alessandro and Ramona have a daughter. They also endure misery and hardship. They are run off of several of their homes, due to the greed of Americans for their land, and cannot find a permanent home. They finally move up into the
San Bernardino MountainsThe San Bernardino Mountains are a short transverse mountain range north and east of San Bernardino in Southern California in the United States. The mountains run for approximately 60 miles east-west on the southern edge of the Mojave Desert in southwestern San Bernardino County, north of the...
. Alessandro loses his mind. He is in town one day and rides off on the horse of an American. The man follows him home and shoots him.
In the meantime, Señora Moreno has died. Felipe finds Ramona and they are married. They leave to live in
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
.
Characters
- Ramona – part-Native American and part-Scottish orphan girl
- Señora Moreno – sister of Ramona's dead foster mother
- Felipe Moreno – Moreno's only child
- Alessandro – a young Native American sheepherder
- Father Salvierderra – a Catholic priest
- Pablo Assis – a tribe chief
Major themes
Jackson wrote
Ramona three years after
A Century of DishonorA Century of Dishonor , by Helen Hunt Jackson, chronicles the experiences of Native Americans in the United States, focusing on examples of injustices....
, a report on the mistreatment of
Native Americans in the United StatesNative Americans in the United States is the phrase that describes indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of...
. By following that commentary with a novel, she sought to depict 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 StoweHarriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin depicted life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the U.S...
and
Uncle Tom's CabinUncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the United States, so much in the latter case that the novel intensified the...
had done for slaves. Her success was limited, however.
Ramona was intended to appeal more directly to the
emotionAn emotion is a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts, and behavior. Emotions are subjective experiences, often associated with mood, temperament, personality, and disposition. The English word 'emotion' is derived from the French word émouvoir...
s of the American public, something it clearly succeeded at. The novel's policy criticism was clear, but that was not its most potent message. Jackson had become enamored of the
Spanish missions in CaliforniaThe Spanish missions in California comprise a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823 to spread the Christian faith among the local Native Americans. The missions represented the first major effort by Europeans to colonize the...
, which she romanticized. This rosy, but almost entirely fictional, vision of
FranciscanThe term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic religious orders, also known as the Orders of Friars Minor, that follow a body of regulations known as "The rule of St. Francis", or a member of one of these orders. As well as Roman Catholic there are also small Old Catholic and...
churchmen,
señoritas and
caballeros permeated the novel and captured the imaginations of readers by portraying the Americans as villains and the Native Americans as "
noble savageThe term "noble savage" expresses a concept of the universal essential humanity as unencumbered by civilization; the normal essence of an unfettered human....
s".
A number of Americans had not always thought kindly of the
HispanicHispanic is a term that historically denoted a relationship to the ancient Hispania . During the modern era, it took on a more limited meaning, relating to the contemporary nation of Spain....
population who inhabited California at the time of their own arrival. They looked with a disparaging eye on what they saw as a decadent
lifestyleLifestyle was originally coined by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in 1929. The current broader sense of the word dates from 1961.In sociology, a lifestyle is the way a person lives. A lifestyle is a characteristic bundle of behaviors that makes sense to both others and oneself in a given time...
of
leisureLeisure or free time, is a period of time spent out of work and essential domestic activity. It is also the period of recreational and discretionary time before or after compulsory activities such as eating and sleeping, going to work or running a business, attending school and doing homework,...
and
recreationRecreation or fun is the expenditure of time in a manner designed for therapeutic refreshment of one's body or mind. While leisure is more likely a form of entertainment or sleep, recreation is active for the participant but in a refreshing and diverting manner...
among a people with enormous tracts of land, excessively mild weather and unusually fertile soil, who relied heavily on Native American labor. They cherished rather the
Protestant work ethicThe Protestant Work Ethic, sometimes called the Puritan Work Ethic, is a sociological, theoretical concept. It is based upon the notion that the Calvinist emphasis on the necessity for hard work is proponent of a person's calling and worldly success is a sign of personal salvation...
. This view was not universal, however, and was swept away by Jackson's escapist fantasy. Readers accepted the sentimentalized Spanish
CalifornioCalifornio is a term used to identify a Californian of Hispanic—and in some rare cases, of Portuguese, Brazilian, or other non-Hispanic Latin American—descent, regardless of race, during the period that California was part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and Mexico...
aristocracy that was portrayed and the
Ramona myth was born.
Reception
Ramona was immensely popular almost immediately upon its release, with over 15,000 copies sold in the ten months before Jackson's death in 1885. Just a year later in 1886, the
North American ReviewThe North American Review was the first literary magazine in the United States. Founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others, it was published continuously until 1940, when publication was suspended due to World War II. Publication subsequently resumed in 1964 at Cornell College...
called it "unquestionably the best novel yet produced by an American woman" and named it, along with
Uncle Tom's Cabin, one of two most
ethicalEthics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is , how moral values should be determined , how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations , how moral...
novels of the 19th century. Sixty years after its publication, 600,000 copies had been sold. There have been over 300 reissues to date and the book has never been out of print.
Another reason for the novel's initial popularity may have inadvertently been subtle
racismRacism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
. Ramona was only part Indian, and she was described as beautiful, with black hair but blue eyes. Errol Wayne Stevens of the California Historical Society cited a number of contemporary reviews in which the idea that Ramona could have come from a race that was "dull, heavy and unimpressionable" and "lazy, cruel, cowardly, and covetous" was rejected.
Because the general public was more attached to the romanticized vision of Southern California, Jackson was disappointed that she was unable to raise the profile of Indian issues. However, historian Antoinette May argued in her book
The Annotated Ramona that the novel was partially responsible for the
Dawes ActThe Dawes Act was enacted on February 8, 1887 regarding the distribution of land to Native Americans in Oklahoma. Named after its sponsor, U.S. Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, the act was amended in 1891 and again in 1906 by the Burke Act...
being passed in 1887. This was the first act passed by
CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election....
to deal with Indian land rights.
Cultural impact
The runaway popularity of the novel inspired people to name schools, streets, freeways (the segment of the US 101/
I-10The San Bernardino Freeway is a named freeway in the U.S. state of California in the Greater Los Angeles area. It refers to the following two segments:...
that runs past
Union StationUnion Station in Los Angeles, California, which opened in May 1939, is known as the "Last of the Great Railway Stations" built in the United States, but even with its massive and ornate waiting room and adjacent ticket concourse, it is considered small in comparison to other union stations...
in downtown
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
was originally named the Ramona Freeway) and even towns (
Ramona, CaliforniaRamona is an unincorporated community in San Diego County, California, USA. The United States Census Bureau had divided Ramona into two census-designated places, the Ramona CDP and the San Diego Country Estates CDP. The population of the CDPs, which does not include the fringe areas surrounding...
) after the novel's heroine. Because of the romanticized myth, there was a great increase in
tourismTourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other...
, with many people wanting to see the locations that appeared in the story. This coincided with the opening of
Southern Pacific RailroadThe Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company , and usually simply called the Southern Pacific, was an American railroad. The railroad was founded as a land holding company in 1865, later acquiring the Central Pacific Railroad by lease...
's Southern California rail lines and created a tourism boom.
As a result, locations all over Southern California tried to emphasize their
Ramona connections. This was made possible due to Jackson having died without ever disclosing what locations she had based her story on, if any. Two places had the strongest claim to being the inspiration:
Rancho CamulosRancho Camulos, now known as Rancho Camulos Museum, is a ranch located east of Piru, California. It was the home of Ygnacio del Valle, an alcalde of Los Angeles and member of the California State Assembly. The ranch was known as the Home of Ramona because it was widely believed to have been the...
, near
PiruPiru is a census-designated small town located in Eastern Ventura County, California, in the Santa Clara River Valley near the Santa Clara River and State Route 126, about seven miles east of Fillmore and about west of Interstate 5. The population at the time of the 2000 census was 1,196...
, and
Rancho GuajomeRancho Guajome Adobe, listed in the National Register of Historic Places as Guajome Ranch House, is an adobe house in Vista, California. Built in 1852–53, it is a large Spanish Colonial hacienda with two courtyards....
in
VistaVista is a city in North San Diego County, California. It was incorporated January 28, 1963. Located just seven miles inland from the Pacific Ocean in northern San Diego County, the City of Vista has a Mediterranean climate....
, both of which Jackson had visited prior to the writing of her novel.
Camulos became the most accepted "Home of Ramona" due to several factors. The location of Moreno Ranch is roughly the same as the location of Camulos. Influential writers such as
George Wharton JamesGeorge Wharton James was a prolific popular lecturer and journalist, writing more than 40 books and many articles and pamphlets on California and the American Southwest....
and
Charles Fletcher LummisCharles Fletcher Lummis was a United States journalist and Indian activist; he is also acclaimed as a historian, photographer, poet and librarian....
avowed that it was so. Furthermore,
Southern Pacific RailroadThe Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company , and usually simply called the Southern Pacific, was an American railroad. The railroad was founded as a land holding company in 1865, later acquiring the Central Pacific Railroad by lease...
's main
Ventura CountyVentura County is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of California . It is located on California's Pacific coast. It is often referred to as the Gold Coast, and has a reputation of being one of the safest populated places and one of the most affluent places in the country...
line opened in 1887 and stopped right at Camulos and with the company engaged in a rate war, getting to Camulos was relatively easy. Finally, the Del Valle family of Camulos welcomed tourists and eagerly marketed the association, labeling their oranges and wine as "The Home of Ramona"
brandA brand is a name or trademark connected with a product or producer. Brands have become increasingly important components of culture and the economy, now being described as "cultural accessories and personal philosophies".-Concepts:...
.
In contrast, Guajome did not publicly become associated with
Ramona until an 1894 article in
Rural Californian made the claim. However, as the house was nearly four miles (6 km) away from the nearest Santa Fe Railroad station, getting there was not so easy. Additionally, the Couts family which owned the property was not nearly as eager to have tourists run rampant through the grounds, possibly due to a falling out between Jackson and Sra. Couts.
A third location, the Estudillo House in Old Town San Diego, declared itself to be "Ramona's Marriage Place" due to brief descriptions of Ramona having been married in San Diego. Despite there being no records of Jackson having visited there, it too became a popular tourist destination and remained so long after the novel's publication. The Estudillo House was also unique in that it marketed itself solely in terms of
Ramona-related tourism. The caretaker sold pieces of the house to tourists, which naturally hastened its deterioration. In 1907, new owner
John D. SpreckelsJohn Diedrich Spreckels , the son of American industrialist Claus Spreckels, founded a transportation and real estate empire in San Diego, California in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
deliberately remodeled the house to more closely match descriptions in the novel. When the reconstruction was completed in 1910, the building reopened as a full-fledged
Ramona tourist attraction. Estudillo House's application for
National Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance. All NHLs are listed in the National Register of Historic Places...
status was even entitled "Casa Estudillo/Ramona's Marriage Place".
Other notable
Ramona landmarks included "Ramona's Birthplace", a small adobe near
Mission San Gabriel ArcángelThe Mission San Gabriel Arcángel is a fully functioning Roman Catholic mission and a historic landmark in San Gabriel, California. Site of the first hospital in Alta California, the settlement was founded by Spaniards of the Franciscan order on "The Feast of the Birth of Mary" September 8, 1771 as...
, as well as the grave of Ramona Lubo on the
CahuillaThe Cahuilla are a tribe of Native Americans that have inhabited the U.S. state of California for more than 2,000 years, originally covering an area of about 2,400 square miles . The traditional Cahuilla territory was near the geographic center of Southern California...
Indian reservation. Lubo called herself the "real Ramona," and her life bore some resemblance to that of the fictional Ramona. Nevertheless, a Ramona monument was not erected on the site until 1938, sixteen years after Lubo's death.
The Ramona PageantThe Ramona Outdoor Play, formerly known as The Ramona Pageant is an outdoor play staged annually at Hemet, California since 1923. The script is adapted from the novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson. It is held over three consecutive weekends in April and May in the Ramona Bowl, a natural...
, an outdoor staging of the novel, started in 1923 in
HemetHemet is a city in Riverside County, located in the San Jacinto Valley and it covers a total area of 27.1 square miles, or about half of the valley, which it shares with its neighbor to the north, the city of San Jacinto. In 2007 the city's population was estimated to be 74,185 according to the...
and has been held every year since.
Most historians today believe that the fictional Moreno Ranch is an amalgamation of various locations and was not intended to represent a single place. As Carey McWilliams described in his book
Southern California Country:
Not only that, but because of the explosive popularity, fact and fiction began to merge in the public eye. California historian Walton Bean wrote:
Crucially, the novel gave Southern California and the whole of the
SouthwestThe Southwestern United States is defined as the states that lie west of the Mississippi River, with the qualification of a certain northern limit such as the 37, 38, 39, or 40 degree north latitude. A 97.33 longitude degree west could qualify as the separation of the American Southwest from the...
its own unique cultural identity. The architecture of the missions had recently gained national exposure and local restoration projects were just beginning. Railroad lines to Southern California were just opening and combined with the emotions stirred by the novel, it was a
perfect stormA "perfect storm" is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically. The term is also used to describe a hypothetical hurricane that happens to hit at a region’s most vulnerable area, resulting in the worst possible damage by a...
of circumstances to suddenly thrust the region into the national spotlight. One result from this was the sudden popularity of
Mission Revival Style architectureThe Mission Revival Style was an architectural movement that began in the late 19th century and drew inspiration from the early Spanish missions in California...
from about 1890 to 1915, which still survives in a reduced form today.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Ramona exists in four different film adaptations, as well as a Mexican
telenovela based on Jackson's novel. It has also been performed as an outdoor play annually since 1923, called
The Ramona PageantThe Ramona Outdoor Play, formerly known as The Ramona Pageant is an outdoor play staged annually at Hemet, California since 1923. The script is adapted from the novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson. It is held over three consecutive weekends in April and May in the Ramona Bowl, a natural...
.
External links
- Ramona, available at Google Books