Helen Hunt
Jackson
"As soon as I
began, it seemed impossible to write fast enough…I wrote faster than I
would write a letter…two thousand to three thousand words in a morning,
and I cannot help it."
-- Helen Hunt
Jackson describing her writing of "Ramona" |
|
Helen
Hunt Jackson (1830-1885), activist for Native American rights and author of
Southern California’s most enduring historical romance novel Ramona, was born and reared in
Amherst
,
Massachusetts
, a schoolmate and friend of the woman who
would become
Amherst
’s
most celebrated resident, poet Emily Dickinson. (Born Helen
Maria Fiske,
Jackson
would be twice married: first to U.S. Army Capt. Edward B. Hunt who died in a
military accident, then to William S. Jackson, a wealthy banker and railroad
executive.)
Jackson
grew up in a literary environment, and was herself a noted poet and writer of
children’s stories, novels, and essays (under the pseudonym H.H.H.), before
turning her considerable intellect and energy to investigating and publicizing
the mistreatment of Native Americans, especially the Mission Indians of
Southern California.
Her
interest in the subject began in
Boston
in 1879
at a lecture by Chief Standing Bear who described the forced removal of the
Ponca Indians from their
Nebraska
reservation.
Jackson
was incensed by what she heard and began to circulate petitions, raised money,
and wrote letters to the New York Times on the Poncas’ behalf. As
one observer noted, she became a "holy terror." (Friends and critics
have variously described her as "passionate," "volatile,"
"defiant" and "uncompromising." Historian Antoinette May
said she "lived a life that few women of her day had the courage to
live.")
Jackson
also began work on a book condemning the government’s Indian policy and
its record of broken treaties. When A Century of Dishonor was
published in 1881,
Jackson
sent a copy to every member of Congress with the following admonition printed
in red on the cover: "Look upon your hands: they are stained with the
blood of your relations." To her disappointment, the book had little
impact.
In
need of a rest,
Jackson
traveled to
Southern California
to study the area’s missions, a subject that had piqued her interest during an earlier
visit. While in
Los Angeles
, she met Don
Antonio Coronel, former mayor of
Los
Angeles
(1853-4), city councilman (1854-66) and State
Treasurer (1866-70). Coronel was a well-known authority on early
Californio life in
Southern California
, and
also a former inspector of missions for the Mexican government. He
described to
Jackson
the plight of Mission Indians after 1833, when secularization policies led to
the sale of mission lands and the dispersal of their residents.
“Many
of the original Mexican grants included clauses protecting the Indians on the
lands they occupied," writes Valerie Mathes, author of Helen Hunt
Jackson
: Official Agent to the
California
Mission
Indians. "When Americans assumed control,"
Mathes continues, "they ignored Indian claims to lands, which led to their
mass dispossessions. In 1852, there were an estimated 15,000 Mission Indians in
Southern California
, but because
of the adverse impact of dispossessions by Americans, they numbered less than
4,000 by the time of Helen’s visit."
Don
Coronel’s stories galvanized
Jackson
into action. Soon her efforts on behalf of dispossessed Indians in
Southern California
came to the attention of the U.S.
Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Hiram Price, who recommended her appointment as
an Interior Department agent. Her assignment was "to visit the Mission
Indians in
California
,
and ascertain the location and condition of various bands…and what, if any
land, should be purchased for their use."
With
the assistance of Indian agent and entrepreneur Abbot
Kinney, Jackson criss-crossed
Southern California
,
documenting the appalling conditions they saw. At one point, she hired a law
firm to protect the rights of a family of Saboba Indians facing dispossession
of their land at the foot of the
San
Jacinto
Mountains
.
Her 56-page report, completed in 1883, called for a massive government relief
effort, ranging from the purchase of new lands for reservations to the
establishment of more Indian schools. A bill largely embodying
Jackson
’s recommendations passed the
U.S. Senate but died in the House.
Undaunted
by Congress’ rejection,
Jackson
decided to write a novel that would depict the Indian experience "in a way
to move people’s hearts." She was particularly drawn to the fate of
her Indian friends in the Temecula area of
Riverside
County
.
The inspiration for her book,
Jackson
admitted, was Uncle Tom’s Cabin written years earlier by her
friend, Harriet Beecher Stowe. "If I can do one hundredth part for the
Indian that Mrs. Stowe did for the Negro, I will be thankful," she told a
friend. The result was Ramona, which
Jackson
began writing in a
New York City
hotel room in December 1883. Originally titled, "In The Name of
the Law," the book was completed in slightly over three months and
published in November 1884. "Every incident in Ramona…is
true,"
Jackson
said later. "A Cahuilla Indian was shot two years ago exactly as
Alessandro is – and his wife’s name was Ramona and I never knew
this last fact until Ramona was half written!" Later, a local
writer, George Wharton James, would lecture and write books linking Ramona to
an actual murder. He even recorded the murderer's voice on an early
Edison
cylinder phonograph!
Encouraged
by the book’s popularity,
Jackson
planned to write a children’s story on the Indian issue, but died of
cancer on August 12, 1885, less than a year after Ramona was published.
Her last letter was written to President Grover Cleveland, urging him to read
her early work, "A Century of Dishonor."
Jackson
told a friend: "My Century of
Dishonor and Ramona are the only things I have done of which I am
glad…They will live, and…bear fruit."
Ramona has indeed
borne fruit over the years, but in ways unimagined by the author. Writing in "Los
Angeles: A to Z," Leonard and Dale Pitt note: "Although Jackson’s novel, about a part-Indian orphan
raised in Spanish society and her Indian husband, achieved almost instant
success, it failed to arouse public concern
for the treatment of local Native Americans. Instead, readers accepted the
sentimentalized Spanish aristocracy that was portrayed, and the Ramona myth was
born.
Jackson
died a year after her novel was
published, never knowing the impact her book made on the
Southern
California
heritage. The novel Ramona has inspired films
[the first directed by D.W. Griffith], songs [the 1920s hit
"Ramona"], and a long-running pageant in
Hemet
,
California
.
And the name Ramona can be seen on street signs and commercial establishments
throughout
Southern California
."
(The Ramona Pageant, a
staged adaptation of Jackson’s novel, opened in 1923 and is held annually
over three consecutive weekends in April and May in the Ramona Bowl, a natural
amphitheater in the foothills above Hemet in Riverside County, California. The
pageant features a 400-member cast, made up largely of area residents, and is
described as the largest and longest-running outdoor play in the nation. For
information, call 909-658-3111.)
Helen
Hunt
Jackson
: Official Agent to the
California
Mission
Indians by Valerie Sherer Mathes appears in Women in the Life
of Southern California, (1996), an anthology compiled from Southern California Quarterly, a publication of the Historical Society of Southern California edited
by Doyce B. Nunis, Jr. The story of Helen Hunt Jackson and Ramona is
also told in a half-hour video, "Ramona: A Story of Protest and
Passion," produced by Wilkman Productions, Inc. in association with
KCET-TV. It is available by special order from the Historical
Society of Southern California.
---
contributed by Albert Greenstein, 1999
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