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= Ramona =
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Introduction
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'Ramona' is an 1884 American novel written by Helen Hunt Jackson. Set
in Southern California after the Mexican-American War and annexation
of the territory by the United States, 'Ramona' explores the life of a
mixed-race Scottish-Native American orphan girl. The story was
inspired by the marriage of Hugo Reid and Victoria Reid.
Originally serialized weekly in the 'Christian Union', the novel
became immensely popular. It has had more than 300 printings, and has
been adapted five times as a film. A play adaptation has been
performed annually outdoors since 1923.
The novel's influence on the culture and image of Southern California
was considerable. Its sentimental portrayal of Mexican elite colonial
life contributed to establishing a unique cultural identity for the
region. As its publication coincided with the arrival of railroad
lines in the region, tourists used trains to visit sites thought to be
associated with the novel.
Plot
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In Southern California, shortly after the Mexican-American War, a
Scottish-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. Ramona's foster mother
had requested this as her dying wish. Because Ramona has partial
Native American heritage, Moreno reserves her love for her only child,
Felipe Moreno, whom she adores. Señora Moreno identifies as Mexican of
pure Spanish ancestry. She hates Americans since the United States
annexation of California following its victory in the war. They have
disputed her claim to her lands, and have divided her huge 'rancho'.
Señora Moreno delays the sheep shearing, a major event on the rancho,
awaiting the arrival of a group of Native Americans from Temecula,
whom she always hires for that work. The head of the Native American
sheep shearers is Alessandro, son of Pablo Assís, chief of the tribe.
Alessandro is portrayed as tall, wise, honest, and piously Catholic.
Señora Moreno also awaits a priest, Father Salvierderra, from Santa
Barbara. He will hear confessions of the workers and celebrate mass
with them in her chapel after the shearing, before they return to
Temecula.
Alessandro quickly falls in love with Ramona and agrees to stay on at
the Rancho. In time, Ramona also falls in love with Alessandro. Señora
Moreno opposes the marriage, as she does not want Ramona to marry a
Native American. Realizing that Señora Moreno has never loved her,
Ramona elopes with Alessandro.
The rest of the novel charts the two lovers' troubles. They have a
daughter, and travel around Southern California trying to find a place
to settle. In the aftermath of war, Alessandro's tribe is driven off
their land, marking a new wave of European-American settlement in
California from the United States. 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 several homesteads,
and they cannot find a permanent community that is not threatened by
encroachment of American settlers. They finally move into the San
Bernardino Mountains.
Alessandro slowly loses his mind, due to the forced relocations. He
loves Ramona fiercely, and regrets having taken her away from relative
comfort with Moreno. Their daughter, whose Native American name means
"Eyes of the Sky", dies because an American doctor would not go to
their homestead to treat her. They have another daughter, whom they
name 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.
After being away from the Moreno ranch for two years, the young widow
is found by Felipe Moreno. He brings her and her daughter Ramona back
to his mother's estate. Felipe has always loved the senior Ramona and
finds her more beautiful than ever. Although Ramona still loves the
late Alessandro, she agrees to marry Felipe. (His mother has died, so
he is free to marry his choice.) They have several children together.
Their favorite is Ramona, daughter of Alessandro.
Main characters
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*Ramona, Scottish-Native American orphan girl
*Señora Gonzaga Moreno, sister of Ramona's dead foster mother
*Felipe Moreno, Gonzaga Moreno's only child
*Alessandro Assis, a young Native American sheepherder
*Father Salvierderra, a Catholic priest
Major themes
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Jackson 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 enslaved African Americans. 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 Mexican rule.
Jackson had become enamored of the Spanish missions in California,
which she romanticized. The story's 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 American migrants to California were biased against the Mexicans
who lived there. The new settlers from northern and midwestern states
disparaged what they considered a decadent culture of leisure and
recreation among the elite Mexicans, who held 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.
Many American settlers and readers in other regions were taken by
Jackson's portrayal of the California-Mexican society. Readers
accepted the Californio aristocracy as portrayed and the 'Ramona' myth
was born.
Reception
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'Ramona' was immensely popular almost immediately upon its publication
in 1884, with more than 15,000 copies sold in the ten months before
Jackson's death in 1885. One year after her death, the 'North American
Review' called it "unquestionably the best novel yet produced by an
American woman" and named it, along with 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', as one
of two most ethical novels of the 19th century. By sixty years after
its publication, 600,000 copies had been sold. There have been more
than 300 reissues to date and the book has never been out of print.
Subtle racism may have contributed to the popularity of the character
of Ramona and the novel. Of mixed race, she was described as
beautiful, with black hair and blue eyes. Errol Wayne Stevens, of the
California Historical Society, notes several contemporary reviews of
the novel in which writers dismissed the idea that Ramona could have
been part Native American, a race which they characterized as "dull,
heavy and unimpressionable," and "lazy, cruel, cowardly, and
covetous."
Carobeth Laird, in her 1975 autobiography, 'Encounter with an Angry
God' (p. 176), describes the reaction of her Chemehuevi Indian husband
to the novel: "... when I tried to read him Helen Hunt Jackson's
'Ramona', he grew restless, walked up and down, and finally said that
the white woman knew nothing about Indians."
Jackson was disappointed that she was unable to raise public concerns
about the struggles of Indians in California, as readers were
attracted to the romantic vision of Californio society. Historian
Antoinette May argues in her book 'The Annotated Ramona' (1989), that
the popularity of the novel contributed to Congress passing the Dawes
Act in 1887. This was the first American law to address Indian land
rights but was aimed at assimilation of Indian families. It forced the
breakup of communal lands and redistribution of allotted acres to
individual households. The government defined as "surplus land" any
reservation territory remaining, and allowed its sale to non-Native
persons.
Cultural influence
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The widespread popularity of the novel resulted in jurisdictions
naming schools (Ramona High School in Riverside), streets, freeways
(the San Bernardino Freeway was originally named the Ramona Freeway)
and towns (unincorporated communities called Ramona in both Los
Angeles and San Diego County) after the novel's heroine. Southern
California became a tourist destination, as many people wanted to see
the locations featured in the book. Its publication coincided with the
opening of Southern Pacific Railroad's Southern California rail lines,
which fed a tourism boom.
As a result, many sites across Southern California tried to emphasize
their 'Ramona' connections. Jackson died without having specified
locations for her novel. Two places claimed to have inspired her work:
Rancho Camulos, near Piru, and Rancho Guajome in Vista, as she had
visited both before writing her novel.
Camulos became the most accepted "Home of Ramona" due to several
factors. The description of Moreno Ranch is similar to the historic
Rancho Camulos. Influential writers, such as George Wharton James and
Charles Fletcher Lummis, avowed that it was so. When the Southern
Pacific Railroad opened its main Ventura County line in 1887, it had a
stop at Camulos. With the company engaged in a rate war, the trip to
Camulos became relatively easy and affordable for visitors. Finally,
the Del Valle family of Camulos welcomed tourists: they exploited the
association in marketing their products, labeling their oranges and
wine as "The Home of Ramona" brand.
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) from the nearest Santa Fe
Railroad station, getting there was not so easy. Additionally, the
Couts family, who owned the property, were not eager to have flocks of
tourists on the grounds, possibly due to a falling out between author
Jackson and Senora Couts.
Estudillo House in Old Town San Diego identified as "Ramona's Marriage
Place"; the novel said briefly that Ramona was married in San Diego.
Although no record existed of Jackson's having visited there, this
house became a popular tourist destination. This status continued for
years. Estudillo House was unique in marketing solely in terms of
'Ramona'-related tourism. The caretaker sold pieces of the house to
tourists, which hastened its deterioration. In 1907, the new owner
John D. Spreckels hired architect Hazel Wood Waterman to remodel 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 Landmark status was entitled "Casa
Estudillo/Ramona's Marriage Place".
Other notable 'Ramona' landmarks included "Ramona's Birthplace", a
small adobe near Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, and the grave of Ramona
Lubo on the Ramona Band of Cahuilla Indians reservation. Writer George
Wharton James called Lubo the "real Ramona". Her life bore some
resemblance to that of the fictional Ramona. Sixteen years after
Lubo's death, in 1938 local people erected a "Ramona monument" at her
gravesite.
'The Ramona Pageant' was a play adapted from the novel. It was staged
outdoors, beginning in 1923 in Hemet. The pageant has been held there
annually since.
Most historians believe that the fictional Moreno Ranch is an
amalgamation of various locations and was not intended to represent a
single place. As Carey McWilliams said in his book 'Southern
California Country' (1946):
:Picture postcards, by the tens of thousands, were published showing
"the schools attended by Ramona," "the original of Ramona," "the place
where Ramona was married," and various shots of the "Ramona Country."
[...] It was not long before the scenic postcards depicting the Ramona
Country had come to embrace all of Southern California.
Because of the novel's extraordinary popularity, public perception
merged fact and fiction. California historian Walton Bean wrote:
:These legends became so ingrained in the culture of Southern
California that they were often mistaken for realities. In later years
many who visited "Ramona's birthplace" in San Diego or the annual
"Ramona Pageant" at Hemet (eighty miles north of San Diego) were
surprised and disappointed if they chanced to learn that Ramona was a
(fictional) novel rather than a biography.
The novel contributed to the unique cultural identity of Southern
California and the whole of the Southwest. 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, the region suddenly gained national attention. Mission Revival
Style architecture became popular from about 1890 to 1915. Many
examples still stand throughout California and other southwest areas.
Adaptations
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'Ramona' has been adapted several times for other media. The first was
a silent film by the same name, released in 1910. It was directed by
D. W. Griffith and starred Mary Pickford. Other versions were made in
1928, 1936 and 1946.
* 'Ramona' (1910 film), a 17-minute short directed by D. W. Griffith
* 'Ramona' (1916 film), directed by Donald Crisp
* 'Ramona' (1928 film), directed by Edwin Carewe, featuring Dolores
del Río and Warner Baxter
* 'Ramona' (1936 film), directed by Henry King, featuring Loretta
Young and Don Ameche
* 'Ramona' (1946 film), directed by Víctor Urruchúa
* Screen Guild Theater, 1945 radio broadcast
* 'Ramona' (2000 TV series), a Mexican telenovela
* 'The Ramona Pageant', an annual outdoor play, has been performed
annually since 1923 in Hemet, California. The Ramona Pageant is the
largest and longest-running outdoor play in the United States. It is
the official state play of the State of California.
See also
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* California Genocide
* Spanish missions in California
External links
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*
* [
https://archive.org/details/ramonaastory03jackgoog 'Ramona'],
available at Internet Archive
*
License
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Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramona
