Ramona is a novel written by Helen Hunt Jackson and published in 1884.

Table of contents

1 Creation and effects 2 Synopsis 3 Adaptations

Creation and effects

The emotional appeal was successful, but it went by and large down the wrong path. The novel's policy criticism was clear, but it was not the most potent message. Jackson had become enamored of California's mission past, which she romanticized and found much more attractive than her own New England surroundings. This rosy (but almost entirely fictional) vision of Franciscan churchmen, señoritas and caballeros permeated the novel and captured readers' imaginations. Ramona was a tremendous bestseller and has been in print continuously since its initial publication.

Americans had not always thought kindly of the Hispanic population that had inhabited California until their own arrival. They looked with a disparaging eye on what they saw as a decadent lifestyle informed by excessively mild weather, unusually fertile soil, and abundant Indian labor, and cherished rather the American ideal of hard work. This view was not universal, however, and was swept away by the escapist fantasy of Ramona.

Tourists soon trooped into California, eager to see the relics of Ramonaland, and made even more eager by entrepreneurs. All things Spanish acquired a powerful mystique, which led to the reconstruction of many missions and other historic sites. The Mission Revival architectural style was wildly popular from the 1890s to the 1930s, and survives in a reduced form today.

Synopsis

Jackson's novel is set in the Southern California of Spanish Californio society. It is about a part-Indian and part-Scottish orphan who is raised by the Señora Moreno, who is the sister of Ramona's deceased foster mother. Señora Moreno has raised Ramona as if she is part of the family, giving her every luxury, because her sister asked her to before her death. Señora Moreno, who still considers herself a Mexican, even though California is no longer a province of that country, and hates the Americanss who have cut up her huge rancho and taken away lands, adores her only child, Felipe Moreno, but she does not love Ramona because she harbors ill feelings about her being part Indian.

Señora Moreno holds up the sheep shearing that year so the band of Indians from Temecula that she always hires can arrive, as well as the Priest from Santa Barbara, because she wants to make sure the lowly heathens have mass in her chapel and an opportunity to give confession. Ramona falls in love with a young Indian sheepherder, Alessandro. The Señora Moreno is outraged. Ramona realizes that Señora Moreno has never loved her, and to the old woman's chagrin they leave to be married. Alessandro and Ramona have a daughter. They also have misery and hardship. They are run off of several of their places, due to the land greed of certain Americanss, and cannot find a permanent home. They finally move up into the San Bernardino Mountains. Alessandro looses his mind. He is down in town one day and rides off on the horse of an American. The man follows him home and shoots him. In the meantime, the Señora Moreno has died. Felipe finds Ramona and they are married. They leave to live in Mexico.

Jackson's fiction, which used real locations in Southern California and dramatized various real events, was intended to arouse public concern for the treatment of Native Americans. But readers accepted the sentimentalized Spanish Californio aristocracy that was portrayed and the Ramona myth was born.

Ramona was an instant success. The novel has never been out of print.

Adaptations