The Squatter and the Don, original title page. Larger.
Even if you believed California's entry into the Union was manifest destiny, that didn't mean you could turn a blind eye to the manifest injustice that sometimes ruled in the new American courts.
In her political novel The Squatter and the Don, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton laments the power of a California judiciary sometimes too self-absorbed to see justice done over inevitable land disputes.
If those kind eyes of the Goddess of Justice were not bandaged, but she could see how her pure white robes have been begrimed and soiled. . . and how her lofty dignity is thus lowered to dust, she would no doubt feel affronted and aggrieved. . .
At present, the dignity of a Judge's personality is more sacred than the abstract immpersonality of justice. Because the accepted theory being that Judges are always just and incorruptible (and generally the suppostion is correct), there is a broad shelter for a Judge who may be neither just nor impartial. What mockery of justice is it in our fair land of freedom to say that a bad Judge can be impeached when impeachment is so hedged with difficulties as to be impossible—utterly ineffectual to protect the poor, victimized laity! Who is the poor litigant that would dare arraign an unjust Judge, well sheltered in his judicial ermine, and the entire profession ready to champion him? "Libel" would be the cry against any one who would dare hold the mirror for such a Judge to see himself! Ah, yes, when the real libel is to distort the law and degrade the mission of justice on earth!
María Amparo Ruiz de Burton's The Squatter and the Don appeared in 1885 and was based partly on the author's own California experiences.
Marìa Amparo Ruiz de Burton, date unknown. Larger.
The 1848 Treaty of Guadulupe Hidalgo marked an end of hostilities between Mexico and the United States. It also ceded to Americans possession of a whole new region, which included Alta California.
Unfortunately, the Californio's who already owned land here had to prove title to American administrators, a situation made worse by land squatters who regarded disputed lands as public domain. But not all Americans thought it right to take advantage of the Californios' plight, according to novelist Marìa Amparo Ruiz de Burton, who uses the character of a squatter's wife to make a moral argument.
. . . I say those laws which authorize you to locate homesteads upon lands claimed as Mexican grants, those laws are wrong, and good, just, moral citizens should not be guided by them. Settlers should wait until the titles are finally approved or rejected. See! Look back and see all the miseries that so many innocent families have suffered by locating in good faith, their humble homes upon lands that they were forced to abandon. Our law-givers doubtless mean well, but they have—-through lack of matured reflection, I think, or lack of unbiased thought—-legislated curses upon this land of God's blessings. I love my country, as every true-hearted American woman should, but with shame and sorrow, I acknowledge that we have treated the conquered Spaniards most cruelly, and our law-givers have been most unjust to them. Those poor, defenseless ones whom our Government pledged its faith to protect, have been sadly despoiled and reduced to poverty.
With The Squatter and the Don, Marìa Amparo Ruiz de Burton is said to have written the first fictional work in English told from the Californio point-of view.
below to hear radio segment.
