Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. On August twenty first of
twenty twenty five, the White House website published something called

(00:23):
President Trump is Right about the Smithsonian. This was a
bulleted list of supposedly objectionable content from Smithsonian museums. Parts
of this list cite the conservative online magazine The Federalist,
or the conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, and

(00:44):
the American Conservatives, So like, if you try to follow
the links to see what they're talking about, you're going
to these websites, not to the Smithsonian. The first thing
on this list involves material from a portal called Talking
about Race from the National Museum of African American History
and Culture, which continues to be a very favorite go

(01:07):
to source of complaints about the Smithsonian, even though it
was removed five years ago. It's like the thing that
gets trotted out every time somebody wants to complain that
the Smithsonian does not match their ideological views. A lot
of what is in this list is really pulled out

(01:28):
of context or distorted and it also includes stuff just
like flying Pride flags at the museum. How Dare Right?
You can tune in on Friday for our behind the
scenes for my thoughts on a number of things about
this article because I have them. It won't even be
all of my thoughts because there's too many. But what

(01:51):
is relevant to today's episode was this quote the National
Museum of the American Latino describes the post Mexican American
War California describes a Californio family losing their land to
American squatters. In that quote, the words Californio and squatters

(02:13):
are in scare quotes, as though there's something fishy about
those words. Also, if you're thinking, Tracy, did you read
that right? Because that did not make any sense. I
read it exactly as it is written. Something is garbled
in it. It looks like maybe the middle part of
it was cut out. I don't know. But a Californio
family losing their land to American squatters is just a

(02:35):
straight forward description of how When what is now California
became part of the United States, there were Spanish speaking
people who already lived there. They are known as Californios.
They lost their land to newly arrived English speaking Anglos
who claimed that land through squatting. In other words, this
is just a deeply normal thing for a museum about

(02:59):
American life Latinos to talk about. So when I followed
the link to see what this mangled sentence was in
reference to, it actually did go to the Smithsonian website.
Unlike a lot of the other ones, it went to
a page about an eighteen eighties printing press. It is
referencing a caption about a novel that was printed in
eighteen eighty five. That novel was called The Squatter and

(03:22):
the Dawn, and it was published under the name See Loyal,
which is a pen name of Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton,
who we are talking about today. Maria Amparo Ruiz was
born on July third, eighteen thirty one. According to most sources,
she was born in Laredo, Mexico, but it's possible that

(03:44):
she was born in La Paz. At the time, these
were both small communities, and the capital of Baja California.
Sir or Southern Lower California, moved from Laredo to La
Pause a few years before Maria was born. The uncertain
tea about her birthplace is because official records from both
towns are incomplete. Lapaz has been the site of a

(04:07):
series of indigenous uprisings and had been abandoned at a
couple of points, and the capital moved out of Laredo
after that town was hit with heavy rains and flooding.
The records held in La Pause were also damaged later
on during the Mexican American War. We know that Maria
lived in La Pause when she was in her teens,

(04:27):
but not exactly when she got there. Maria's mother was
Isabelle Ruiz Mantarana, and she had a brother named Federico.
One of the sources that I used for this episode
says that her father's last name must have been Ourango
based on how Maria's name appeared on her marriage license,
but another source said that her father was Jesus Mantorana.

(04:50):
Either way, there's almost no mention of her father and
her surviving correspondence, and it really doesn't seem like he
was really a part of her life. The surname Maria
U until her marriage was that of her maternal grandfather,
Jose Manuel Ruiz, and that name carried some prestige. The
Ruises were not wealthy, but they had land and respect.

(05:11):
Prior to Mexico's independence from Spain, Jose Manuel Ruiz had
served in the Spanish Army, and his service had earned
him a land grant, which became Rancho and Senata de
Toro Santos. After Mexico became independent, he was appointed governor
of Baja Californio sir and served for three years. The
Ruizes also had connections to the Carrillo family, who were

(05:34):
prominent landowners who helped found and lead a number of
communities in what is now California. By the time Maria
was born, her grandfather had retired and he died when
she was about four years old. Maria was fifteen and
living in La Paz on May thirteenth, eighteen forty six,
when the United States declared war on Mexico for a

(05:56):
quick recap. Texas had been part of Mexico, but had
declared itself an independent republic in eighteen thirty six, and
then the United States had annexed Texas in eighteen forty five,
but the southern border of Texas was in dispute. The
United States claimed that border was at the Rio Grande,
while Mexico claimed that it was farther north at the

(06:19):
Nueces River. President James K. Polk appointed John Slidell as
Minister to Mexico and sent him to negotiate with the
goal of establishing the border at the Rio Grande and
purchasing Mexican territory in what is now the southwestern United States.
When Mexican President Jose Jaquin Herrera refused to meet with Slidell,

(06:40):
Polk ordered troops to the disputed region. When Polk received
words that those troops had been attacked by Mexican forces,
he characterized it as a Mexican invasion into US territory,
even though from the Mexican perspective, that is what the
US had done. Not long after that Congress declared war.

(07:02):
A lot of the writing about the Mexican American War
is focused on places that are along what is now
the border between the United States and Mexico. That's been
the case on prior episodes of our show too. But
the US also wanted to capture the Baja California Peninsula,
that long peninsula that's between the Pacific Ocean and the

(07:24):
Gulf of California, the western part of what's now Mexico.
A volunteer regiment from New York was dispatched as part
of this effort, traveling by sea around Cape Horn and
arriving at Urbabuena, which is now San Francisco, California, in
April and May of eighteen forty seven. Two companies under

(07:45):
the command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry S. Burton arrived in
Lapause on July twenty first, while ranchers in the Mexican
Army fought back on other parts of the peninsula and
attacked the garrison at Lapause later on. At first this
was fairly peace. After taking control of Lapause, Burton handed
things back over to the civil government and allowed people

(08:07):
to retain control of their land under the condition that
they sided with the United States. Some of the more
prominent families in Lapase threw balls and other festivities to
entertain the soldiers. Maria Amparo Ruiz and Henry S. Burton
met at one of these events. The United States and
Mexico fought over parts of the peninsula into early eighteen

(08:30):
forty eight, and a lot of local people sided with
one or the other as the U. S. Army and
Navy took control of different regions and settlements on the peninsula.
People living there were told that it was going to
become part of the United States and that they would
have all of the rights and privileges of US citizenship.
When that happened, President Polk and multiple high ranking military

(08:54):
leaders repeatedly said that the peninsula would be part of
US territory once the war. War was over, of course,
there were people who remained loyal to Mexico who did
not want that at all. There were also other people
who did. But once the war ended with the signing
of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Baja California Peninsula

(09:14):
wasn't part of the territory Mexico ceded to the United States.
The US military arranged for refugees from the peninsula who
wanted to become US citizens to be taken to what's
now California aboard American naval ships, with about four hundred
and eighty people being transported. Of course, not everyone went.

(09:35):
Some people had been opposed to the invasion and never
wanted to be part of the US in the first place,
and others were sympathetic to the US but also wanted
to stay where they were because they had land or
family or just some other reason that they didn't want
to go. One of the people who left the peninsula
after the Mexican American War was Maria Amparo Luiz, and

(09:57):
we will have more on that after a sponsor b.
As we mentioned before the break the war between the
United States and Mexico ended with the Treaty of Guadeloupe
Hidalgo in eighteen forty eight. Under the terms of that treaty,

(10:21):
Mexico seated roughly five hundred and twenty five thousand square
miles of land to the United States, including what is
now California, Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico, as well as
parts of Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. This session
was more than half of Mexico's territory. The treaty also

(10:44):
established the border of Texas at the Rio Grande, which
is what the United States wanted. So all of that
seemed like an obvious win for the United States, but
there was also some controversy. US President James Capel had
expected the treaty to be negotiated in Washington, d c.

(11:05):
But instead Nicholas Trist, chief clerk of the State Department,
decided to handle it on his own in the town
of Guadalupe Hidalgo, where the Mexican government had retreated after
the United States captured the capital of Mexico City. Among
other things, Trist thought the government in Washington, d C.
Was out of touch with the realities of what was

(11:25):
happening in Mexico. Honestly, it's wild to me, but he
was just like, I'll just negotiate this international treaty myself.
You don't get it anyway, let me go, let me
take a ride. There was probably some truth to the
idea that Washington, d C. Wasn't super connected to the
realities of what was happening in Mexico. As an example,

(11:48):
it took six weeks for a message recalling Trist to
Washington to actually get to him there, but communications within
Mexico could be kind of slow as well. Courses on
the Baja California peninsula took the town of Toto Santos
more than a month after the treaty was signed, at
which point the United States was officially no longer trying

(12:11):
to claim that territory. Many of the US military figures
involved thought leaving Lower California out of the Mexican session
was an abandonment and an injustice. For example, on April fourth,
eighteen twenty eight, Lieutenant Henry W. Halleck wrote a letter
to Colonel Richard B. Mason, Governor of Alta, California or

(12:31):
Upper California, which set in part quote, in this conflict,
some who thus sided with us lost their lives, many
their property, and all have exposed themselves to the vengeance
of the Mexican government. But these losses and dangers they
have willingly encountered in the hope of obtaining the better
government of the United States. They have regarded these promises

(12:53):
as made in good faith, and have been guided in
their conduct by the assurances thus held out to them
by the age of the American government. And now for
the United States to voluntarily surrender this country to the
Republic of Mexico and leave these Californians exposed to the
loss of life and confiscation of property for having sided

(13:14):
with us under the assurances thus held out to them,
would not only be itself a breach of national faith,
but would make us appear in the eye of the
world guilty of the most deliberate and cruel deception. The
US military effort on the Baja California Peninsula and the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had multiple direct effects on Maria

(13:37):
Amparo Ruiz and her family. As we've already said, they
left their home. They were transported off the peninsula as
refugees after the war was over, after arriving in what's
now California. Under Article nine of the treaty, they later
became US citizens. That article read quote the Mexicans, who
in the territories affwor said, shall not preserve the caure

(14:00):
character of citizens of the Mexican Republic conformably with what
is stipulated in the preceding article, shall be incorporated into
the Union of the United States, and be admitted at
the proper time to be judged of by the Congress
of the United States, to the enjoyment of all the
rights of citizens of the United States, according to the
principles of the Constitution, and in the meantime shall be

(14:23):
maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty
and property, and secured in the free exercise of their
religion without restriction. The treaty, as negotiated by Nicholas Trust,
also contained provisions regarding land grants that people had received
from the Spanish or Mexican government prior to July seventh,

(14:45):
eighteen forty six. Quote, All grants of land made by
the Mexican government or by the competent authorities in territories
previously appertaining to Mexico and remaining for the future within
the limits of the United States shall be respected as
valid to the same extent that the same grants would
be valid if the said territories had remained within the

(15:06):
limits of Mexico. That language is not in the final treaty, though,
when presenting the treaty to the Senate for ratification, Polk
said of this language quote to the tenth article of
the treaty, there are serious objections, and no instructions given
to mister Tryst contemplated or authorized its insertion. The public

(15:29):
lands within the limit of Texas belong to that state,
and this government has no power to dispose of them
or to change the conditions of grants already made. All
valid titles to land within the other territories ceded to
the United States will remain unaffected by the change in sovereignty.
And I therefore submit that this article should not be

(15:50):
ratified as part of the treaty. The US Senate struck
that language out before ratifying the treaty on March tenth,
eighteen forty eight, with a vote of thirty eight to fourteen.
The question of what would happen to land grants from
the Spanish or Mexican government in territory that became part
of the US would later be a huge part of

(16:11):
Maria Amparo Ruiz's life and will be getting back to it.
But the more immediate impact of all of this on
her was that after she and her mother were taken
to Monterey in what is now California, she enrolled in
school to learn English in addition to the French and
Spanish that she already knew, and on July seventh, eighteen

(16:32):
forty nine, she married Captain Henry S. Burton. This was
a few days after her seventeenth birthday, and Henry Burton
was twenty eight. This marriage was also so controversial. It
wasn't unheard of for girls in Maria's social class to
get married in their late teens, and the difference between
their ages doesn't seem to have been regarded as particularly unusual,

(16:56):
but marriages between Anglo men and Mexican wims men really
were not common in the aftermath of this war, at
least in the immediate aftermath. This was also more than
just an Anglo man and a Mexican woman. Maria was
from a very prominent, respected, and well connected Mexican family,
and Henry was one of the leaders of the US

(17:17):
invasion of Mexico, so some people saw Maria and her
family as traitors. Another issue was religion. Henry was Protestant,
while Maria and her family were devoutly Catholic, so some
people just thought a marriage between the two of them
was heresy. Also during the Mexican American War, at the

(17:38):
request of Franciscan Padre Jose Gonzales Rubio, military Governor Richard B.
Mason had issued in order that California officials not authorized
marriages in which one of the parties was Catholic. The
Catholic Bishop of Alta and Baja California refused to sanction
Maria and Henry's marriage. One of Maria's old suitors also

(18:01):
went to church authorities to try to stop it. Contemporary
accounts described Maria as beautiful and Henry as in love
with her, and they ultimately got married in spite of
all of this, the Reverend Samuel H. Willie conducted a
Protestant ceremony at the home of General Ers Canby, who
later had to explain his actions in this to his

(18:23):
superior officers. The couple also had a private Catholic ceremony
in Santa Barbara before two witnesses. In spite of all
this controversy, the wedding at the Canby home was a
huge social affair. One account described Canby's wife as being
at the ceremony along with nearly every Protestant in Monterey.

(18:45):
Among Anglos, Maria was regarded as Mexican aristocracy, attractive, charming,
and well educated, and there's even speculation that she was
the inspiration for an eighteen forty eight ballad called the
Maid of Monterey, which describes the arrival of the Maid
of Monterey as silencing the gunfire of a battle during
the Mexican American War and then giving comfort and aid

(19:09):
to the injured soldiers. That ballad ends quote, here's to
that bright beauty who drove death's pang away, the meek
eyed Seniorretta, the Maid of Monterrey. About a year into
their marriage, Maria and Henry had a daughter, Nelly, and
then a couple of years later they had a son,
also named Henry. The children grew up speaking both English

(19:31):
and Spanish. California was admitted to the United States as
the thirty first state on September ninth, eighteen fifty, at
which point it was in the frenzy of the Gold Rush.
The elder Henry remained in the U. S. Army, and
in eighteen fifty two he was transferred to San Diego.
He purchased land that had belonged to Piopico, the last

(19:52):
governor of Alta, California when it was Mexican territory. This
land had been granted to Piopico by the Mexican governm
and then sold to four other men, whose rights to
it Henry purchased. Henry started a ranch called Rancho Hamoul,
which totaled more than half a million acres. San Diego
was a military town, which Maria described as quote frightfully

(20:16):
dull and dry and dusty. She became responsible for arranging
entertainment and cultural activities for the soldiers and their families.
This included writing and staging an adaptation of Don Quixote,
with the soldiers playing all of the parts. Apparently Maria
had to work to convince the ones that were cast
in women's roles to wear dresses for it. In eighteen

(20:40):
fifty nine, Henry was transferred to the East Coast. Maria
and the children went with him, while her mother and
brother stayed behind to run the ranch. Maria and the
children stayed on the East Coast for the next decade,
including when Henry returned to California on leave before the
start of the Civil War and when he was briefly
stationed at Alcatraz Island. As long as Henry was on

(21:04):
the East Coast, Maria seems to have moved with him
whenever he did. It's possible that during some of that time,
the children were sent to a boarding school. Over the years,
they lived in Rhode Island, New York, Delaware, Virginia, and Washington,
d c. Maria attended the first inauguration of President Abraham
Lincoln in March of eighteen sixty one, and she later

(21:27):
became friends with First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. After the
Civil War, Henry was stationed at Fort Monroe in Virginia,
where Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his wife Verena were
being held as prisoners afore, and Maria also became friends
with Verena. Henry was promoted several times during his career
with the US Army and was eventually brevetted as a

(21:49):
brigadier general. Unfortunately, his military service also led to his
death at the age of just fifty one. He was
part of the Siege of Petersborough, Virginia in eighteen sixty five,
which is where he contracted malaria, and on April fourth,
eighteen sixty nine, he died of a malaria related stroke.
He was buried at West Point with military honors. That

(22:13):
left Maria Emparro Ruiz de Burton as a widow with
two children at the age of thirty seven. Her only
immediate source of income was her widow's pension of thirty
dollars a month that was not enough to support the
three of them. She decided to return to California to
try to make a living for herself and the family
at Rancho Hamoul. We will talk more about that after

(22:36):
we paused for a sponsor break. When Maria Emparo Ruiz
de Burton returned to California in eighteen seventy, it had
changed dramatically from when she left it had been through

(22:57):
the boom and the bust of the Gold Rush and
the con destruction of the Transatlantic Railroad. There had also
been massive demographic shifts. At the start of the war
between the United States and Mexico, the overwhelming majority of
the non indigenous residents of what's now California were of
Spanish or Mexican descent. By the time California was admitted

(23:20):
as a state, its Anglo population had risen dramatically and
only about fifteen percent of its non indigenous population spoke Spanish.
When the Burton family got back to Monterey after a
decade on the East coast, only about four percent of
the population of California was Spanish speaking. The state of

(23:40):
California and its Anglo residence had also carried out a
genocide against the indigenous population. In the span of about
twenty years, about eighty percent of the indigenous population had
been murdered or died of introduced diseases or of overwork
after being enslaved and forced to work on ranch and
in mines. This genocide was connected to the US effort

(24:04):
to seize land in California for settlements, ranches, and mines,
and that circles back to those land grants that we
mentioned earlier. Although the treaty Nicholas Tryst had negotiated to
end the Mexican American War had protected grants that had
been made by the Spanish or Mexican government, the final treaty,
as ratified by Congress did not have that language. Some

(24:28):
of these land grants were enormous, and the United States
could not entice newcomers to move west if most of
the land there was already claimed. In eighteen fifty one,
Congress passed an Act to Ascertain and Settle private land
Claims in the state of California, also called the California
Land Act, and this was to assess those pre existing claims.

(24:50):
This process could take years, and about a quarter of
the assessed grants were ultimately invalidated. Since the land where
Henry Burton had established Rancho Jomul had been granted to
Popico and then sold to other people, there were multiple
layers to sort through. In eighteen fifty eight, the California

(25:11):
Land Commission had rejected the validity of Pico's claim, which
meant that those later purchases and Maria's claim as Henry's
widow were also considered invalid. Henry had tried to get
that decision overturned when it first happened, but this whole
process had been put on hold during the Civil War.

(25:32):
Then Henry had died without a will while only part
way through the process of giving a man named EFR. M. W.
Morse's power of attorney so that he could act on
Maria's behalf while she was still on the East Coast.
This was part of Maria's decision to return to California,
and she wound up an i legal battle over this

(25:53):
land that would go on for the rest of her life.
She also had an ongoing fight over land and sonata
on the Baja California Peninsula that had belonged to her grandfather.
The Mexican government recognized this grant, but there were multiple
people trying to claim it in addition to Maria. Maria
hired good lawyers and got familiar enough with the law

(26:16):
to write her own briefs, and she traveled, including to Washington,
d C. To advocate for herself and her family. While
enmeshed in these legal battles, Maria did still have access
to that land, and she tried to support herself and
her children on the ranch as had been true of
her family in Mexico, she was often in a position

(26:37):
where she had land, at least in theory, but not
really any money. She was usually trying to figure out
how to manage and pay off various amounts of debt.
With the help of some financial backers, she and her
eighteen year old son Henry established Haamul Portland Cemit Manufacturing
Company to make lime from limestone that was on their land.

(27:00):
This company lasted from eighteen sixty nine to eighteen ninety one.
They also raised cattle, and they grew wheat and barley,
and rented wildflower meadows to beekeepers. Ruiz de Burton also
tried to earn money by writing. Her first novel, published
in eighteen seventy two by J. P. Lippencott, was titled

(27:20):
Who Would Have Thought It? It was published anonymously, but
its record in the Library of Congress lists the author
as Missus Henry S. Burton. This is the first book
by a Mexican American author known to have been published
in English. This novel wasn't exactly autobiographical, but it was
deeply influenced by Ruiz de Burton's feelings and experiences as

(27:44):
a Mexican woman who had lived through the Mexican American War,
married an Anglo man, moved to the United States, and
spent years living on the East Coast among soldiers and
politicians and wealthy New Englanders during the Civil War. The
central character of the book is Maria Dolores Medina, also

(28:04):
called Lola, who was captured by indigenous people as a
child and then placed in the custody of the Norval
family after being rescued. One plot line is a love
story between Lola and Julian Norval, and there's also a
lot of pointed satire and criticism of the people that
Lola encounters. There are depictions of abolitionists as simultaneously self

(28:27):
righteous and racist and hypocritical, with some of them disparaging
Lola for her dark skin, which was dyed black by
her captors, until they find out she is rich. One
character is a caricature of a minister who was probably
based on the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and accusations that
he was having an affair with Elizabeth Tilton, who was

(28:49):
a married member of his church. The novel also points
out the irony that abolitionists were fighting to end slavery,
which had been abolished in Mexico in eighteen twenty one,
decades before the US Civil War, while treating Mexican Americans
as second class citizens in spite of the terms of
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This book also framed railroad

(29:12):
monopolies as treating the people of the Southwest as slaves.
Ruiz de Burton's next publication was the text of Don
Quixote de la Mancha, a comedy in five acts taken
from Servant's novel of that name. That's the play she
had staged back in San Diego in the eighteen fifties.
It was published in eighteen seventy six. Ruiz de Burton's

(29:35):
second and only other known novel is the one that
was referenced on that page on the eighteen eighties printing
press at the Smithsonian website, The Squatter and the Dawn,
a novel descriptive of contemporary occurrences in California, and that
was published in eighteen eighty five. Ruiz de Burton published
this under the name see Loyal or loyal citizen in Spanish,

(29:59):
that's Dana Leal, which was also a common sign off
on official correspondence in Mexico. Ruis Dea Burton had initially
planned for this to be a short story, which her
friend George Davidson suggested she write and then have published
somewhere like a literary magazine. There was one called The Californian.

(30:19):
When it turned out to be a way longer narrative
than would fit in a short story, she started thinking
that it might work as a serialized novel, printed in
The Californian or in some other journal. When that didn't
work out either, she worked out a deal with Samuel
Carson and Company, which was a small publisher in San Francisco.
Carson also published The Overland Monthly, which was a successor

(30:43):
to The Californian, but he doesn't seem to have thought
this book was a good fit for the journal, otherwise
he might have decided to print it there. Also, he
marketed it alongside travel books about the West, which, like that,
is not the genre. This book was like the book
who would have thought it? The Squatter in the Dawn
drew from Ruiz to Burton's own experiences and observations. Like

(31:07):
the name suggests, it was related to her efforts to
keep control of the land her husband had purchased, and
the laws that made it progressively harder for Californios to
retain control of their land, including after squatters settled on it.
We already mentioned the passage of the California Land Act
of eighteen fifty one. The eighteen sixty two Homestead Act

(31:28):
allowed homesteaders to receive one hundred and sixty acres of
government land if they lived on and improved it, which
prompted millions of people to move west with the hopes
of staking acclaim. Since it could take years or even
decades for a Californio landowner to get their claims recognized
by the United States. If the US recognized them at all,

(31:50):
it was possible to lose most or all of it
to squatters while the legal process was being carried out.
Squatters were also known to harass, intimidate, and in some cases,
even kill landowners. The novel also depicts how this influx
of newcomers to the West sparked tensions between ranchers who

(32:10):
raised cattle and farmers who grew crops, and who was
responsible for building and maintaining the fences that were needed
to separate the crops from the cattle. The Trespass Act
of eighteen fifty required the farmers to do it, but
that was changed under the No Fence Law of eighteen
seventy four, which instead required it of ranchers. After the

(32:33):
passage of the No Fence Law, a lot of people
turned from ranching to farming rather than trying to fence
in their cattle. The Squatter in the Dawn is set
between eighteen seventy two and eighteen seventy six, and it
focuses on the Californio family of Don Mariano Alamar and
their efforts to retain their land in the face of

(32:54):
an influx of squatters and the demands of the incoming railroads.
Our faces continual obstacles both to remove or negotiate the
squatters and to work with the railroad to try to
benefit from its construction. In Ruez de Burton's experience, Anglos
often perceived Californios as backward and unable to keep up

(33:17):
with the changes to the law and the culture, and
to developments and things like agriculture and ranching, But she
depicts Don Mariano Alamar as smart and savvy, and as
trying to work with newcomers and educate them. On farming
and ranching techniques that would work in the Southwestern geography

(33:37):
and climate, which of course were not at all the
techniques that these folks were used to in the East.
This shift in land use would eventually be part of
things like the California water wars that we've talked about
on the show before, including in our episode on Mary
Hunter Austin that came out in March of this year,
Like who would have thought it? The Squatter in the

(33:58):
Dawn has a love story which is between an Anglo
man named Clarence Daryl and a Mexican American woman named
Mercedes A Lamar. Their marriage has a tinge of idealism.
It helps resolve some of the novels racial and ethnic
tensions by uniting these two sides. This novel ends with
a really straightforward criticism of laws like the Homestead Act

(34:22):
and the California Land Act and the impact that they
were having on Californios. Quote our representatives in Congress and
in the state legislature, knowing full well the will of
the people, ought to legislate accordingly. If they do not,
then we shall, as Channing said, kiss the foot that
tramples us. And in anguish of spirit, must wait and

(34:45):
pray for a redeemer who will emancipate the white slaves
of California. So white slaves. So much nineteenth century writing
characterizes injustice in terms of slavery, which is what's happening here.
But to be clear, Ruiz de Burton's focus was on
Californios and their loss of land to Anglo squatters, not

(35:08):
on the rest of the Mexican population of California. She
also was not really focused on the Chinese laborers who
were building the railroads, or on the indigenous peoples who
had been forced off their land and killed. As Spanish
colonists and conquistadors started arriving in what is now the
United States and after California became a state at the

(35:30):
same time, Ruiz de Burton's writing and the way she
lived her life are often seen as assimilationist. She saw
the best way forward for Californios as acceptance into the
more affluent, more influential class of Anglos in California while
also retaining their land. While she's the only Mexican American

(35:51):
woman known to have published novels in English in the
nineteenth century, what she was writing about was also at
odd with a lot of middle and working class Mexican
Americans who were way more focused on preserving their own
culture while trying to attain the equal rights that they
had been promised under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo rites

(36:14):
that they were not being given at all. They were
not so focused on the idea of assimilation with Anglos. Conversely,
while moving within Anglo circles, Ruez de Burton clearly saw
herself as different from them. She had strong connections to
her ancestry and culture and her home on the Baja
California Peninsula. She made and maintained friendships with other Latinos

(36:37):
wherever she lived, and she kept up with what was
happening in Mexico, everything from what was going on with
friends and family members who were still there two major events,
like the Reform War over the Mexican Constitution of eighteen
fifty seven. While her published work was in English, much
of her personal correspondence was in Spanish. Maria Amparo Ruiz

(36:58):
d Burton ultimately lost her fight for land in both
Mexico and in the United States. After decades of legal battles.
She was awarded the title to some of her grandfather's
land in Mexico, but then her mother, Isabelle sued her
over it. Isabel claimed that she had been given paperwork
to sign that had been written in English, so she

(37:20):
didn't understand it well, and she had thought that paperwork
would give Maria a power of attorney, not rights to
the land. The Supreme Court of Mexico eventually overturned Maria's
claim to her grandfather's Rancho and Sonata. Maria's claim on
Rancho Hamoul also went through a series of reversals and

(37:41):
then reversals of those reversals, and more than one hundred
squatters made claims on it and challenged Maria's title. In
eighteen ninety one, she finally lost nearly all of Rancho Hamoul,
aside from Henry Burton's original homestead there. She did not
give up, though, and when she died on August twelfth

(38:02):
of eighteen ninety five, she was in Chicago on a
trip that was connected to these ongoing legal disputes. In
the years after her death, Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton's
work was largely forgotten. It started getting more attention in
the early two thousands, when new editions of her work
were printed along with collections of her letters and books

(38:23):
about her. Today, she is known as one of the
earliest Mexican American authors and a rare example of a
first person Mexican perspective on things like the Mexican American War,
the tumultuous and violent establishment of California as a state.
Written in English for an English speaking audience, that is,

(38:43):
Maria Imparo Ruiz de Burton, do you have listener mail?
I do I have a quick listener mail? I meant
to read this a while ago. It's correcting something from
an episode that has been out for a bit at
this point, but I mislaid this email. This is from Amy,
and Amy wrote, Ladies, I started listening to you less
than a year ago when I had to unplug from

(39:03):
the news as an ally pediatrician and staunch vaccine proponent.
When the world brings me down, you are my rainbow. Thanks,
thank you for all you do. The recent Beatrice Kenner
and Mildred Smith episode made me smile, as my office
manager is a Kenner. Smith. When telling her about the
podcast the next day. To share the smile, she recalled
hearing about a great ant bee growing up her daughter

(39:27):
is a history major, and we'll be starting down that
genealogic rabbit hole soon. I did a double take when
you spoke about the Bush Gardens traffic, as I only
live one exit away and know that traffic well. Beatrice
likely lived in the King's Mill not Hill area, though
betting this was a transcription error from an interview based
on some of the other discrepancies you found for pet tax.

(39:50):
I have attached two pictures of my Izzy. She is
an Amstaff Hittie Pound rescue. The first is shortly after
joining our family several years ago, the other a more
recent shot of her preferred cinnamon bun sleeping pose, love
and light, Amy, Thank you so much. Amy. When I
got this email, I have been to Busch Gardens. I've

(40:12):
been to that part of Virginia aside from going to
Bush Gardens. As soon as I saw the word King's Mill,
I was like, obviously it's King's Mill. Why would it
have said Hill? And I actually think that was just
my typo that I didn't catch and like, I don't know,
I just uh. The second that I saw King's Mill,

(40:33):
I was like, yes, obviously that's what it's called. Why
would I have said anything else. I don't know, so
I apologize for that typo however it came to be.
And then we have such a cute little puppy dog.
Oh my goodness. One of the pictures doesn't want to
load for me at the moment, but in the first one,

(40:54):
this puppy dog has gotten into the shrubbery and she
is peeking out from all the foliage with that smiling,
panting mouth that pities do. Very cute. One ear is
flopping over and the other ear is like kind of
almost inside outed, flopping around anyway, so cute. Thank you

(41:18):
for that email and for that correction that I meant
to read like a month ago. If you would like
to send us some notes about this or any other podcast,
where you're at History Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com, and
you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app
and anywhere else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff

(41:42):
you missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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