HELEN HUNT JACKSON
A novelist and a poet, Helen Jackson's remarkable A CENTURY OF DISHONOR stirred public outrage over the U.S. government's
mistreatment of Native Americans. Her book centered on seven tribes, among
them: Cheyennes, Nez Perce, Sioux, Cherokees and detailed four massacres in
particular.
She was born Helen Maria Fiske in Amherst, Massachusetts, probably on October 18, 1830 (her monument says 1831). She had two brothers, both of whom died shortly after birth, and a sister named Anne. Her father was a minister, author, and professor of Latin, Greek, and philosophy at Amherst College. Her mother died in 1844, and her father died three years later, leaving her in the care of an aunt.
She had a good education, having attended Ipswich Female Seminary and the Abbott Institute, a boarding school in New York City. She was a classmate of the poet Emily Dickinson, also from Amherst. The two carried on a correspondence for all of their lives, but few of their letters have survived.
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| Helen Maria Fiske Hunt Jackson |
In 1852, Helen Fiske married United States Army Captain
Edward Bissell Hunt, who died in a military accident in 1863. Her son Murray
Hunt died in 1854 of a brain disease and her other son, Rennie Hunt, died of
diphtheria in 1865. Helen began
traveling and writing after these deaths.
In the winter of 1873-1874 she was in Colorado Springs,
Colorado in search of a cure for tuberculosis. There she met William Sharpless
Jackson, a wealthy banker and railroad executive. They married in 1875,
together just ten years before she died of cancer in 1885.
Scholars know her as Helen Hunt Jackson, but she never used
that name herself—she only used one married name at a time: Helen Hunt or Helen
Jackson.
In 1879, her interests turned to the plight of the Native
Americans after attending a lecture in Boston by Ponca Chief Standing Bear, who
described the forcible removal of the Ponca Indians from their Nebraska
reservation. Jackson was angered by what she heard regarding the unfair
treatment at the hands of government agents and became an activist. She started
investigating and publicizing the wrongdoing, circulating petitions, raising
money, and writing letters to The New York Times on behalf of the Poncas.
She also started writing a book condemning the Indian policy
of the government and the history of broken treaties. Her book, A CENTURY OF DISHONOR,
called for drastic changes to be made; it was published in 1881. Jackson then sent a copy to every member of
Congress with an admonishment printed in red on the cover, "Look upon your
hands: they are stained with the blood of your relations." But, to her
disappointment, the book had little impact.
She then went to southern California to take a much needed
rest. She had become interested in the area's missions and the Mission Indians
on an earlier visit, and now she began an in-depth study. While in Los Angeles,
California, she met Don Antonio Coronel, a former mayor and city councilman who
had also served as State Treasurer. He was a well-known authority on early life
in the area and was also a former inspector of missions for the Mexican
government. Don Antonio described to Jackson the plight of the 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 land grants had clauses
protecting the Indians on the lands they occupied. But when Americans assumed
control of the southwest after the Mexican-American War, they ignored Indian
claims to these lands, which led to mass dispossessions. In 1852, there were an
estimated fifteen thousand Mission Indians in Southern California. But, because
of the adverse impact of dispossessions by Americans, by the time of Jackson's
visit they numbered less than four thousand.
The stories told by Don Antonio spurred Jackson into action.
Her efforts soon came to the attention of the U.S. Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, Hiram Price, who recommended she be appointed an Interior Department
agent. Jackson's assignment was to visit the Mission Indians and ascertain the
location and condition of various bands, and determine what lands, if any,
should be purchased for their use. With the help of Indian agent Abbot Kinney,
Jackson criss-crossed Southern California and documented the appalling
conditions she saw. At one point, she hired a law firm to protect the rights of
a family of Soboba Indians facing dispossession of their land at the foot of
the San Jacinto Mountains.
During this time, Jackson read an account in a Los Angeles
newspaper about a Cahuilla Indian who had been shot and killed. His wife, it
turned out, was named Ramona. In 1883, she completed her fifty-six page report, which
called for a massive government relief efforts, and while a bill embodying her
recommendations passed the U.S. Senate, it died in the House of
Representatives.
Not discouraged, Jackson decided to write a novel that would
depict the Indian experience "in a way to move people's hearts." An
inspiration for the undertaking, 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.
Jackson was particularly drawn to the fate of her Indian
friends in the Temecula area of Riverside County, California and used the story
of what happened to them in her novel which was begun in December 1883, with an
original title of IN THE NAME OF THE LAW. The manuscript was completed in slightly over
three months and it became her classic novel, RAMONA, about a
part-Indian orphan raised in Spanish California society and her Indian husband,
Alessandro. Published in November 1884,
it achieved almost instant success.
Jackson then intended to write a children's story on the
Indian issue but her health was
deteriorating rapidly and she died of cancer in San Francisco, California in
August 12, 1885.
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| Helen Jackson in later years |
Her last letter was written to President Grover Cleveland,
urging him to read her early work A CENTURY OF DISHONOR. Speaking
to a friend, Jackson said, "My A CENTURY OF DISHONOR and RAMONA are the only things I have done of which I am glad. They
will live and bear fruit."
Oh, write of me, not "Died in bitter pains,"
But "Emigrated to another star!"
~Helen Hunt Jackson
Each year, the city of Hemet stages "The Ramona
Pageant", an outdoor play based on Jackson's novel RAMONA.
At her request, Jackson was buried October 31, 1885, at
Inspiration Point in scenic South Cheyenne Canyon, southwest of Colorado
Springs. According to GPS-derived geolocation (accurate to within 10 meters),
the memorial's coordinates are latitude 38°46'51.9"N and longitude
104°52'36.7"W. Because the scores of people flocking to her gravesite were
threatening the natural beauty of the canyon, her remains were moved to the
family plot at Evergreen Cemetery, Colorado Springs, on November 7, 1891. The
land is now part of Seven Falls, a privately owned recreation area that charges
an entrance fee. The plaque on the large mound of rocks that was her original
burial site reads:
IN MEMORY OF HELEN HUNT JACKSON
1831-1885
AND HER BOOK
"RAMONA"
WHICH WAS INSPIRED BY THE BEAUTY
OF THIS SPOT
Sources:
Caroline Clemmons is the bestselling and award winning author of western contemporary and historical novels. Her latest is #42 in the American Mail-Order Brides series,
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