The Squatter and the Don

A historical romance with an activist heart, and an impassioned critique of U.S. expansionism—with an introduction by Ana Castillo, author of So Far from God

A fiercely partisan novel based on the author’s own experiences, The Squatter and the Don follows two families living near San Diego shortly after the United States’ annexation of California: the Alamares of the landed Mexican gentry, and the Darrells, the New Englanders who seek to claim the Alamares’ land. When young Clarence Darrell falls in love with Mercedes Alamar, the stage is set for a conflict that blends the personal with the political. 

A scathing critique of corporate capitalism, this story exposes the true historical plight of californios as their lands are taken away by a government with incestuous ties to the railroad monopoly—institutions laced with the greed and racism of nineteenth-century America’s expansionist agenda. 
 
The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.

María Ampara Ruiz de Burton (1832-1895) was born into a prominent family in Baha, California. Her grandfather, Don José Manuel Ruiz, was Governor of Baha. At 16, during the Mexican-American war, the author met U.S. Army Captain Henry S. Burton. She married him in 1849, became a U.S. citizen and moved with him to Monterey, and then San Diego. The newly promoted Brigadier-General Burton of the Union Army died in the Civil War, leaving the author with 2 young children to raise. She spent years fighting legal battles to over lands that she and her husband had owned, battling squatters and government officials much like Don Mariano's family in The Squatter and the Don. Her business ventures included the cultivation of castor beans, and a failed cement manufacturing company. Ruiz de Burton's literary works included newspaper articles, a theatrical comedy of Don Quixote, and the novel, Who Would Have Thought It?