Helen Hunt Jackson was born Helen Maria Fiske on October 15, 1830. During her life time she became one of our precious stars that used her gifts and talents to lift the plight of native peoples in California. Busy about panning for gold not many could hear her voice at that time. Her written words come to us down through the ages, heard and worked upon by those who stop to listen. She was indeed a good mother to California.
Helen was also a brilliant American poet becoming an activist for improved treatment of and justice for Native Americans. She described the adverse effects of government actions in her history book A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her novel Ramona (1884) dramatized the federal government’s mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California after the Mexican–American War and attracted considerable attention to her cause. Commercially popular, her book was estimated to have been reprinted 300 times.
Helen intended her novel Ramona to capture people’s attention. She said,“I am going to write a novel, in which will be set forth some Indian experiences in a way to move people’s hearts. People will read a novel when they will not read serious books.” She was inspired by her friend Harriet Beecher Stowe‘s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). “If I could write a story that would do for the Indian one-hundredth part what Uncle Tom’s Cabin did for the Negro, I would be thankful the rest of my life.” Helen’s novel was so successful it was made into multiple commercial films. You can fine them on YouTube
