59 pages • 1 hour read
The Squatter and the Don
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Themes
Reconstruction, the Fate of the South, and the Texas Pacific Railroad
Content Warning: This section of the guide references racist policy, rhetoric, and violence (including allusions to chattel enslavement), sexist attitudes, animal death, gun violence, and possible death by suicide.
Following the American Civil War during the Reconstruction Era, railroad access was the economic force that dictated the growth or decline of a city. The Central Pacific Railroad, often known merely as “the transcontinental railroad” connected New York to Sacramento in 1869, providing exponential economic growth to the cities and towns along its length. Sacramento and San Francisco saw booms because of their fast connection to the industrialized Northeast. Meanwhile, the South, particularly in the eastern half of the country, grappled with economic devastation resulting from the destruction caused by the war itself and from the rapid restructuring of society in a post-enslavement era. Animosity roiled between Northern contingents that blamed the former Confederacy for the devastation and grief of the Civil War and Southern contingents that decried the hypocrisy of being “punished” for the war despite supposedly being equally and fully reintegrated into the country. Radical Republicans, the liberal political party at the time, took and held control of Congress and enacted laws that were wildly unpopular among white people in the South, who were predominantly Democrats.
In The Squatter and the Don, the promise of a southern transcontinental railroad holds deep political and economic resonances. Indeed, Mr. Holman describes such a railroad as something that San Diego is rightfully entitled to: “By right, San Diego is the terminal point of a transcontinental railway” (243). Building such a railroad would provide an economic bounty to the parts of the country that needed it most and constitutes a gesture of goodwill toward the Southern population that felt alienated from its lawmakers. The failure to build such a railroad, by contrast, signaled the opposite of these positive indicators. If the railroad (which would become linked to the idea of the Texas Pacific specifically and its champion, Tom Scott, as indicated in The Squatter and the Don) did not happen, it was because Congress failed to provide the same subsidies granted to the northern line. It was because the US government allowed the greed of a few Northern men to supersede the needs of half of the country.
Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s California setting emphasizes the injustices felt by the South during this economic disenfranchisement. San Diego was, in its early years, known as a pro-enslavement town despite California as a state never allowing enslavement nor being part of the Confederacy. If refusing to allow a southern transcontinental railroad is a punishment, as the novel suggests, it punishes too broadly, affecting those beyond the borders of what Abraham Lincoln famously called “the states in rebellion.” By linking the death of the Texas Pacific to the greed and corruption of the railroad magnates and Congress, Ruiz de Burton connects regionalism with immorality, painting the radical Republicans in Congress as the ones committing racist injustice—a contrast to the dominant cultural narrative that showed these lawmakers as champions of civil rights for the formerly enslaved living in the South.
Sentimentality, Sympathy, and Whiteness
In The Squatter and the Don, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton explores the theme of Sentimentality, Sympathy, and Whiteness through the characterization of her protagonists, particularly Mercedes Alamar and Clarence. The novel leverages the tradition of sentimental fiction, a genre often utilized by women writers for political purposes, to navigate complex racial dynamics and underscore social critiques. By depicting characters who adhere to the sentimental archetypes while simultaneously confronting racial otherness, Ruiz de Burton both adheres to and complicates the conventions of the genre as she examines race, emotion, and moral integrity.
Mercedes Alamar’s characterization is central to the novel’s engagement with sentimentality and whiteness. Her depiction adheres closely to the sentimental heroine archetype, emphasizing her emotional sensitivity, loyalty, and moral fortitude. This emotionality is illustrated when Mercedes is literally sickened with sadness at Clarence’s departure, underscoring her emotional investment and aligning her with the traditional sentimental heroine who garners reader sympathy through her physical and emotional suffering. Moreover, her oft-described physical attributes, such as her blonde curls and blue eyes, emphasize her whiteness even as her status as a Spano-American means her racial identity is ambiguous according to 19th-century ideologies. This emphasis on her appearance aligns her with white supremacist values within the narrative, complicating her status as racially “other” while positioning her as an idealized figure within the sentimental tradition. In this way, her characterization reveals how the sentimental heroine’s ability to garner sympathy hinges on her proximity to whiteness.
Clarence’s characterization further illustrates the novel’s engagement with sentimental archetypes. His financial success and political ideologies are depicted as indicators of his goodness. For example, his declaration in Chapter 7 that he will oppose bad laws even at personal cost illustrates his moral integrity and his commitment to justice. This portrayal of Clarence as a morally upright character aligns with the sentimental fiction tradition, where characters’ virtues are highlighted to evoke sympathy and admiration from readers. His relationship with Mercedes is framed as an ideal marriage through a sentimental lens, suggesting that true goodness and suitability as a spouse transcend racial, religious, or cultural differences.
Furthermore, the novel uses illness to underscore the long-reaching effects of emotionally and politically unjust actions. Mercedes’s illness and Victoriano’s injury are not merely personal tragedies but are imbued with political significance, highlighting the broader social and economic impacts of corruption and injustice. By depicting these emotional and physical afflictions, Ruiz de Burton extends the sentimental tradition to address political themes, illustrating how personal suffering can reflect and critique broader societal issues.
Woman and Moral Action
As rigid gendered social roles became increasingly muddled in the 1880s, furthered by women’s participation in labor forces and public affairs as well as the conscious push by women’s rights groups, gendered structures of power became highly visible in the literary, cultural, and political scenes of postbellum America. Despite this, gendered structures of power persisted, with economic and legal decisions framed as the domain of men. In The Squatter and the Don, female characters like Mrs. Darrell engage in both the political and social realms through influencing the men in their lives, revealing that public-facing moral action can be enacted from within a stereotypically feminine sphere of influence: the domestic world.
Mrs. Darrell appeals to trickery and honesty to secure her family’s land and her moral security, revealing that patriarchal authority can be influenced and subverted by women. In asking her son to pay for the land behind his father’s back, Mrs. Darrell manipulates generational patriarchal authority within the family. Having Clarence, the family’s oldest son, be the official hand that pays Don Mariano Alamar legitimates the transaction and keeps the literal action appropriately in the possession of men, even as it delegitimizes the Darrell patriarch’s supposed rightful authority. Mrs. Darrell plays on her son’s practical and ethical notions but manipulates most expertly his emotional connections. She asserts her maternal role and reminds Clarence of his romantic aspirations with Mercedes Alamar, doomed to fail if he becomes attached to a family who has cheated Mercedes’s own. Clarence does his mother’s bidding and becomes the possessor of this action throughout the rest of the novel; without dirtying her hands, Mrs. Darrell gets what she wants, maintaining domestic tranquility and geographic stability for her family’s home. Mrs. Darrell thus represents a near-political figure that skirts the limits of permissible moral action for women whose role is normally constrained to moral authority.
Mrs. Darrell’s actions reveal a nuanced understanding of the interconnectedness of personal relationships and broader socio-political dynamics, further highlighting the complexity of female agency in the novel. Her ability to influence Clarence underscores a strategic use of emotional intelligence and moral persuasion, a form of resistance against the rigid gender norms of the time. For instance, Mrs. Darrell’s insistence on the importance of familial harmony and ethical dealings with the Alamar family not only serves her immediate goal of securing the family land but also positions her as a moral compass guiding her son through the tumultuous socio-political landscape of postbellum America. This manipulation extends beyond trickery; it is an exercise in ethical diplomacy, where Mrs. Darrell balances the need for economic security with a commitment to justice and fairness. Her actions thus challenge conventional patriarchal authority by demonstrating that women, even within their constrained domestic roles, can wield significant influence in their socio-political environment. This dual role as both moral guide and shrewd strategist positions Mrs. Darrell as a pivotal figure who navigates and negotiates the boundaries of gendered power structures, revealing the potential for women to impact public affairs from within the ostensibly private sphere.
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