The Life and Impact of Helen Hunt Jackson - Research Paper Example

Jerry Ciacho December 7, The Life and Impact of Helen Hunt Jackson Helen Hunt Jackson was indeed a remarkable lady who was most well-known for her campaign, involvement, and effort on behalf of the rights of Native Americans. She was a prominent woman in the nineteenth century recognized as a supporter and campaigner of the American Indian people. Born as Helen Fiske in the thirtieth day of October in 1830, she grew up in a town called Amherst situated in Hampshire County in the state of Massachusetts with the care and provision for her parents and sister, Anne. Helen’s father was Nathan Welby Fiske. He was not only a preacher and a writer; he was also a university lecturer of Latin, Greek and Philosophy at Amherst College. Her mother was Deborah Waterman Vinal. Helen had two other brothers but because of misfortune, both passed away right after they were born. In 1884, another great tragedy and adversity struck Helen’s life. At a very early age, she had lost her mother and three years later, only seventeen years old; her father had died as well. This was a very difficult time in Jackson’s life as it was her father who was financing and paying for her education. Before he had passed away, he prearranged for her aunt to take her in and take care of her. She then went to New York City and attended school in Ipswich Female Seminary. She later transferred to the Abbott Institute. This institute was a boarding school, which was managed by Reverend J.S.C. Abbott. Emily Dickinson, American poet, who also studied at Amherst when both Emily Dickinson and Helen Jackson were only young girls, became her classmate. Their friendship in the long run became lifelong. Throughout their lives, they kept in touch and wrote letters to each other. Only a small number of these letters have survived. In 1852, at a young age of twenty-two, Helen was married to Edward Bissell Hunt, a captain for the United States Army. The following years would be the time of a series of tragedies and loss for her. Helen and Edward both had two children. One, Murray Hunt, did not survive as a newborn due to a brain illness. Eleven years after their marriage, in 1863, Edward breathed his last breath in a military mishap. Two years after that, in 1865, her second son and only family member left, Rennie Hunt, passed away too because of diphtheria, a contagious respiratory tract illness. She would later meet William Sharpless Jackson around 1873 to 1874, a rich banker and railroad administrative, whom she would remarry a few years later in 1875. The two met at the Seven Fall’s resort in Colorado Springs, Colorado while she was seeking and in search of a cure for tuberculosis. When they got married, Helen took on the family name Jackson. This name is was the name she often used and is often recognized in her publications and writings. Helen Hunt Jackson is known in history as one of the first campaigners and activists for the native people of America. Jackson was an author of many novels and books who casted doubt on the actions taken by the government of America when it came to the Native American people. Her career as a novelist initiated after the passing away of her first husband and two sons. She wrote and published her first few works anonymously and under another name, frequently in the initials of H.H. Ralph Waldo Emerson, American lecturer, essayist and poet greatly had a high regard for Helen’s poems and often, he used more than a few of her poetry in his public harangues, lectures and readings. He even took in five in the anthology of poetry that he published in 1874 entitled Parnassus. After Jackson heard a lecture by Standing Bear, a Ponca Native American chief, in which he exemplified the forceful ejection of the Ponca people from their reservation, or land set aside for them, in Nebraska to the Indian Territory of the Quapaw Reservation. In this place, the people were suffering from all kinds of illnesses, poor supplies and harsh climate. Jackson, upset about the maltreatment of the American government representatives to the Native Americans, was profoundly moved and was motivated to become a campaigner and protestor. She began examining and looking into misconducts, passing around formal requests and appeals, raising funds and even writing to the New York Times newspaper in support of the Ponca people. Jackson engaged herself in many intense arguments and discussions with many national officials about the unfairness and the unjust treatment in opposition to the American Indians. One of her particular targets was Carl Schurz, the thirteenth United States Secretary of the Interior. There was such heated exchange of words that once; she had called him "the most adroit liar I ever knew." Jackson uncovered and revealed to the public the infringement of agreements of the government with the American Indian ethnic groups. She also kept a record of the corruption of agents and officers who impinge on and embezzle Indian lands. Furthermore, Helen spent immeasurable hours giving lectures about the factual account and existing dilemma of Native people in America. She formally requested for acts, laws and civil liberties as their representative. At one point, she took on the service of a law firm to defend and care for the human rights of a Soboba Indian family who was dealing with withdrawal of their land at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains. After writing and publishing A Century of Dishonor in 1881, she received numerous criticisms and as the New York Times wrote, she "soon made enemies at Washington by her often unmeasured attacks, and while on general lines she did some good, her case was weakened by her inability, in some cases, to substantiate the charges she had made; hence many who were at first sympathetic fell away." Helen Hunt Jackson later traveled to southern part of California for rest and a breathing space after a period of controversy. She then became very engrossed and concerned about the local missions and began a comprehensive study. She later met Don Antonio Coronel who was the earlier mayor of Los Angeles and he let her know about the troubles and predicaments after 1833 of the Mission Indians. They were beaten up by policies of the Mexican and the American government, which caused their later discharge from mission lands. In the initial land grants, the government of Mexico granted these lands to resident Indians. Once America took control of the area roughly around 1848, they in general ignored the residence claims. Previously, there were about fifteen thousand Mission Indians living in Southern California. During Helen’s visit, there were only four thousand left. The account of Don Antonio Coronel enthused Jackson to take action. By 1883, she finished her report. While Jackson began a rough draft back in California, she started writing the novel in December that same year in New York. It took her about three months to complete. The completed novel was originally titled In The Name of the Law but she decided to publish it as Ramona in 1884. This book was published three years after A Century of Dishonor. It introduces a half Indian and half-Scots orphan girl who grows up in a Spanish Californian society. It then exemplifies her Indian husband named Alessandro and their long effort and struggle to be able to possess land of their own. In writing Ramona, she wanted to portray and illustrate the experiences and struggles of the Indians "in a way to move peoples hearts." She also wanted to save the Soboba Indians from the same fate that happened to the Temecula and San Pasqual people. She also mentions that the Soboba Indians were her favorite. Because she sought after the direct plead of this book to the reader’s feelings and emotions, and to stimulate opinions, viewpoints and concerns of the public for change and better treatment of their difficulties just as Uncle Toms Cabin had accomplished for the slaves. However, her success was partial. The novel attained quick success amongst a wide public and it became very popular for many different age groups. In addition, its dreamy story of romance and love helped tourism in Southern California grow. For the reason that the people were generally more emotionally involved to the romantic mental picture, Jackson was upset and frustrated that she was not able to lift the visibility of Indian concerns. More than half a million copies of her book have been sold and it has never been out of print since it was published. Helens publications were one of the very first documentaries advocating for native people. Even though her works such as her novels and books have caused a nationwide pandemonium, she persisted to defend and support her cause. She has even dared those who were against her, including President Theodore Roosevelt. At present, Helen Hunt Jackson’s groundbreaking and open-minded works such as her novels and books is still being reprinted. It is also still being read, studied and talked about by the American people all across the nation. Positive and confident by the success and immense popularity of her novel, Helen Jackson decided and intended to author a story for children that talked about Indian issues and problems, but she was not able to live to finish the book and publish it. Jackson passed away at fifty-five years old due to stomach cancer in 1885 in San Francisco, California. Her husband, William, prearranged for her funeral and burial on a large area on a high lying plateau that was overlooking Colorado Springs, Colorado where they first met. Helen’s grave was eventually transferred to Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs. She used both of her married names, Helen Hunt with her first husband and Helen Jackson with her second, but literary experts and other scholars, at the present, refer to her as Helen Hunt Jackson. Her most famous book, Ramona, might not have been like Uncle Toms Cabin which she wanted and desired, but this novel along with her other publications and literary works such as her many writings on the Mission Indian’s struggle and effort served as a catalyst for other reformers and activists. Helen Hunt Jackson showed great and unfathomable care and love for the Indians of California, such as the Sobobas. She cared and thought about them to the point wherein she ignored and chipped away her health while dedicating the very last and final few years of her great life to improving their lives and the conditions in which they lived in. She truly loved them probably even more than herself. Her numerous writings and other works that are still existing right now, as a result, became a great and immense legacy to other campaigners and reformers. These activists appreciated and prized her work, dedication and life enough to keep on going and continuing the long struggle and even just at the very least to make an effort to enhance and better the living conditions of Americas first residents. Her legacy not only as an advocate, as a campaigner and as a fighter, but also a person has remained until today. Her life-dedicated work for the rights and betterment of the lives of the Native American people shaped and formed America, in one way or another, what it is now today. She has not only contributed and made a great big change in the treatment of the Native Americans by the government; she has also changed the views and perspectives of the wide public about the Indian issues. She has, in a way, opened the eyes of the Americans and has made them more aware of the problems and struggles that the Natives were facing. Clearly seen through her passion of saving and helping these people through her novels and books, she says, “As soon as I began, it seemed impossible to write fast enough - I wrote faster than I would write a letter - two thousand to three thousand words in a morning, and I cannot help it.” Today, her impact and influence not only locally, not only in the country but even the entire world was manifested into books about her life and work and even films and movies about the life that she led. Her narrative literary work was modified and adapted into a movie film by the same name. Released in the year 1910, this movie was directed by D. W. Griffith and it starred actress Mary Pickford as Helen Jackson. In one movie review of the film, a member of the press wrote regarding the book, calling and describing it as "the long and lugubrious romance by Helen Hunt Jackson, over which America wept unnumbered gallons in the eighties and nineties," and complained of "the long, uneventful stretches of the novel." Moreover, the novel was again adapted for many movies and films by the same name in 1928 and in 1936. In these movies, she was portrayed by prominent and leading actresses of that time. Works Cited Banning, Evelyn I.. Helen Hunt Jackson. New York: Vanguard Press, 1973. Print. Jackson, Helen Hunt. Ramona: A Story. Boston: Little, Brown, 1939. Print. Mathes, Valerie Sherer. Helen Hunt Jackson and Her Indian Reform Legacy. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. Print. Whitaker, Rosemary. Helen Hunt Jackson. Boise, Idaho: Boise State University, 1987. Print. Read More