Ramona is an 1884 American novel written by Helen Hunt Jackson. Set in Southern California after the Mexican-American War, it portrays the life of a mixed-race Scots-Native American orphan girl, who suffers racial discrimination and hardship. Originally serialized in the Christian Union on a weekly basis, 1] the novel became immensely popular. It has had more than 300 printings, 2] and been adapted four times as a film. A play adaptation has been performed annually outdoors since 1923. The novel's influence on the culture and image of Southern California was considerable. Its sentimental...

Helen Maria Hunt Jackson, born Helen Fiske (October 15, 1830 - August 12, 1885), was an American poet and writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government. She described the adverse effects of government actions in her history 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, it was estimated to have been reprinted 300 times and most readers...