Helen Hunt Jackson: Official Agent to the California Mission Indians

Abstract

Helen Hunt Jackson, prominent New England writer, began her love affair with California during a visit in the 1870s.1 She returned twice more to write sketches of its missions and Indian inhabitants, and to serve as Indian agent for the government. And finally she wrote the historical novel Ramona; her vivid descriptions of the cruelties suffered by the California Mission Indians still impress readers. Helen had turned to writing poetry in the early 1870s to assuage the grief resulting from the deaths of her husband and children. In the summer of 1872 she embarked on a two-month trip West with Sarah Woolsey (Susan Coolidge). They explored California, and Helen, who was chronically ill, was impressed with the healing effect of the climate. In January 1873, when suffering from diptheria, she remembered California's climate in a letter to a friend: