The Squatter and the Don (1885) is the most famous literary work by Chicana writer Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton. Scholars have recognized the novel, published under the pseudonym C. Loyal (a variant on Ciudadano Leal or Loyal Citizen that elided the author’s gender), as a significant entry into the Latinx-American literary canon, as well as an important narrative of the Californio population in the late 19th century. The novel addresses the role of ethics in the law, racist prejudice, and sentimental ideologies.

This guide is based on the 2021 Mint electronic edition of the text.

Content Warning: The source text references racist policy, rhetoric, and violence (including allusions to chattel enslavement), sexist attitudes, animal death, gun violence, and possible death by suicide.

Plot Summary

In 1872, William Darrell leaves his home in Alameda, near San Francisco, for San Diego, where he plans to “settle” lands (a contrast to “squatting” on lands that were legally in dispute after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo). His wife cautions him that she will not live on lands that have not been legally purchased. In San Diego, meanwhile, Don Mariano Alamar laments that squatters are increasingly overtaking his lands while his land grant (originally given by the Mexican government before the land was annexed to California) lingers in the courts. While he waits, the squatters kill Mariano’s cattle en masse due to “no fence” laws that let them leave their fields unfenced and then kill any animals that wander across them.

Darrell dislikes his new San Diego neighbors, whom he finds to be low-class and immoral. He prides himself on following the letter of the law as he stakes out land for himself and his eldest son, Clarence, out of Mariano’s holdings. When Clarence joins his father shortly thereafter, he does so under orders from his mother to pay for the land—otherwise, she will refuse to come south. Darrell promises to pay Mariano once the land dispute settles, something Clarence and Mrs. Darrell find insufficient, and the other squatters view as giving in to Mariano. Seeking to protect his dwindling herd, Mariano offers to help the settlers get started with livestock (a better trade for San Diego’s climate), but the settlers refuse. Clarence secretly pays Mariano for Darrell’s land, not telling his father that he has become very wealthy in stocks.

Clarence escorts his mother and siblings to San Diego. Along the way, they meet corrupt lawyer Peter Roper who intends to gain a foothold in San Diego. The Darrells and the Alamars become close, and Clarence grows romantically interested in Mercedes Alamar; Victoriano Alamar likewise pursues Alice Darrell. When Elvira Alamar marries George Mechlin, the son of the Alamars’ neighbor and friend, Mercedes is shocked to learn that her mother, Josefa, is sending her to New York with her newlywed sister. Josefa, not knowing that Clarence secretly paid for his land, disapproves of a romance between her daughter and a squatter.

Clarence seeks and gets Mariano’s blessing to pursue Mercedes. As this happens too late for him to clear up the miscommunication regarding his “squatterism” before Mercedes’s departure, he leaps aboard her steamboat and follows her to San Francisco. George and Elvira help clarify the confusion, and Clarence returns to San Diego to explain the truth of his payment to Josefa. Meanwhile, Mercedes gains two other suitors who are also headed east; Clarence fears she will come to love another while he is absent.

Clarence works to aid Mariano’s declining financial situation and purchases several of Mariano’s cattle, as he believes the squatters are less likely to keep killing the cattle if they belong to Clarence. He plans to establish a bank with George and Gabriel, though this will later fall apart due to the failure of the Texas Pacific Railroad, which would have caused San Diego to grow. Josefa, upon learning the truth of the land sale, gives her blessing for Clarence and Mercedes’s engagement; in the fall, Clarence travels to New York and proposes. He goes with the Mechlin family, friends of the Alamars’, to Washington, DC, where the corruption and bribery rampant in Congress shocks the men.

In May 1874, Mercedes and Elvira return to California with the good news that the land dispute has been decided in Mariano’s favor. Darrell, planning to make good on his promise of payment, is upset to learn that his son has already done so behind his back. He grows angry and attacks Mariano with a whip, causing Gabriel Alamar to lasso him. Clarence, temporarily gone for business, returns to San Diego to find the families in a feud. He believes Mercedes will wish to call off their marriage; through a series of miscommunications, he leaves San Diego believing their relationship is over. He decides to travel for several years. Misplaced letters leave the Darrell and Alamar families uncertain if he has survived. Various members of the families suffer protracted illnesses, including Mariano.

Mariano and two of his friends, Mr. Holman and Mr. Mechlin, go to San Francisco to meet with former governor of California Leland Stanford to ask about the fate of the Texas Pacific Railroad and, therefore, San Diego. Stanford unrepentantly explains that the Texas Pacific will not be built because the owners of the Central Pacific Railroad (the northern transcontinental railroad route) did not want to compromise their profits. The three men argue that this will mean the death of San Diego, but Stanford is unmoved. After returning home, Mariano’s health declines and he dies, something he attributes to “the sins of our legislators” (256). Shortly after, Mr. Mechlin dies, either by accident or by suicide. In the aftermath of her husband’s death, Mrs. Mechlin becomes trapped in a legal battle with corrupt Peter Roper.

While Gabriel and his wife struggle financially in San Francisco, George and Elvira suddenly encounter Clarence in Paris. He has recently received the long-lost letters and intends to return to California. The Mechlins accompany him. Just as they arrive in San Francisco, Gabriel, who is working as a bricklayer, suffers a significant injury. Clarence provides safe housing for Gabriel’s recovery and returns to San Diego, where he and Mercedes quickly marry, and Darrell apologizes for his bad behavior.

Clarence convinces the Alamar and Darrell families to move to San Francisco, where they live together despite hating the “railroad kings” whom they blame for the decline of San Diego. The novel ends with an exhortation for change and the lament that Southern California must wait for “a Redeemer who will emancipate the white slaves of California” (294).