15 h 28 minAudiobook12 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the land your family has held for generations becomes someone else’s claim overnight?
In California’s San Diego country after the Gold Rush, Don Mariano Alamar trusts honor and the law to protect his cattle ranch. American settlers arrive with claims of their own. In María Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s The Squatter and the Don, a generous landowner faces a struggle over property, belonging, and his family’s future.
Across the quarrel, Mercedes Alamar and Clarence Darrell fall in love. But Clarence’s father claims land on the Alamar range, forcing the young man to weigh family duty against principle. Courtship and wit share the page with fierce arguments about justice, as lawsuits, money, and railroads put pressure on a household and its way of life.
What you’ll discover
- Love across a divide Follow Mercedes and Clarence as affection draws them across their families’ bitter dispute.
- A ranch under pressure Enter a household where hospitality meets settlers determined to claim the surrounding land.
- The cost of trust Watch Don Mariano’s faith in justice confront the hard demands of lawsuits and money.
- California from another side See the struggle over California through Spanish-speaking landowners facing threats to their family property.
- Wit with an edge Meet a storyteller who moves between family rooms, courtrooms, and politics with anger and humor.
Who will love it
For readers who love historical fiction with a political edge, nineteenth-century romance, and California history, with families caught between land disputes, courtship and the power of railroads.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A ranch caught between two nations
- Squatters arrive and hospitality is tested
- Two young people cross the divide
- The law becomes a weapon
- Pressure on the range and a divided conscience
- Railroads, politics and the larger plot
- Land, race and who belongs
- Justice, money and the cost of trust
- A comic, angry and romantic voice
Who’s who
- Don Mariano AlamarA generous Californio rancher who trusts in honor and the law to protect the land his family has held for generations.
- Doña JosefaThe Don's wife, who runs the household firmly and watches the family's troubles with a practical mind.
- Mercedes AlamarThe Don's thoughtful and spirited daughter, who loves Clarence Darrell and wants her family's rights respected.
- Gabriel AlamarThe Don's son, who feels the insults of the settlers more sharply than his patient father does.
- Clarence DarrellA principled young American who loves Mercedes and must decide where his duty lies when his father's claim threatens her family.
- William DarrellClarence's father, an educated settler who stakes a claim on the Alamar range yet wishes to behave like a gentleman.
- Mr. GasbangA loud and greedy squatter, drawn by the author as a comic example of the settlers who take what they can.
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- 15 h 28 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 12 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Lo squatter e il Don
by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton · 1885
Mercedes loves Clarence, but his father's claim threatens the ranch her family has held for generations.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Squatter and the Don is a novel about what happens to a family of Spanish-speaking landowners in California after the United States takes the territory from Mexico. María Amparo Ruiz de Burton published it in 1885.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A ranch caught between two nations
The novel opens in a California that has changed owners but not yet changed its habits. In 1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war between Mexico and the United States. Under its terms the Mexican families who lived in the territory were promised that their property would be respected. Ruiz de Burton starts from that promise, because the whole book is about how it was broken.
The center of the story is the Alamar ranch in the San Diego country. Don Mariano Alamar is a rancher of Spanish descent who owns herds of cattle and a great stretch of land. He is generous, trusting and proud of his name. His wife, Doña Josefa, runs the household with a firm hand, and they have a son, Gabriel, and daughters, Mercedes and Elvira.
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What is The Squatter and the Don about?
It is about a Californio ranching family in the San Diego area who lose ground to settlers, lawsuits and railroad interests after the United States takes California, with a love story between two young people from opposite sides.
Who is the squatter and who is the don in the title?
The don is Don Mariano Alamar, the landowner of Spanish descent. The squatters are the American settlers who occupy his land and claim it under settler laws, among them William Darrell and the loud Mr. Gasbang.
Is The Squatter and the Don based on a true story?
It is fiction, but it rests on real history. The author drew on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Land Act of 1851, squatter disputes and railroad politics of the 1870s and 1880s, and published it in 1885.
The author
María Amparo Ruiz de Burton
1832–1895 · Mexican-American novelist
María Amparo Ruiz de Burton (1832–1895) was a Mexican-American writer born in Loreto, Baja California. She later lived in California and died in Chicago. She wrote in English. Her novels include Who Would Have Thought It? (1872) and The Squatter and the Don (1885), published under the name C. Loyal.
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