María Amparo Ruiz de Burton
María Amparo Ruiz de Burton was a notable Mexican-American writer and social critic, born in 1832 in Loreto, Baja California, Mexico. As the granddaughter of a prominent military figure, she experienced significant political changes during her lifetime, particularly following the Mexican-American War. She married Captain Henry S. Burton in 1849, a union that symbolized the tensions between their respective cultures and backgrounds during a tumultuous period in American history. Ruiz de Burton became a widow in 1869 and faced the challenges of supporting her two children on an army pension.
Her literary contributions include the novel "Who Would Have Thought It?" published in 1872, which critiques the discrepancies between American democratic ideals and the realities of racism and social inequality. In 1885, she released "The Squatter and the Don," which reflects the struggles of the Californio population in post-war California. Ruiz de Burton's works often explore themes of identity, citizenship, and social justice, offering a unique perspective on the experiences of Mexican-Americans during the 19th century. Her papers are preserved in several libraries in California, highlighting her lasting impact on literature and history.
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Subject Terms
María Amparo Ruiz de Burton
Playwright
- Born: July 3, 1832
- Birthplace: Loreto, Baja California Territory, Mexico (now Baja California Sur, Mexico)
- Died: 1895
- Place of death: Chicago, Illinois
Biography
María Amparo Ruiz de Burton was born in Loreto, Baja California, Mexico, in 1832. She was the granddaughter of Don Jose Manuel Ruiz, commander of the Mexican northern frontier in the state of Baja California and governor of the state from 1822 to 1825. Ruiz de Burton met her future husband, Captain Henry S. Burton in 1847 during the Mexican-American War, when an expedition under his command arrived at La Paz to take possession of Baja California. She and her mother were among the refugees who were evacuated to Monterey in northern California and promised United States’ citizenship. In 1849, shortly after her seventeenth birthday, she married the twenty-eight year old Burton in a ceremony conducted by the Presbyterian minister, Samuel Wiley. This marriage was celebrated in California folklore as the union between enemies because of the Mexican-American War and the differences in their religions and nationalities. By 1853, the couple had two children, Nellie and Henry Halleck Burton.
While living in San Diego, California, in the 1850’s, Ruiz de Burton wrote and produced a five-act stage adaptation of Don Quixote de la Mancha and published the play in 1876. In 1853, the Burtons purchased land in California from Pio Pico, the former Mexican governor of California. Due to the tensions leading to the Civil War, Burton was ordered east in 1859, where he was promoted to major and then commissioned as a brigadier general in the Union Army. He contracted malaria fighting in the south during the Civil War and died in Rhode Island in 1869.
Ruiz de Burton was left a thirty-seven year old widow with two children to support on an army widow’s pension. In 1872, she published her first novel, Who Would Have Thought It? The novel satirizes a scandal between Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent abolitionist, and the wife of one of his friends. Ruiz de Burton exposes the discrepancy between democratic ideals and actual practice and suggests that the electoral system is for sale. The racism of northern abolitionists is exposed when they treat their adopted Mexican child as an inferior “black” and make her sleep with the Irish servants, who are also regarded as racially inferior. No author is listed on the title page, and though the Library of Congress lists the book under Mrs. Henry S. Burton, she preferred to conceal her authorship.
In 1885, Ruiz de Burton published The Squatter and the Don: A Novel Descriptive of Contemporary Occurrences in California, under the name C. Loyal, a reference to the Spanish phrase Ciudano Leal (Loyal Citizen), a common closing for official government correspondence in Mexico. The novel is related from the perspective of the conquered Californio population who had been promised full citizenship under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, but were second-class citizens by 1860. Ruiz de Burton launched a legal battle to have the Rancho Ensenada tract of land in California recognized as hers. When she died in 1895, she had just returned from Mexico City to prepare a new appeal. Her papers are located at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, California; Mission Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara, California; the Huntington Library in San Marino, California; and San Diego Historical Society.