A Final Plea

Mason Labash

Maria Amparo Ruiz De Burton Journal

February 2, 2011

“All I want to do is to save the few cattle I have left. I am willing to quit-claim to you the land you have taken, and give you cattle to begin the stock business, and all I ask you in return is to put a fence around whatever land you wish to cultivate, so that my cattle cannot go in there.”

“The growing complexity of public affairs and the increasing tendency of Congress to intrude into matters of transportation, education, overseas shipping, rivers and harbors improvements, agriculture, and industry were absorbing the time of members of Congress who could no longer give the detailed attention of the past to private land claims or to the great number of private financial claims that were deluging it.”

Don Mariano has very few cattle left and is desperate to maintain his business that has been passed down for many years. Because he is desperate as well as generous he is even going to give away much of his prized grazing land to squatters that have only recently began inhabiting the region. He must also give them cattle to start their businesses or else the squatters will surely never stop planting grain based crops. Because they are white he has basically no choice, but to negotiate with them as opposed to just booting them off. It is a shame that Don must go through so much sacrifice to put up fences that are so unnecessary. His cattle may occasionally nibble on the neighbor’s grain, but that is so very far from the real root of the problem-jealousy. The squatters are jealous that Don is making money, but it is only because he knows how to work the system and he is extremely willing to share his knowledge.

As a Californio, Mariano knows that arguing with the whites would be as good as kicking himself off his land because of the unfairly worded laws such as the Land Act of 1851. The squatters look past the fact that the Don has already given up much of his land to them and it very much seems like they took that gift completely for granted. I would mainly attribute this greediness to their knowing that the state of California’s ridiculous laws are completely in their favor. With the law on their side they could easily take the Don to court knowing he would undoubtedly lose all of his land because of the color of his skin. All of the whites save for a select few such as Clarence Darrell and Mr. Mechlin, come off as completely stubborn and arrogant as well as extremely rude. They snicker at his desperation so it is no wonder they would refuse anything he proposed (even free cattle!). Don Mariano was once a proud, flourishing farmer and out of pure kindness he has gotten himself to the point of pure despondency.

Works Cited 

Gates, Paul. The California Land Act of 1851. California Historical Quarterly.Vol. 50, No. 4. (Dec., 1971), pp. 395-430) .Published by: California Historical Society. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25157352

FoundSF. Web. <http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Category:Bernal_Heights>.