Don Mariano Alamar owns a great rancho near San Diego, but under American land law settlers like William Darrell can claim his acres while his title waits on the courts. Darrell’s son Clarence falls in love with the Don’s daughter Mercedes, and the romance unfolds against lawsuits, railroad politics and a Californio family’s steady dispossession in the 1870s.
A novel of 1885 telling the conquest of California from the Mexican American side, now widely read and taught. Download the free EPUB.