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Helen Maria Hunt Jackson (pen name, H.H.; October 15, 1830 - August 12, 1885), was an American poet and writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the United States government. She described the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her novel Ramona (1884) dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California after the Mexican-American War and attracted considerable attention to her cause. Commercially popular, it was estimated to have been reprinted 300 times and most readers liked its romantic and picturesque qualities rather than its political content. The novel was so popular that it attracted many tourists to Southern California who wanted to see places from the book. Early years and education Helen Maria Fiske was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, the daughter of Nathan Welby Fiske and Deborah Waterman Vinal Fiske. Helen's father was a minister, author, and professor of Latin, Greek, and philosophy at Amherst College. She had two brothers, Humphrey Washburn Fiske (?-1833) and David Vinal Fiske (1829-1829), both of whom died soon after birth, and a sister Anne. They were raised as Unitarian. Anne became the wife of E. C. Banfield, a federal government official who served as Solicitor of the United States Treasury. The girls' mother died in 1844, when Helen was fourteen. Three years later, their father died. He had provided financially for Helen's education and arranged for an uncle to care for her. Fiske attended Ipswich Female Seminary and the Abbott Institute, a boarding school in New York City run by Reverend John Stevens Cabot Abbott. She was a classmate of Emily Dickinson, also from Amherst; Emily became a renowned poet. The two corresponded for the rest of their lives, but few of their letters have survived. WORK: Bits of Travel (1872) Bits about Home Matters (1873) Saxe Holm's Stories (1874) The Story of Boon (1874) Mercy Philbrick's Choice (1876) Hetty's Strange History (1877) Bits of Talk in Verse and Prose for Young Folks (1876) Bits of Travel at Home (1878) Nelly's Silver Mine: A Story of Colorado Life (1878) Letters from a Cat (1879) A Century of Dishonor (1881) Ramona (1884) Zeph: A Posthumous Story (1885) Glimpses of Three Coasts (1886) Between Whiles (1888) A Calendar of Sonnets (1891) Ryan Thomas (1892) The Hunter Cats of Connorloa (1894) Poems by Helen Jackson Roberts Bros, Boston (1893) Pansy Billings and Popsy: Two Stories of Girl Life (1898) Glimpses of California (1914)