Super Short Summary

In The Squatter and the Don by María Amparo Ruiz De Burton, William Darrell moves to San Diego in 1872 to legally settle contentious lands, while Don Mariano Alamar fights to protect his property from squatters; amid legal and ethical disputes, their families become intertwined through romances and financial struggles, highlighting the broader social and political challenges faced by Californios post-Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. References to racist policies, rhetoric, violence (including allusions to chattel enslavement), sexist attitudes, animal death, gun violence, and possible death by suicide are present in the book.