The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Jackson, Helen (Fiske) Hunt
1830–85, American writer whose pseudonym was H. H., b. Amherst, Mass. She was a lifelong friend of Emily Dickinson. In 1863, encouraged by T. W. Higginson, Jackson began writing for periodicals. She is the author of poetry, novels, children’s stories, and travel sketches. In 1881 she published A Century of Dishonor, an historical account of the government’s injustice to Native Americans. This book led to her appointment (1882) as government investigator of the Mission of California. She subsequently wrote Ramona (1884), her famous romance, which presented even more emphatically the plight of Native Americans.
