Week 5 Analysis: Burton

The Squatter and the Don

The Squatter and the Don tackles the story of the "Don" who is the head of a large cattle ranch that is now being invaded by squatters. The squatter's name is Darrell and he agrees to pay Don for the land he is squatting on but only if the current suits over the ownership of the ranch can be resolved. This theme of ownership and control is what I feel the author was trying to depict. The struggle for power and the idea of owning land is taken in to consideration. I felt that this story was a representation of European settlers and how they acquired the United States. The Europeans came in and took the land and used their laws and their systems of government to make the United States theirs. They used violence and just ran both Native Americans and the Spanish out of their homes and villages, and then claimed the area as their own. But in actuality, whose land is it? Does a piece of land belong to the person who originally claimed it and inhabited it, or the person who currently has it and took it by force? This is a very tough question because rightfully the original inhabitant should have the rights to a property, but at the same time if you were to buy land or take something over if someone had left it, then you should be entitled to it, so in the end this back and forth can get very out of hand. I think that the way Burton wrote this story gives a more centralist perspective into the story rather than set up one character as the villain and one as the hero. The story starts out by making you empathize with Don because there are people squatting on his property, which I think many people can agree that if someone were to come on to their property this would not be alright and the person would need to leave. This empathy begins to shift as you learn why Darrell is squatting and his role in the story. Darrell does not even realize that what he is doing on Don's ranch is wrong because the land is so big that he does not even know he is stealing, Darrell is just pillaging a land he believes to be uninhabited. Darrell's way of farming and raising cattle is completely different from the Don's and Darrell being a native Mexican who knows the land and how to heard animals see's Don's ranch as something that could and should be done better. In the end the story battles a concept of morals and during this time period there is much to be debated on who was right and who was wrong. I think that the author did a good job of not leaning too far to one side of the debate in this story and instead of pushing an agenda, let the reader decide for themselves who was right and who was wrong.