# Don Juan Bandini — Two Years Before the Mast character guide

> Don Juan Bandini in Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr..

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Don Juan, Bandini, The Don

**First appearance:** 0012-x

## Snapshot

A decayed Californio aristocrat, elegant and penniless, sailing on charity while Yankee traders quietly strip his family's estate.

## Who they are

Don Juan Bandini is the son of a former Mexican governor, educated in the best society of the capital and now reduced to taking passage on the Pilgrim because he cannot pay for it. Graceful, well-spoken, and proud, he dances and waltzes beautifully while a coarse Yankee trader named his fellow passenger fattens on mortgages against the Bandini lands. Dana pities him — a man of high birth and no occupation, keeping up appearances before half-naked Indian boys — and his plight becomes a quiet emblem of California's old order giving way to American commerce.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/two_years_before_the_mast_se/characters/don_juan_bandini
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/two_years_before_the_mast_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/two_years_before_the_mast_se/characters