Great Isle

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Great Isle
Grosse Ile.jpg
Waters Gulf of Saint Lawrence
Archipelago Isle-aux-Grues
Geographical location 47 ° 2 ′  N , 70 ° 40 ′  W Coordinates: 47 ° 2 ′  N , 70 ° 40 ′  W
Great Isle (Quebec)
Great Isle

Grosse Isle (French: Grosse-Île) is an island (not to be confused with the municipality of Grosse-Île on the Magdalen Islands ) in Québec in the Saint Lawrence River in Canada . Today it is the national memorial site Grosse Île and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site of Canada . There the history and importance of immigration for Canada and especially Québec, the misfortune of the Irish immigrants during the typhus epidemic in 1847 and the role of the island as a quarantine station of the immigration port of Quebec from 1832 to 1937 are exhibited.

Immigration and quarantine station

By 1830, about 30,000 immigrants arrived at the port of Quebec, which was the central Canadian port for European immigrants, annually. About two thirds of the arrivals were from Ireland. At this time, Europe was shaken by smallpox and cholera epidemics , so that a quarantine station was set up on the island in 1832. This was expanded and existed until 1937. Over four million people came there over the years. The official death register lists 7480 burials on the island.

Epidemics

In 1832, several ships carrying cholera-infected passengers reached the island. The ways in which the disease was infected had not yet been adequately researched and the ward was not adequately equipped to treat so many infected people that, following early releases, the disease spread rapidly in Canada and claimed thousands of lives.

In 1834, the cholera was not recognized on immigrant ships in Grosse-Isle and was able to break out again in the region and again claimed thousands of lives.

In 1847 the island was hit with full force by a typhus epidemic . Many Irish had to emigrate due to the famine in Ireland . They were encouraged to do so by the landlords, sometimes with false promises and money, in order to get less able-bodied people, such as widows, children, the elderly, the physically injured and the weak, from their lands and also forced to emigrate through British policy. Ships unsuitable for passenger traffic, mostly used to transport timber from Canada to Europe, were used for emigration on the return trip for a fee. Provided with little and inferior food and without sanitary facilities, the people crammed together below deck had to endure a six to twelve week crossing to North America. Typhus, which can be transmitted by lice, spread among passengers and crews, and thousands of people died on these so-called coffin ships ( floating coffins ) during the crossing, and their bodies were mostly thrown overboard. In the first week of June alone, 84 such ships arrived on the island. They reeked of illness and death and the quarantine station had only provided sleeping places for a maximum of 200 people. Prison inmates were brought to the island as auxiliary workers. The healthy could not be separated from the infected and there were only limited disinfection options, and the still healthy people should urgently have been separated from the ships waiting for clearance or quarantined. Of the over 90,000 migrants who finally came to the island in 1847, around 30,000 were infected and had to be treated in hospitals. Over 5,400 migrants, crew members and staff from the quarantine station died on the island. The House of Assembly protested to Queen Victoria in 1848 against this form of British migration policy.

In 1849, about 39,000 migrants arrived on the island and the cholera outbreak came again, so that one day a quarter of the population fell ill with cholera and 60 people died on the island within 2 weeks. More than a thousand deaths occurred in the city of Quebec.

Quarantine station around 1910

In 1854, the people of a cholera-free ship came into contact with the occupants of an infected ship unnoticed by island personnel and carried the disease to Québec, where hundreds of deaths occurred.

Up until the 1850s, the quarantine facility was characterized by hasty and improvised construction, inadequate equipment and a lack of knowledge about the spread and healing of epidemics. After the great epidemic outbreaks and with the independence of Canada, the island was better and better equipped, medical progress and the acceleration of the Atlantic crossings through the use of steamers improved the situation of the newcomers. The number of arrivals rose to 225,000 in 1914 by World War I. With the Great Depression , the number of arrivals decreased dramatically, while medical advances made it possible to treat cholera, typhoid and smallpox on the mainland. The station was therefore closed in 1937.

Commemoration

In 1909, the Ancient Order of Hibernians erected a Celtic cross with inscriptions in English, French and Irish to commemorate the typhus epidemic of 1847 .

In May 1974, the island was declared a National Historic Site named Grosse Île and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site of Canada. In May 1998 a partnership was formed with the National Irish Famine Museum in Strokestown Park. This is to better illustrate the transatlantic dimension of Irish migration.

  • Celtic cross

  • Lists of names and a look at graves

  • Graves

  • House of the Nurses

Web links

Commons : Great Isle, Quebec  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Grosse Île and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site of Canada . Parks Canada, accessed January 7, 2019.
  2. ↑ Grosse Île and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site . The Canadian Encyclopedia, accessed January 7, 2019.
  3. ↑ Aliah O'Neill: On This Day: Irish Famine ships arrive at Grosse Île quarantine station in 1847 . Irish Central, May 31, 2019; accessed January 7, 2019.
  4. ↑ The Cholera Epidemic of 1873 in the United States . US Government Printing, 1875, p. 563.
  5. ↑ George C. Kohn: Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence: From Ancient Times to the Present . Facts on File 2008, ISBN 978-0-8160-6935-4 , p. 57.
  6. ↑ George C. Kohn: Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence: From Ancient Times to the Present . P. 58.
  7. ↑ John A. Gallagher: The Irish emigration of 1847 and Its Consequences Canadian . CCHA Report 1936, University of Manitoba, accessed January 8, 2019.
  8. ↑ George C. Kohn: Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence: From Ancient Times to the Present . P. 62.
  9. ↑ George C. Kohn: Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence: From Ancient Times to the Present . P. 58.
  10. ↑ George C. Kohn: Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence: From Ancient Times to the Present . P. 58 f.
  11. ^ The evolution of the historic role of Grosse Île . Parks Canada, accessed January 8, 2019.
  12. ^ Byrne, Coleman, and King: Ireland and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History: a Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia . Volume 2, ABC-CLIO 2008, ISBN 978-1-85109-614-5 , p. 387.
  13. ↑ Grosse Île and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site of Canada . Canadian Register of Historic Places, accessed January 8, 2019.
  14. ^ History . Parks Canada, accessed January 8, 2019.