Israel Wood Powell

Israel Wood Powell (born April 27, 1836 in Colborne, Norfolk County in Upper Canada , † February 25, 1915 in Victoria ) was a British doctor, politician, Indian superintendent and entrepreneur in British Columbia .

Life

Origin and education

Israel W. Powell was born in Colborne, Upper Canada, in 1836 to his father of the same name and his wife Melinda Boss. The father was a trader, the brother Walker Powell was from 1857 to 1861 a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada , the parliament of the British Province of Canada .

Israel Wood Powell was trained for three years in Port Dover by Dr. Charles William Covernton taught anatomy and physiology and enrolled in the medical school of McGill College in Montreal in 1856 . After completing his studies, he returned to Port Dover, where he opened a medical practice. He had become a Freemason at McGill and founded a lodge in Port Dover.

British Columbia, Freemason, Rise to Grand Master

After barely two years he wanted to emigrate to New Zealand , but rumors of gold discoveries in the Cariboo district of British Columbia prevented him from doing so. The Cariboo gold rush first drew him to Victoria, where he arrived on May 13, 1862. Two weeks later he opened a practice in the Anglo-American Hotel, for which he probably used his Masonic contacts. He served as a surgeon in the fire department and in the local militia , the Victoria Rifle Volunteer Corps . In April 1864 he began working at the hospital of the French Society for Welfare and Mutual Assistance, the Société française de bienfaisance et de secours mutuels .

In the Masonic Lodge he met numerous Americans who did not agree with the English rituals that had been introduced. Powell sought a connection with the Grand Lodge of Scotland, which preferred American rites. In October 1862 he became one of the founders of Vancouver Lodge No. 421. In December he became its master, in 1867 the Grand Master of the Province. On January 25, 1865, he married Jane (Jennie) Branks, who gave birth to five sons and four daughters.

From 1871 to 1875 Powell managed to become the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia, which united the lodges under English and Scottish jurisdiction. However, he left the lodge in 1877 after being wronged by a lodge member. He only rejoined her a few months before his death.

Political career

In 1863 he was elected to the House of Assembly of Vancouver Island . The group that set it up stood for responsible government , that is, the consideration of colonial interests against British, as well as free and public schools. Powell served as chairman of the General Board of Education, founded in 1865, from June 22, 1867 to April 1869.

In 1866 Powell, together with Amor De Cosmos , spoke out in favor of joining Canada, which was being established. Powell then lost his seat and failed in the elections of 1868. Nevertheless, he continued to support the connection to Canada.

Superintendent of Indian affairs

In gratitude for his support, he was appointed Superintendent of Indian affairs in British Columbia on October 17, 1872 . Since they were willing to take military action against indigenous resistance, he also became a lieutenant colonel in the militia.

In contrast to Joseph William Trutch , Powell supported the Indian claims to land as long as they did not stand in the way of his ideas of assimilation. Therefore, he criticized the government's policy, which wanted to withhold as much land as possible from the Indians and even withdrew water rights. Powell campaigned for reservations where at least survival was possible. On the other hand, he undermined their land acquisition and fought their central ritual gathering, the potlatch . In 1884 he was able to enforce an amendment to the Indian Act that made holding these festivities a criminal offense, a ban that remained in place until 1951. Powell was aware of the explosiveness of this decision, and so he instructed his Indian agents to discourage the Indians rather than take massive action against the celebrations.

In 1887 there were differences of opinion between Colonel James Baker and the Ktunaxa about an area on which the place Cranbrook stands today, and which was an important meeting place of the Ktunaxa. Fearing a riot, the settlers called the North-West Mounted Police for help, which sent 75 men. Their guide Sam Steele noted that two chief sons had been arrested in 1884 on suspicion of murder. As a result, the father and several warriors freed the prisoners from prison. Steele had the murder investigated and the men were acquitted.

After Powell's health deteriorated, he resigned from office in 1889. During this time he had bought and collected numerous artifacts for himself and for museums and collectors. So he sent about 150 tools and masks for Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn from the Geological Survey of Victoria (today GeoScience Victoria ) in Australia, mainly from Haida and Tsimshian . They became the core of the collection at the Victoria Memorial Museum (now the Canadian Museum of Nature) in Ottawa . He also sent "Flathead" skulls to the University of Toronto Museum and masks to Princess Louise, wife of Governor General Lord Lorne [Campbell]. He in turn gave one of these masks to the Crown Princess of Prussia. In 1882 many of his objects were exhibited in New York. In 1885 he sent the last consignment, the collection comprised 791 objects. Powell also benefited from his connections, which he let play for collectors who came to the Northwest from about 1885 and which drove up prices. Powell's greatest booty was what he thought was a haida canoe. It measured 64.5 feet and was able to carry around 100 men. It was made at Port Essington on the Skeena River. It reached New York in 1883.

As early as 1873, 15,000 acres of illegally acquired land (lot 450) belonging to the Sliammon was given to RP Rithet, a close associate of Powell. The area stretches from today's Grief Point to Sliammon. With this, three permanently inhabited villages and numerous seasonal settlements were expropriated from the Sliammon. In 1879 they were given a tiny reserve of 20 hectares per family (Canadian average: 80). Commissioner Gilbert M. Sproat (since 1875) was attacked in 1880 for overly lavish land allocation, particularly by Powell.

Soil speculator

Powell was one of those who expected Coal Harbor to become the terminus for the transcontinental railroad. In 1877 he and other speculators bought 330 acres of land in what would later become Vancouver. At the same time he was a member of the Vancouver Improvement Company , which also included Charles Thomas Dupont (1837–1923), Isaac and David Oppenheimer (1888–91 Mayors of Vancouver) and John Robson, who later became Prime Minister of British Columbia (1889–92) . Even before the annexation to Canada, this clique stood in opposition to the supporters of Victoria as the capital and the partisans of Governor James Douglas . Together with political friends, the group managed to get the Canadian Pacific Railway's terminus to be built on their land.

When the Medical Act was passed in 1886, Powell was elected the first President of the Medical Council of British Columbia . At the same time, he campaigned for a provincial university, and was appointed first chancellor of the University of British Columbia in 1890 , before the university was even founded. However, the rivalry between Victoria on Vancouver Island and the mainland sites let the project fail.

In 1890 Powell sold his shares in the Vancouver Improvement Company . At his death he owned stakes in farms in the valleys of the Fraser River , the Cowichan River and on the Saanich Peninsula . He also owned shares in the Wilson Hotel in Victoria and land and buildings in Vancouver and North Vancouver .

Various places are named after him, including the Powell River .

literature

• BA McKelvie: Lieutenant-Colonel Israel Wood Powell, md, cm In: British Columbia Historical Quarterly 11 (1947) 33-54.

Web links

• Israel Wood Powell . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).

Remarks

1. ^ A letter from the lodge with a list of officers and Powell's signature is in the University of Alberta and is available online .
2. ^ Douglas Cole: Captured Heritage: the Scramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts. University of British Columbia Press 1985, reprinted 1995, pp. 82-85.