John Sebastian Helmcken

John Sebastian Helmcken, ca.1854, at Helmcken House, Victoria

John Sebastian Helmcken (born June 5, 1824 in Whitechapel, London , † September 1, 1920 in Victoria on Vancouver Island ) was a doctor, politician and trader for the Hudson's Bay Company . He is considered to be a decisive promoter of the connection of the province of British Columbia to the emerging Canada (and thus not to the USA ), as well as the elevation of Victoria to the provincial capital. He founded several medical institutes and was of considerable importance to the First Nations as well as to British Columbia's immigration policy.

Helmcken married on December 27, 1852 Cecilia Douglas (1834-65), a daughter of Governor James Douglas in Victoria, with whom he had four sons and three daughters. His home is the oldest surviving building in Victoria (right next to the Royal British Columbia Museum ) and now houses a museum dedicated to him, the Helmcken House .

Life

Origin and youth

John Sebastian Helmcken was the eldest son of Claus Helmcken (1781-1839) and Catherine Mittler (1795-1869), who married on September 17, 1817 in London and had eight children together. They were Lutherans. John Sebastian had three older sisters and one younger and three younger brothers, but he largely lost contact with them.

His father Claus Helmcken worked in a London sugar factory ( Messrs. Bowman’s ), where many Germans were employed , until 1825 , and later he was a grocer in the nearby White Swan Public House . According to his son's assessment, he was sickly, suffered from gout and drank too much, at the latest after his shop went bankrupt. So the care for the children lay mostly with the mother. Helmcken described her as loving, admired her circumspection and love for order, as well as her aversion to waste.

education

In 1828, John Sebastian's parents sent the boy, believed to be frail, to St George's German and English School in London. There the children were taught only in English, German, writing, arithmetic and geography . There, “order was the first law of heaven,” as Helmcken later recalled.

At 14, Helmcken went to Dr. William Henry Graves, for whom he had delivered medication as a schoolboy since 1837. There he did so well (and also learned Latin from a cleric) that Dr. Graves him to pharmacists and druggists trained. He became a doctor within five years, starting his studies at Guys Hospital (1844). During this time his father died of dropsy . In 1847 the young Helmcken was admitted to the Licentiate of the Worshipful Apothecaries Company of London . This society was responsible for the approval of all those working in the practical medical field.

Entrance to the Royal College of Surgeons of England

In June 1847 the treasurer Harrison offered him a position as ship's doctor. In the summer he sailed for the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) on the Prince Rupert ship to the York Factory on the southwest corner of Hudson Bay . There he met Inuit traders for the first time and returned to the hospital in the autumn, where he took the entrance examination to the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1848 . He was accepted into this society in March.

On the voyage he had met the Chief Factor Hargraves and his wife. Through further contacts he got on the ship Malacca , which was going to Bombay . For 18 months he sailed on the passenger ship through the Sunda Strait , between Sumatra and Java , towards Formosa and Hong Kong , then along the Chinese coast. Through the Strait of Malacca , it went back to England via Ceylon and Bombay.

Hudson's Bay Company and Family Formation

On October 12, 1849 Helmcken was hired for five years by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). On March 24, 1850 he reached Esquimalt on the Norman Morrison on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. But, as he noted, there was nothing “except land, water, canoes and Indians”.

Chief Factor James Douglas sent him to Fort Rupert (now Port Hardy ) in May , where the company kept a coal mine. In June, the governor of the province, Richard Blanshard , gave him the job of keeping the workers there quiet because many wanted to break their contract and go to California to look for gold (see California gold rush ).

The oldest part of the tripartite Helmcken House, the oldest house in Victoria

At the end of the year Helmcken was supposed to return to Victoria to work as a doctor. On December 27, 1852, he married the eldest daughter of James Douglas, who had meanwhile risen to governor and who also remained Chief Factor of the HBC. He had already met Cecilia on his first visit in 1850. They built a house on land that their father-in-law had given them for their wedding, the Arbutus Lodge . A first child was born on October 29, 1853. It was named Claude Douglas and was baptized on December 11th, but the boy died shortly afterwards. On June 10, 1855, the eldest daughter, Catherine Amelia ( Amy , 1875–1922) was born; she got the first names of her grandmothers. Margaret Jane ( called Daisy ) was born in 1856 , but died of diphtheria in 1858 . In keeping with her nickname , Helmcken placed an oval of daisies - daisies - on her grave. In the same year James Douglas (1858-1919), who got his name from Cecilia's father, and who was called Jimi , was born, in December 1859 Henry Dallas was born, who was called Harry (d. 1912). Edith Louisa followed in 1862, who called the family Dolly (d. 1939), and finally in 1865 Cecil Roderick, who was called Claus .

But a few days after the birth of this seventh child, Cecilia died surprisingly of pneumonia . She was also buried in the garden. Of her seven children, only four grew up. Amy, Dolly, Jimi and Harry grew up mostly with the housekeepers, initially “Mrs. Wilde ", later" Mrs. Foreman ". The deceased's younger sister, Martha, also looked after the children.

Helmcken opened a doctor's practice. Like the Douglas family, Helmcken belonged to the Anglican Church , but switched to the Reformed Episcopal Church during the schism of 1875 .

Legislative Assembly Speaker (1856-1871)

In July 1856 he was in the first Legislative Assembly of the Colony Vancouver Iceland elected to Esquimalt to represent and the Victoria district. He was elected speaker at the first session on July 12, an office he held until 1866 and 1871, respectively. He was also the elected president of the Royal Jubilee Hospital from February 1862 to March 1873.

The British government gave the Hudson's Bay Company largely a free hand in the province. But London saw a considerable danger from the numerous newcomers who had come as prospectors. Colonial rule in the rest of British North America was also shaken, and it appeared that British territory was falling to the United States. London tried to counteract this by creating larger and more independent areas. The westernmost colonies of Vancouver Island and the mainland were united to form the new colony of British Columbia, and on July 1, 1867, the eastern colonies were united to form the Canadian Confederation . The biggest problem turned out to be that it was not easy to convince the other British territories of the advantages of a connection.

In 1866, Helmcken demanded that the "representative institutions" be allowed to exist as one of the conditions for the unification of the two colonies. In the same year, a petition reached the President of the United States asking him to take over the colony.

Those in favor of British Columbia's accession to the newly formed Canada had strong backing from the Hudson's Bay Company and the employees who relied on British payments. On the other hand, there were men who had hoped, at least since the USA bought Russian Alaska , that British Columbia would also fall to the USA. This would open up new business opportunities as the wall of British protective tariffs would fall. In addition, it was hoped that London would no longer have to be so considerate of interests and that they would get rid of its administration.

In 1868 Helmcken joined a movement against joining the Canadian Confederation. This despite the fact that he was chief trader in the HBC from April 1863 to 1871 , and was brought into the government, the Executive Council , by Governor Anthony Musgrave in December 1869 .

In March 1870, when the accession to the emerging Canada was being debated, Helmcken said: "It cannot be considered improbable that ultimately not only this colony, but the entire Dominium of Canada will be absorbed by the United States." A suspicion of being an annexationist - a proponent of the annexation to the USA - although he strictly rejected it.

Musgrave selected him as one of the members of the delegation to negotiate the terms of possible membership, and which he sent to Ottawa . Helmcken had apparently changed his mind, possibly because he recognized the potential in railway construction. Still, his condition for accession was material and monetary gain for British Columbia.

Together with Robert William Weir Carrall and Joseph William Trutch , Helmcken led the preliminary negotiations in Ottawa in the summer of 1870 . Because of the enormous distances he was rather pessimistic, and so the construction of a railway line that was the only one capable of covering these enormous distances in a reasonable time had to be an inevitable precondition for him. In addition, the protective tariffs that previously kept British Columbia's economy away from Californian competition should remain in place. It was only when Ottawa agreed to start construction within two years and finish it within ten years, and to pay 100,000 dollars every six months for the necessary land, that Helmcken finally became an advocate of joining the Confederation.

The negotiators appeared to be in a favorable negotiating position and used this fact with great skill. Canada took over the province's debts, paid British Columbia compensation for the higher debts of the other provinces, plus $ 35,000 and 80 cents per capita per year (limited to a maximum of $ 320,000). In addition, the government should maintain a biweekly steamboat operation between Victoria and San Francisco and a twice-weekly operation with the Olympics in Washington . There were also salaries for civil servants and funds for the hospitals, such as a naval hospital in Victoria, and the maintenance of the naval base in Esquimalt. Furthermore, pensions should be paid for those who would lose their position through the political transition. In addition, British Columbia did not want to recognize the tariffs until the agreed railway line was connected. Three MPs should move into the Senate, six into the House of Commons. Indian policy, ruthlessly practiced by Trutch in particular, should not be changed, but Canada should take responsibility for it.

Withdrawal from politics and medical organizer (from 1871)

In 1871 Helmcken withdrew from his political offices. He turned down all offers to work as a senator, provincial spokesman or lieutenant governor because he did not want to submit to the new electoral system.

Instead, he accepted the post of director of the Canadian Pacific Railway . At the same time he supported the Conservatives of Prime Minister John Macdonald . But when the Liberals took over government at the end of 1873, the construction of the transcontinental railroad threatened to be delayed. In addition, the government rejected Helmcken's preferred route over the Bute Inlet to Esquimalt, which would have connected the island directly to the Canadian route. Instead, it should only extend as far as later Vancouver on the coast of the mainland. Helmcken, however, pushed through, against the growing influence of the mainland and together with other proponents of this idea, that the provincial capital had to be Victoria, not New Westminster near Vancouver.

From 1870-1885 doctor of the HBC Helmcken was in January 1885 the founding president of the British Columbia Medical Association . As early as the following year, on his initiative, the Medical Council of British Columbia was established , which was responsible for issuing approvals . At the same time, he was accepted into the governing body of the Royal Hospital in Victoria.

Private life

From 1851 to 1910 he was a doctor in the provincial prison and from 1852 lived in the house built for his wife, which he lived in until his death in 1920.

First extension of the Helmcken House

Second extension of the Hemcken House, on the left the glass facade of the Royal British Columbia Museum

Therefore, the census of 1891 next to Helmcken himself as head of household lists, and his children "Edith L" and "Henry D", one calculated at this time to the family of 35-year-old Chinese, as "servant or domestic" (servant or Domestik ), whose Name is not mentioned. In the 1881 census, a Chinese named Ah Tan is listed as a servant, then 26 years old, married and Baptist .

1887-1891 he wrote for the regional newspaper , the Victoria Colonist (see Times-Colonist ) about his experiences in connection with the emergence of Canada. But he also got involved in daily politics. In his final years he wrote an autobiography , which was published under the title The Reminiscences of Doctor John Sebastian Helmcken by Dorothy Blakey Smith (1899-1983), historian and assistant archivist , a kind of assistant archivist , 1975.

Helmcken died on September 1, 1920 at the age of 96. He was buried in Victoria next to his wife and three children, Douglas Claude, Margaret Jane and Cecil Roderick, who died young.

Edith Helmcken and securing the estate

Helmcken's daughter Edith (Dolly) Helmcken (1863–1939), who actually wanted all of her father's records to be destroyed after her death, but was changed by the provincial librarian and archivist W. Kaye Lamb, bequeathed the entire holdings to the British archives in 1939 Columbia . WE Ireland edited its diary of the negotiations on the Confederation the following year. In August 1941, the Helmcken House was declared a national heritage and soon opened as a museum . Helmcken's daughter had changed little in the house since his death, even her father's clothes were still in his bedroom. Today it is part of the Royal British Columbia Museum .

The Helmcken Falls are named after John Sebastian Helmcken , as is the Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater , as well as Helmcken Street in downtown Vancouver and Helmcken Road in Victoria (part of Highway 17A).

Minority policy

Less known than his medical history and his role as negotiator in Ottawa is his considerable influence on minority politics. He made important contributions to politics towards the indigenous people , but also towards later immigrants.

Helmcken's relationship with Indians

When Helmcken came to Victoria in early 1850, he often met Indians there . At the first encounter he met people in whom he and his young comrades (“greenhorns”) could hardly distinguish between men and women. According to his description, they had pitch black hair, were dressed in blankets or less, and smelled unpleasant to Helmcken (“nasty”) and were also dirty and greasy (“dirty greasy”) - a judgment that was widespread in his time , and refers to appropriate hygiene ideas in his home country. Helmcken reported with a certain pride how meticulously his mother had always arranged for flashing kitchen appliances. It was precisely these terminology that he used to describe the Inuit he first met in Hudson Bay .

His aversion to the Indians has evidently diminished in the period that followed. For example, Indians helped him build his house by cutting the roof shingles. It is probably no coincidence that Camassia quamash was found in the garden , an edible plant species that the local Indians, the Songhees , cultivated on a large scale, and whose benefits the family apparently appreciated.

Also seeded Helmcken 1862 now around 30 members of living in Victoria tribe of the Songhees Against from California entrained smallpox (see. Smallpox epidemic on the Pacific coast of North America in 1862 ) that have raged throughout the Northwest. Another 30 followed on April 16 - it should be over 500 in total. Maybe they quarantined themselves on his advice , which must have saved their lives.

On the other hand, the nine-member House of Assembly , to which Helmcken - he was even his speaker - and another doctor, behaved very contradictory. The proposal by Governor James Douglas to forcefully move the infected and build a hospital for it was discussed. Helmcken did not agree and accused the governor activism before. The nine members of the committee voted for the construction of a suitable building next to the existing hospital, but refused to restrict the freedom of each individual to decide for themselves about the vaccination issue . Soon it would be too late, and the decision was made to drive away the numerous Indians who camped around Victoria or who lived in the city. Many of them were brought north by steam boats, to which they were hung while sitting in their canoes. This displacement brought the epidemic to the north and is likely to have killed about every second inhabitant there.

Apparently the Indians did not trust the other skills of the British mediciners, but had their own healing methods. When one of them was badly injured by a falling tree and Helmcken had to amputate his leg, the victim died - an event that is unlikely to have strengthened confidence in his possibilities.

But Helmcken was not only confronted with Indians at work and in his home, but also among his relatives. His mother-in-law, Amelia Morgan, had taught her daughter English , French, and Cree , her mother tongue. Amelia was descended from William and Suzanne Douglas, the latter was an Indian woman, more precisely a Cree. This marriage was concluded in 1803 according to the so-called custom of the country , in accordance with the local custom, i.e. without church participation, only by agreement of the parents and a dowry - as was customary in marriages between men from the Hudson's Bay Company and Indian women . A dispute arose about their legal validity, which was finally decided in 1867 to the effect that all these marriages were fully valid. With this Amelia received part of the inheritance of her father, who had turned her mother away and married again - this time also in church.

Amelia had already taught her husband that if you were to get on with the Indians, you had to understand them. In an attack led by Kwah, chief of the Stuart First Nations , who belonged to the Dakelh or Carriers , on a fort in 1828, she saved his life with a gesture that was respectful in the eyes of the Indians.

Helmcken and his wife gave their eldest daughter the first name of the, in the jargon of the time, half-Indian (half-breed or half-blood) grandmother.

Nevertheless Helmcken had clear ideas of his position and task, and of the rights of the Indians. He wrote in the Daily Colonist of November 5, 1886: "About 35 years ago Vancouver Island had its own government and had to follow a policy adapted to the Indians and local conditions in dealing with the Indian question." Later, he continues, " the Indian policy of Vancouver Island was enforced on the mainland ... This system remained unchanged and is now the ruling politics of British Columbia ... British Columbia has never recognized any land title in the past 35 years, except for land which, I may say, was given to them by their conquerors - not by the sword, but by civilization and trade. "In the same newspaper on November 12th, he continued:" Please remember that British Columbia's Indian policy is not Coincidence - it was formulated by that great and good man, Sir James Douglas ... Sir James Douglas signed what he called a friendship treaty with the Indians to e earliest settlers to get on good terms with the Indians. ”Douglas, Helmcken said, but later did not recognize any new contracts and was of the opinion that they had no legal rights.

Helmcken viewed Douglas' approach only as a temporary concession so as not to endanger the settlers. In his opinion, cultural and economic superiority gave the Europeans the right to take the land from the Indians, because in this sense they were the conquerors.

Helmcken's relationship with the Chinese

In 1884 Helmcken was questioned in connection with a legislative initiative to limit Chinese immigration. He said that a significant number of Chinese had appeared in Victoria from around 1870, and that their number had risen later because of the need for labor. Especially because of public works, their number has increased much more rapidly in recent years. When asked about health hazards, he said that he had only noticed two cases of leprosy , one before 1870 in an Indian and one eight to ten years earlier in a Chinese. So he saw no threat.

Reasons for the aversion, however, are easy to formulate: “Nobody likes a stranger who speaks no other language than his mother tongue.” He saw further reasons for the aversion in the fact that not a single Chinese was in the militia. However, they are highly valued as domestic workers because of their reliability, cleanliness and punctuality. One could not do without the Chinese as domestics, because they really do their job “well, attentively, regularly and intelligently”. “The English couldn't replace them.” Before the Chinese arrived, it was almost impossible to get fresh vegetables. You would have a monopoly on it. Shoe and canning factories would have to employ Chinese because otherwise they would not beat the Californian competition, which also employed Chinese. In the direction of Metlakatla in the north, as Helmcken believed, the “savages” (“savages”) ousted the Chinese. In the cities and the gold rush areas, the Chinese cannot be replaced for economic reasons.

In 1885 one of the discussants in the Canadian Parliament , Mr. Chapleau , quoted Helmcken from memory. This matter (the Chinese Immigration Restriction Law) is very simple: "We want you to prevent the influx of Mongolians ( Mongolians ) because we want to be here for ourselves, and we don't want others to be here." Then he continued his quote: “We are despotic - you know it; as far as customs and habits and behaviors are concerned, we are in a certain way despotic. "

swell

Helmcken's records are in the British Columbia Archives , Add. MS-505.

He published frequently in the newspapers of Victoria, such as the British Colonist 1858-1860 or 1899 (continued as Daily Colonist ), in the Victoria Daily Standard between 1870 and 1888, then in the Victoria Gazette (1858f.).

Editions:

• Dorothy Blakey Smith (Ed.): The Reminiscences of Doctor John Sebastian Helmcken. University of British Columbia Press and Provincial Archives of British Columbia, Vancouver 1975, ISBN 0-7748-0038-0 .
• John Sebastian Helmcken, Confederation Diary, in: British Columbia Historical Quarterly, April 1940, digital (PDF, 5 MB) on the website of the Royal British Columbia Museum (PDF; 5.2 MB)
• BC, Legislative Council, Debate on the subject of confederation with Canada, Victoria 1870; Reprint 1912
• House of Commons papers, 1867/68, 48, no. 483: 337-50, Copy or extracts of correspondence ... on the subject of a site for the capital of British Columbia; 1868/69, 43, no. 390: 341-71, Papers on the union of British Columbia with the Dominion of Canada
• James E. Hendrickson, The constitutional development of colonial Vancouver Island and British Columbia, in: British Columbia: historical readings, eds. WP Ward and RAJ McDonald, Vancouver 1981, 245–74
• Journals of the colonial legislatures of the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, 1851–1871, ed. James E. Hendrickson, Victoria 1980
• The colonial despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1846–1871, here: 1846. More: click on next document

See also

• History of Canada
• History of British Columbia
• History of the Coastal Salish
• Nuu-chah-nulth

literature

• Hubert Howe Bancroft: History of British Columbia, 1792-1887 . San Francisco 1887
• Alexander Begg: History of British Columbia from its earliest discovery to the present time . 1894
• James E. Hendrickson: The constitutional development of colonial Vancouver Island and British Columbia. in British Columbia: historical readings. Ed. WP Ward, RAJ McDonald, Vancouver 1981, pp. 245-274.
• Daniel P. Marshall: Mapping the political world of British Columbia, 1871-1883 . MA thesis, University of Victoria 1991
• Walter N. Sage: The critical period of British Columbia history, 1866–1871. In: Pacific Historical Review 1, 1932, pp. 424-443.
• George Shelton (Ed.): British Columbia and Confederation . University of Victoria, Morriss Printing 1967

1. Brian Smith: The Confederation Delegation. Pp. 195-216.
2. Derek Pethick: The confederation debate of 1870

• Dorothy Blakey Smith Ed .: The reminniscences of Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken. Vancouver 1975
• Walter E. Riedel: John Sebastian Helmcken. Pioneer surgeon and legislator, 1824-1920. German-Canadian Yearbook, 4, 1978. Historical Society of Mecklenburg, Upper Canada ISSN  0316-8603 pp. 250-256.

Web links

• Canadian Confederation, Helmcken's role in the creation of Canada ( February 9, 2009 memento in the Internet Archive )
• John Sebastian Helmcken . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• to the Helmcken House
• Biographical dictionary of well-known British Columbians, Vancouver 1890, 184-187
• Hans-Jürgen Hübner: John Sebastian Helmcken (with numerous references to archive material)

Remarks

1. ↑ On the construction cf. Construction of Arbutus Lodge , Heritage Branch, Province of British Columbia ( December 13, 2010 memento in the Internet Archive ).
2. ↑ A picture of the Helmcken's tombs can be found in the BC Archives: Graves of Helmcken and Cameron in Christ Church Cathedral
3. ↑ Quoted from Henry Solomon Wellcome: The Story of Metlakatla. London: Saxon 1887, p. 465ff.
4. ↑ This and the following views according to: Canada. Commission royale sur l'immigration chinoise: Rapport sur l'immigration chinoise rapport et témoignages, July 1884, pp. 60–62.
5. ↑ This and the following views according to: Canada. Commission royale sur l'immigration chinoise: Rapport sur l'immigration chinoise rapport et témoignages, July 1884, p. 61.
6. ↑ This and the following views according to: Canada. Commission royale sur l'immigration chinoise: Rapport sur l'immigration chinoise rapport et témoignages, July 1884, p. 62.
7. ↑ Official report of the debates of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada: third session, fifth Parliament ... comprising the period from the sixteenth day of June to the twentieth day of July, 1885, Ottawa: MacLean, Roger 1885, P. 3009.
8. ↑ An overview can be found on the archive website