Racism and the pox

By Doreen Marion Gee

Racism and prejudice showed their ugly underbelly in the treatment of small pox victims in early Victoria and James Bay. The local media were absolutely complicit in hate-mongering towards First Peoples. This prejudice towards our aboriginal ancestors became their death sentence. Innocent people paid the ultimate price in a society riddled with fear and hate towards anything non-white. Those days of infamy are a reality check: Racism is a smoking gun. No amount of intolerance can be tolerated. When we know how bad it can get, we have to stop it when it starts - actually, before it starts.

In 1858, gold rush fever gripped the wild Canadian West. Many prospectors stopped for provisions at Fort Victoria and by 1862 our little city was a popular busy mecca. Native groups moved here into camps. The Tsimshian settled on the beach in James Bay; the Haida camped at Ogden Point and the Stikine moved to Laurel Point. It is one of history's cruelest ironies that the white man introduced smallpox to natives but often refused to help them survive it. According to Elaine Moore, Anna-Marie Krahn, and Claudia Lorenz of the University of Victoria, in conjunction with UVic's History 481 (2002), "In March of 1862, a miner brought smallpox from San Francisco to Victoria, British Columbia. The disease spread quickly, especially among Native people." Because Aboriginals had no natural immunity, smallpox decimated Native people, affecting them more than any other group.

According to the UVic writers, racism was alive and well in the blatant propaganda disseminated by the local media. The Daily British Colonist covered the smallpox epidemic of 1864 in articles from March 1862 to February 1863. In the early days of the scourge, it called on the government to eject the Natives - most badly affected by smallpox - out of the city. This expulsion of First Nations to all parts of BC was actually carried out by the government and caused a province-wide epidemic. The UVic paper describes the process of expulsion - "forcing victims to move away from healthy populations without offering any help or aid." A Victoria Daily British Colonist, March 1862, screams out with savage indignation against the native victims of a white-man's hell: "Their filthy habits would only perpetuate the evil; keep it alive in the community, sacrificing the lives of all classes." However, when British colonists became ill with smallpox, it was just a regrettable turn of events in the local rag.

Perhaps the biggest bigot of all was Amor De Cosmos, who founded the Colonist in December 1858. Cosmos either wrote or gave his stamp of approval to the flagrantly racist content. The UVic piece states that Amor's love of the "cosmos" did not extend to Indians: "He felt that the Indians should be spectators rather than participants in the development of the colony." Cosmos' views helped form public opinion but, unfortunately, they also reflected widespread bigotry among the British settlers who brought a "colonial" mentality to the New World.

"Gunboats" were used by colonists to evacuate Natives from Victoria during the small pox epidemic. However, "The colonial government's use of gunboats to enforce the evacuation of Natives from Victoria during the smallpox epidemic had clear precedents." The aggressive patrol boats could fire their guns in warning, flog people for petty crimes, seize canoes and take hostages - long before small pox arrived.

When it came to medical care, the 'deserving whites' got preferential treatment: "Doctors in Victoria seem to have mainly treated white patients, while Natives were largely left to the missionaries." History paints a less-than-noble picture of our renowned Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken. The UVic paper states that Dr. Helmcken vaccinated only a total of 500 Natives out of 2000. The celebrated doctor commented on the alarming death rates of First Nations from small pox: "Socially, probably, their death is of little consequence."

According to Smallpox Epidemic of 1862 among Northwest Coast and Puget Sound Indians,

HistoryLink.org, Essay 5171,"White officials vaccinated as many whites as possible and very few Indians. When Indians camped near Victoria began dying of smallpox, Vancouver Island authorities forced them to leave." From April to December 1862, 14,000 Natives perished (from smallpox), about half of their population living along the coast from Victoria to Alaska. This was a calculated genocide - preventable and unnecessary.

In 2013, discrimination still rears its ugly head in racism, homophobia, the stigma about mental illness, marginalization and prejudice towards the poor, disabled and elderly. The horrific inhumane treatment of First Nations during the small pox epidemic shows us the ultimate consequence of ignorance, fear and racial discrimination: death and genocide.

This calamitous doomsday scenario should shake our collective conscience to the very core, solidifying our determination that it will never happen again.

Have we learned our lesson?

Sources: The Spirit of Pestilence: The Smallpox Epidemic in Victoria in 1862 (UVic 2002); Smallpox Epidemic of 1862 among Northwest Coast and Puget Sound Indians.