The Pro-Vaccination Emperor of 1869
A Newly Discovered Proclamation on Smallpox Reveals Emperor Norton’s Priorities — And More
DOCUMENTATION is elusive for those Proclamations of Emperor Norton that were published in the mid to late 1860s — the period in between (a) the few years after Joshua Norton declared himself Emperor in 1859 and (b) Emperor Norton’s adoption of the Pacific Appeal newspaper as his “imperial gazette” in late December 1870.
So, it’s gratifying to have discovered a “new” Proclamation from this period — especially one that has resonance for our current public health crisis brought on by COVID–19.
In 1868, an epidemic of smallpox arrived in San Francisco that — by late that year — was poised to intensify in 1869.
It was against this backdrop that, on 8 December 1868, the Daily Alta newspaper ran the following front-page item reporting that Emperor Norton had sent the San Francisco Board of Supervisors a Proclamation with recommendations for how to mitigate the disease.
“Norton I on the Small-Pox,” Daily Alta California, 8 December 1868, p.1. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection
Exactly one month later, on 8 January 1869, the Oakland Daily Transcript published the following. It stands to reason that this is the original Proclamation that the Emperor sent to the Board of Supervisors — or that it’s something very similar to the original memo:
“Proclamation by Emperor Norton I,” Oakland Daily Transcript, 8 January 1869, p. 3. Source: Newspapers.com
It’s notable that this appears to be the first Proclamation from the Emperor to be published in an Oakland newspaper.
The fact that Emperor Norton casts a wide net — “…do hereby command the authorities of all the cities on the Pacific” — tells us that he knows how contagion works and that he understands the gravity of the situation.
How contemporary some of these sound:
That every person be vaccinated, under severe penalties.
That physicians shall change their clothing after attending small-pox patients.
It’s easy to imagine that the Emperor would have been a Friend of Fauci.
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ALSO worth noting…
This Proclamation adds to our shortlist of Proclamations that Emperor Norton signs with the additional phrase “in the [X]th year of our reign.”
The “math” that the Emperor uses in these little clauses strongly suggests that he thought of himself as being Emperor long before he declared it publicly in 1859.
For example: The Emperor signs a Proclamation dated 26 June 1865 as being in the “Eleventh year of our reign.” Assuming this means that the Proclamation was issued sometime between the 10th and 11th anniversaries of his reign, then the Emperor could be pointing here to a reign that began in October 1854, when the California Supreme Court issued its final judgment against him in the rice appeal.
Two Proclamations dated 17 August 1869 are signed “in the 17th year of our reign.” Using the same logic — that these Proclamations were issued sometime between the 16th and 17th anniversaries of his reign — the Emperor could be pointing here to a reign that began sometime between (a) 22 December 1852, when he signed the fateful rice contract with the consignors Ruiz, Hermanos, and (b) 21 January 1853, when Ruiz sued him for non-payment.
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THE undated Proclamation we introduce above was…
published on 8 January 1869 and
signed “in the 16th year of our reign”
…which — continuing with our model — would put the Proclamation sometime between the 15th and 16th anniversaries of Emperor Norton’s reign.
Here again, the Emperor could be pointing to a reign that began with the rice lawsuit of late January 1853.
All of this reinforces the idea of a reign and a so-called “tipping point” that can be dated to around the same time: the main phase of Joshua Norton’s rice crisis, between December 1852 and October 1854.
Perhaps, rather than discussing only the 20-year public reign of Emperor Norton that ran from September 1859 to January 1880, we also should start talking about a 25- to 27-year private reign that began in the early 1850s.
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