One morning of 1869, Emperor Joshua Norton advances with a determined step through the streets of San Francisco. His blue uniform is spent, but still shines with dignity. He wears a sword, a hat adorned with feathers and a cane that gives solemnity to his steps.
Upon reaching the headquarters of one of the most important newspapers in the city, it stops, enters without announcing and delivers to the editor a new imperial decree: The United States Congress is officially abolished. The editor does not laugh. You will publish the text that same afternoon, as you have done in dozens of occasions. Outside, passersby dedicate a brief reverence when you see it pass.
Joshua Abraham Norton was born on February 4, 1818 in Deptford, England, although other versions place him in 1819, or even in 1815. His parents, John Norton and Sarah Norden, are English Jews who emigrate after good hope, South Africa, in 1820. His father is a merchant and his mother comes from a prosperous family. The young Joshua grows in Grahamstown, where he learns several languages, develops his oratory and is soaked with classical literature and British laws.
After some commercial frustrations, Norton parties to America in 1846. First he arrives in Boston, then travels to San Francisco and in a very short time he becomes a prosperous rice and real estate merchant.
By 1852, it is already a respected figure in the flourishing city of gold. But a speculative play drags it into the disaster: tries to monopolize the imported rice market from Peru. The plan fails. In 1856, he declared himself in bankruptcy.
Not long later, Norton makes another bet and so on September 17, 1859, he entered the writing of the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin And leave a note written by hand. More than note is a harangue:
“At the peremptory request of a large majority of citizens, I, Joshua Norton, I declare and proclaim that I become emperor of these United States …”
Its presence alone made businesses fill. Some merchants offered postcards, portraits and buttons with their image.
Norton, a cute crazy
Although the newspaper published it as a joke, from there Norton became a public figure. He greeted the crowds, he toured the city, inspected sidewalks, congratulated the police for their work. He walked with imperial dignity: the blue uniform had golden trawls, the hat was adorned with ostrich feathers, he had the saber to the belt and the cane in hand. Its presence alone made businesses fill. Some merchants offered postcards, portraits and buttons with their image.
Another of his daily routines consisted of visiting printing, editorials, libraries, train stations, coffees and theaters, where he was always reserved a seat in the front row. Had privileges: I did not pay passage in the Ferris or in public transport, and often ate free. The merchants entertained him, the children greeted him with reverence, and some businesses even accepted as payment printed bills with his face and his signature.
Norton published its edicts in newspapers as letters to the people. Proclaimed advanced decrees for his time: He requested the creation of a League of Nations to guarantee world peace, suggested the union of all Christian churches, and called at the end of hostilities between religions.
In 1869, he “dissolved” by decree to the Democratic and Republican parties to end the dissonance of the partisan struggle. He tried in multiple opportunities to build a suspension bridge over the bay. Today, Bay Bridge connects San Francisco and Oakland. Many still believe that this bridge retains its spirit.
One of his most famous proclamations, written in 1872, pointed out severity: “Who, after having been properly warned, is heard pronouncing the abominable word” cold “, will be guilty of high lack of lack of lack and must pay a fine of twenty -five dollars to the imperial treasure.”
Norton was also a minority defender. In 1878, during a xenophobic rally against the Chinese community headed by Denis Kearney, he got into a box in front of the speaker and demanded that the crowd dispersed. No one obeyed it, but his gesture was received with an ovation.
A time before, A police officer had stopped him with the intention of entering him in a asylum. But the reaction was immediate: popular indignation broke out in the streets and the newspapers demanded their release. Norton was immediately released, while the agent offered public apologies.
“Why should those who have not stolen, kill, or make blood shed?” They all wondered. Norton, magnanimous, responded with an “imperial forgiveness” to the officer. From then on, all the San Francisco police greeted him as he passed.
During the civil war, Norton tried to intercede as a neutral referee. He proposed that his formal coronation be ordered to bring together the sectors faced. He sent letters to Napoleon III, Queen Victoria -who even proposed marriage -and even Kamehameha V, king of Hawaii. He did not get answers, but never stopped writing.
Today a San Francisco street recalls it: Emperor Norton Place.Ten thousand people attended their funeral: from bankers to beggars.
“The King has died”
On the night of January 8, 1880, Norton walks as always through the wet streets of San Francisco. He goes to California Academy of Sciences to attend a dissertation. But upon reaching the corner of California Street and Dupont, in front of the former cathedral of Saint Mary’s, his body stops. Wobble. Falls. They approach, they surround it. An agent runs through a carriage, but it’s late. Joshua Abraham Norton, emperor of the United States and protector of Mexico, dies on the wet asphalt. Without wealth or lineage, it turns off among its people.
Ten thousand people pass in front of their coffin. Funeral floats align, the streets are filled. From bankers to beggars, clergy and dockers, they all parade to say goodbye to the only monarch that the city made its own. The newspapers, who for twenty years had reproduced their proclamations, pay tribute to a holder worthy of royalty: The king is dead.
First they bury it in the Masonic cemetery of San Francisco. In 1934, his remains are transferred to Woodlawn Memorial Park, in Colma, where he rests under a simple gravestone with his imperial title. Since then, he did not stop receiving tributes. In 2023, San Francisco renamed a section of Commercial Street – where he lived – as Emperor Norton Place. There are plaques, statues, campaigns to put his name to Bay Bridge and a foundation -the Emperor Norton Trust- dedicated to preserving his memory.
His memory not only lasts in distinctions and monuments: literature also immortalized him. Robert Louis Stevenson portrayed him as a character in The Wreckerand Mark Twain was inspired by him to create the fake king of Huckleberry Finn.
Perhaps San Francisco did not let him reign by amusement, but because, in times of greed and chaos, he needed someone to play a different image: a dreamer, an imaginary emperor.
As Mark Twain wrote, it was “the only city enough to leave his madman being an emperor.”