Johann Steinhauer - Johann Steinhauer Versus The Great Guild and The Magistrature of Riga

Johann Steinhauer Versus The Great Guild and The Magistrature of Riga

"The case of Steinhauer versus the Great Guild and the Magistrature of Riga was a significant event in the history of race relations in Riga". With time the Steinhauers were able to amass a considerable fortune and own property throughout Riga. However all transactions had to be owned under somebody else's name, because, according to the Statute, only members of the Great Guild had the right to trade and to own property, and membership was refused to them because they were Latvian and of serf origin. In 1747 the Steinhauers brought the case before Riga's Senate but in 1753 it issued its verdict against the appellants. After the Senate's Decision, new restrictions against the Latvians were enacted. The Steinhauers brought their case before the Governor General of Livonia, prince Dolgoruky, who supported them, and eventually the Grand Duke Peter, heir to the Russian Throne, named Johann's brother Daniel commissar of commerce to Schleswig-Holstein, saving their property from confiscation. In 1757 Tobias Georg Efflein, a German accountant and Daniel's son in law, applied for membership at the Great Guild and was refused on the grounds the he had given no proofs of his standing as a bookkeeper, and that his wife was a Latvian. In 1757 the Senate's previous ruling was dismissed, under the auspices of Katherina the Great, and ordered the Guild to accept his membership. The senate ruling had far reaching consequences for it established the right of any worthy inhabitant of Riga, regardless of national origin, to trade and own property in Riga.