American missionaries and the opium trade in nineteenth-century China

Journal of World History

Volumn 17, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 197-223

  Lazich, Michael C ^a  

^a BUFFALO STATE COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

NINETEENTH CENTURY; TRADE RELATIONS;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; NORTH AMERICA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 33646830643     PISSN: 10456007     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jwh.2006.0040     Document Type: Article

References (98)

1. Under the "Canton system" most Western trade with China was confined to the single port of Canton, where foreign merchants were closely supervised by a Chinese merchant guild, or Cohong, and contact between Westerners and Chinese strictly limited.
2. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was an interdenominational organization formed in 1810 for the purpose of supporting and directing the activities of Christian missions abroad. See Clifton Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan World: The First Half Century of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1810-1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969).
3. A detailed account of E. C. Bridgman's missionary career in China may be found in Michael C. Lazich, E. C. Bridgman (1801-1861): America's First Missionary to China (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000).
4. Although missionaries wrote a disproportionately large number of the articles in the Chinese Repository, during its two decades of publication the journal earned high reputation as a scholarly and informative source of knowledge on a wide variety of subjects pertaining to East Asia.
5. Zou Mingde, "Yapian zhanzheng qian jidujiao chuanshi zaihusde wenhua huodong" [Cultural Activities of Christian Missionaries in China Prior to the Opium War], Xiandaishi yanjiu 5 (1986): 5.
6. Among the most notable examples of this sort of publication was the Dongxiyang kao meiyue tongjizhuan (East-West Examiner and Monthly Recorder), a periodical that contained articles on Western technology, natural science, world history, and geography, leading one modern Chinese scholar to describe it as "the first modern Chinese, language periodical published in China." See Cai Wu, "Tantan dongxiyang kao meiyue tongjizhuan: Zhongguo jingnei diyizhuan xiandai zhongwen qikan" [The East-West Monthly Examiner: The First Modern Chinese Periodical Published in China], n.s., 2.4 (Taibei: National Central Library Bulletin, 1969).
7. Robert Morrison was sent to China in 1807 as a representative of the London Missionary Society. He was the first Protestant missionary in China.
8. See Bridgman to Evarts, Canton, June 19, 1830, in Papers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Yale Divinity School Library), reel 256.
9. Excerpt from Bridgman Journal, April 8, 1831, printed in the Missionary Herald, May 1832, P. 138.
10. William John Napier (Lord Napier) was sent to China in 1834 as the first British superintendent of trade. During the course of his mission, he offended the Chinese governor of Canton by refusing to abide by Chinese regulations regarding official protocol, fatally undermining his effort to win some reforms in the Canton system.
11. See Xu Naiji's memorial to the emperor in which he argues for the legalization of opium on the assumption that it could thereby be more effectively regulated, and taxed, by the Chinese government. Translated by J. R. Morrision in the Chinese Repository 5 (July 1836).
12. Samuel Wells Williams was appointed to the China mission by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. He arrived in Canton in October 1833. See Memorials of Protestant Missionaries to the Chinese (Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1967; repr., Taibei: Ch'eng-wen Publishing Company, 1967), pp. 76-79.
13. These included, among others, such documents as Xu Naiji's original proposal for the legalization of opium and the rebuttal of this policy initiative by the prominent Court official, Chu Cun. See Chinese Repository 5 (July 1836): 138
14. Chinese Repository 5 (January 1837): 390.
15. Bridgman, "Cultivation of the Poppy," Chinese Repository 5 (February 1837): 473.
16. This included such pioneering associations as the Medical Missionary Society, the Morrison Educational Society, and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China.
17. Bridgman, trans., "Sin pun keen yang yen," Chinese Repository 7 (November 1838): 391.
18. W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello illustrate the powerful influence of Jardine, Matheson, & Co. over Lord Napier, Lord Palmerston, and other key ministers of the British government in their excellent study titled Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another (Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2002).
19. Charles Clarkson Stelle provides a detailed account of American involvement in the opium trade in Americans and the China Opium Trade in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Arno Press, 1981).
20. From a translation of an official report printed in the Canton Register (October 3 and 10, 1837).
21. Chang Hsin-pao provides an excellent account of Lin Zexu's career in Commissioner Lin and the Opium War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964).
22. Also see Arthur Waley, The Opium War through Chinese Eyes (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1958).
23. Translation of proclamation included in Slade, Late Proceedings and Events in China (Canton Register Press, 1839; repr., Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1972) pp. 27-30.
24. Ibid.
25. See Stelle, Americans and the China Opium Trade, p. 74.
26. Memorial of Forbes and others, May 25, 1839, cited by Charles Clarkson Stelle in ibid., p. 76.
27. Ibid., p. 76.
28. Bridgman to Board, Canton, May 15, 1839, in Papers of the American Board, reel 257.
29. Bridgman, "Crisis in the Opium Traffic," Chinese Repository 8 (May 1839): 4.
30. Lin recorded his encounter with Bridgman and King in his journal. See Arthur Waley, The Opium War through Chinese Eyes, p. 50.
31. Bridgman, "Crisis in the Opium Traffic," Chinese Repository 8 (June 1839): 76-77.
32. See "Letter to the Queen of England," Chinese Repository 8 (May 1839): 9.
33. See Chang, Commissioner Lin and the Opium War, p. 138.
34. Mission to Board, Macao, September 7, 1839, in Papers of the American Board, reel 257.
35. Ibid.
36. Bridgman, "Crisis in the Opium Traffic," p. 1,
37. Ibid., p. 3. The role of William Jardine and other wealthy merchants involved in the opium trade in influencing the policies of the British Foreign Office at the time of the Opium War is described in detail by Hanes and Sanello in their book Opium Wars.
38. Bridgman, "Crisis in the Opium Traffic," p. 3.
39. Ibid., p. 6.
40. Tyler Dennett, Americans in Eastern Asia (New York: Macmillan and Company, 1922), p. 102.
41. Congressional Globe, 26-1, March 15, 1840, p. 275.
42. Cited by Stelle in Americans and the China Opium Trade, p. 80.
43. Stelle, Americans and the China Opium Trade, p. 80.
44. From the journal of Peter Parker, cited by Rev. George B. Stevens in The Life, Letters, and Journals of the Rev. and Hon. Peter Parker, M.D. (Boston and Chicago: Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society, 1896), p. 183.
45. Parker to Webster, Washington (undated), cited in ibid., p. 184.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid., p. 186.
48. Cited by Stelle in Americans and the China Opium Trade, p. 82.
49. Doc. 1, American Diplomatic and Public Papers: the United States and China 1, Jules Davids, editorial director (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1973), p. 5.
50. Also printed in the Chinese Repository II (April 1842): 259.
51. Kearny to Governor of Canton, April 27, 1842, doc. 9, American Diplomatic and Public Papers 1, p. 22.
52. The ship was owned by a private American trader named George W Fraizer. See Kearny to Sec. of the Navy, May 19, 1843, doc. 6, American Diplomatic and Public Papers 1, p. 15.
53. Forbes was eventually requested to disassociate himself from any involvement with the opium trade if he wished to retain his position. See State Department to Caleb Cushing, June 12, 1843, doc. 7, American Diplomatic and Public Papers 1, p. 17.
54. According to Gregory Blue, continued opposition from the court in Beijing and the strength of the anti-opium lobby in Britain can both be cited as factors explaining why British negotiators did not insist that the Qing government legalize the trade. See Gregory Blue, "Opium for China: The British Connection," in Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952, ed. Timothy Brook and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 35.
55. Clifton Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan World, p. 189.
56. Bridgman, "Notes of a Trip Up River to Canton in the U.S. Ship Constellation," Chinese Repository 12 (June 1843): 336.
57. Caleb Cushing, the son of a Newburyport shipbuilder, was a former representative to the House from Massachusetts and a current member of the Committee on Foreign Relations.
58. May 8, 1843, doc. 65, American Diplomatic and Public Papers 1, p. 152.
59. Ibid.
60. Anderson to Mission, Boston, June 8, 1843, cited by Phillips in Protestant America and the Pagan World, p. 192.
61. This offer was made to Cushing through Governor Samuel T. Armstrong of Massachusetts, a member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Anderson to Armstrong, Boston, June 8, 1843. See Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan World, p. 192.
62. Treaty of Wangxia, Article 33, doc. 13, American Diplomatic and Public Papers 2, p. 128.
63. Ibid.
64. See Stelle, Americans and the China Opium Trade, p. 109.
65. Liang Biying, "Meiguo chuanjiaoshi yu meiguo dui hua zhengce" [American Missionaries and America's Policy Toward China], Guanxi shehui kexue 2 (1992): 60.
66. S. W. Williams to Rev. W. F. Williams, Canton, July 20, 1850, cited in Frederick Wells Williams, The Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, LL.D. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1889; repr. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1972), p. 175.
67. Cited by EMsworth C. Carlson in The Foochow Missionaries, 1847-1880 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), p. 70. The American Board appointed Lyman Birt Peet a missionary to the Chinese in 1839. He was sent to the newly established American mission in Fuzhou in 1847.
68. Letter to the American Board from Mr. Aitchison cited in the Missionary Herald (June 1856), p. 165.
69. Williams, "An Essay on the Opium Trade," Chinese Repository 20 (July 1851): 485.
70. From an anonymous essay published in The North China Herald, October 9, 1858.
71. "The Opium Trade: Proposition of a Merchant to Legalize or Abolish the Traffic," Chinese Repository 16 (January 1847): 40.
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid.
74. From "The Opium Trade: ... Remarks on the Character of the Traffic," by a resident, Chinese Repository 16 (April 1847): 179-180.
75. This was the second major treaty between the American and Chinese governments. It was negotiated in 1858 simultaneously with similar treaties that the Chinese government was forced to negotiate with the British, the French, and the Russians.
76. J. Y. Wong explores Western impressions of Ye Mingchen and his supposedly xenophobic administration of foreign relations from his headquarters in Canton in his incisive study titled Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism, and the Arrow War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
77. The basis of the British demand was that they enjoyed, through the "most favored nation" provision of their treaty, the right to renegotiate the terms of their 1842 treaty after a period of twelve years - a privilege originally granted to the Americans in the Treaty of Wangxia.
78. J. Y. Wong provides a detailed analysis of the conflicting testimony surrounding this incident in Deadly Dreams, concluding that actions taken by the British were unjustified by either international law or the particular circumstances of this case.
79. The French were initially prompted to join the British in order to seek redress for the execution of a French missionary, M. Pere Chapdelaine, in the interior of China. See Wong, Deadly Dreams, pp. 267-268.
80. See Edict to the Grand Secretariat, May 28, 1858, doc. 334, in Earl Swisher, China's Management of the American Barbarians: A Study of Sino-American Relations, 1841-1861, with Documents (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1953), p. 471.
81. Guiliang, Memorial to the Throne, June 26, 1858, doc. 372, in ibid., p. 506.
82. Dennett, Americans in Eastern Asia, p. 305.
83. W A. P. Martin was an agent of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church stationed in the treaty port city of Ningbo from 1850 to 1860.
84. Reed to Secretary of State Cass, June 20, 1858, cited by Dennett in Americans in Eastern Asia, p. 556.
85. Ibid.
86. See doc. 56, American Diplomatic and Public Papers 1, p. 85.
87. Article I. See ibid., p. 83.
88. See Stelle, Americans and the China Opium Trade, p. 128.
89. Journal of Williams, May 15, 1858, cited in E W, Williams, Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, p. 175.
90. See Wong, Deadly Dreams, p. 413.
91. Article 26 of the British Treaty of Tianjin had arranged for a subsequent conference to be held in October 1858 in Shanghai to deliberate on the details of supplementary commercial agreement.
92. Letter from U.S. merchant to Reed, August 28, 1858, cited in Wong, Deadly Dreams, p. 414.
93. Reed to Elgin, Shanghai, September 13, 1858, cited in Wong, Deadly Dreams, p. 414.
94. See Wong, Deadly Dreams, p. 415.
95. Cited by Frederick Wells Williams in Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, pp. 291-292.
96. Ibid.
97. Reed to Secretary of State Cass, June 20, 1858, cited by Dennett in Americans in Eastern Asia, p. 556.
98. Kathleen L. Lodwick, Crusaders against Opium: Protestant Missionaries in China, 1874-1917 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996).