HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Old China Trade () was the early commerce between the
Qing Empire The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
and the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
under the Canton System, spanning from shortly after the end of the
American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...
in 1783 to the
Treaty of Wanghia The Treaty of Wanghia (also known as the Treaty of Wangxia; Treaty of peace, amity, and commerce, between the United States of America and the Chinese Empire; () was the first of the unequal treaties imposed by the United States on the Qing dyn ...
in 1844. The Old China Trade represented the beginning of relations between the United States and East Asia, including eventually U.S.–China relations. The maritime fur trade was a major aspect of the Old China Trade, as was illegal trafficking in
opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...
. The trade era overlapped the
First Opium War The First Opium War ( zh, t=第一次鴉片戰爭, p=Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng), also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and the Chinese Qing dynasty between 1839 and 1 ...
, which resulted from an attempt by China to enforce its prohibition on opium smuggling by Western traders and blockade-runners.


Origins

The
American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...
, which ended with the 1783 Treaty of Paris, led to the
Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies were the British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America which broke away from the British Crown in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), and joined to form the United States of America. The Thirteen C ...
becoming independent from Britain as the United States, which continued to consume large quantities of tea. At the time, increased global demand for tea was one of the primary reasons for a shortage of silver; this was the only currency that the Chinese, sole producers of the commodity at the time, would accept in payment. The British
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
(EIC), monopoly suppliers of tea to the
British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
's markets, got around the problem by indirect sales of
opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...
to the Chinese, the proceeds from which they used to pay for tea. The Americans meanwhile, also needed silver to finance their burgeoning international trade in furs, timber and other commodities. They too looked to the Chinese market as a source of hard currency based on the US monopoly of the Ottoman opium trade. The United States' first
consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states thro ...
in China, Bostonian and former
Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775, by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Co ...
officer Samuel Shaw (17541794), arrived in the port of
Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...
(then romanized as "Canton") in 1784 aboard the converted
privateer A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...
'' Empress of China''. The "Chinese Queen", as the vessel was known, under the command of Captain John Green, carried a cargo of silver
specie Specie may refer to: * Coins or other metal money in mass circulation * Bullion coins * Hard money (policy) * Commodity money * Specie Circular, 1836 executive order by US President Andrew Jackson regarding hard money * Specie Payment Resumption A ...
and
ginseng Ginseng () is the root of plants in the genus ''Panax'', such as South China ginseng (''Panax notoginseng, P. notoginseng''), Korean ginseng (''Panax ginseng, P. ginseng''), and American ginseng (''American ginseng, P. quinquefol ...
for trade. In Guangzhou, the Americans encountered many European nations already trading under the Canton System, including the British, Dutch, French and Danish. Shaw subsequently negotiated the sale of the ''Empress'' cargo and earned a substantial profit. As well as symbolizing a breach of the EIC's tea monopoly, the successful and lucrative voyage of the ''Empress'' inspired other American merchants to follow suit with the desire to enter a new market with great potential for profit. By 1803, American vessels outnumbered all other Western nations in their trade with China. While more numerous, American vessels were smaller, averaging just under 300 tons each, compared with the
East Indiamen East Indiamen were merchant ships that operated under charter or licence for European Trading company, trading companies which traded with the East Indies between the 17th and 19th centuries. The term was commonly used to refer to vessels belon ...
from Europe, which averaged 1,200 tons each.


American business growth with the opium trade

Two years after the voyage of the ''Empress'', Shaw set up the firm of Shaw & Randall to advise American firms unfamiliar with trade in the Far East.
Boston Brahmin The Boston Brahmins are members of Boston's historic upper class. From the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, they were often associated with a cultivated New England accent, Harvard University, Anglicanism, and traditional Britis ...
Thomas Handasyd Perkins of Perkins & Co., the dominant American presence in the Ottoman opium business, along with one of his partners and his 16‑year-old nephew John Perkins Cushing, subsequently opened operations in Guangzhou, where Russell & Co. had become the most important American illegal smuggler and dealer of opium. The founders of Russell & Co., Samuel Russell, and Philip Ammedon, had set up in the Chinese city in 1808, buying opium at auction from the EIC in Bombay, which they then shipped clandestinely to Guangzhou on the south coast of China. By 1827 Russell and Co. had become the largest American opium dealer in China, competing in the market alongside British firms including Jardine, Matheson & Co. and Dent & Co. Of all the American firms, only Olyphant & Co. and one other abstained from the opium trade. Trade with China, originally an enterprise of seemingly limited prospects involving significant risk instead turned out to be extremely lucrative. American traders, then with a stable foothold in Guangzhou, were eager to sell their goods to China, but the Chinese interest in foreign goods was limited. The first item that tended to sell in China was Spanish
bullion Bullion is non-ferrous metal that has been refined to a high standard of elemental purity. The term is ordinarily applied to bulk metal used in the production of coins and especially to precious metals such as gold and silver. It comes from ...
: American traders would devote large sums of money to buying and amassing large quantities of the metal for export to China. The Spanish silver bullion was primarily used to complement the less profitable American goods such as cheese, grain, and rum. The use of bullion eventually became considerable with over $62 million worth of species traded to China between 1805 and 1825. This practice, however, gradually declined after 1815, when American merchants began to participate in "chain trade" routes —the buying and selling of goods en route to Guangzhou. The second major —and by far the most lucrative— American export to China was ginseng. Hailed by the Chinese, among other cultures as shown by the genus' Latinate scientific name ''Panax'' as a panacea, the most potent and therefore most demanded type of ginseng, '' Panax quinquefolius'', grew in Manchuria and the Appalachian Mountains. Transported from the interiors of Pennsylvania and Virginia to Philadelphia, New York, or Boston, ginseng was then shipped to China and sold for up to 250 times its weight in silver. Furs were the third-most lucrative American export to China. Searching for another type of item that could be sold to the Chinese aside from specie and ginseng, Americans soon found that the mandarins had a taste for
sea otter The sea otter (''Enhydra lutris'') is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern Pacific Ocean, North Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between , making them the heaviest members of ...
pelts, which could be inexpensively purchased from the Indians of the northwest coast of the United States and shipped to Guangzhou. The Chinese mandarins' desire for bullion, ginseng, and furs was the primary impetus for the United States' initiation of trade with China. The return of the ''Empress of China'', which had carried all three commodities, and her by the now rich crew to Boston in 1785 inspired other Americans to make similar voyages. However, different reasons emerged for maintaining trade with China. There had always been a general American desire for foreign and sometimes exotic wares, and, with the EIC no longer the dominant force in North American trade with China, the job of satisfying this demand fell to American merchants. Therefore, when the ''Empress'' returned home, she brought with her a large stock of outlandish Chinese goods, which her owners sold for a significant profit of $30,000—a 25% gain. Other American merchants did not take long to realize that, while selling American species, ginseng, and fur to the Chinese was undoubtedly profitable, selling Chinese goods in the United States would be considerably more so. Further motivation came from the knowledge that China, as a whole, had a
mercantilist Mercantilism is a nationalist economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports of an economy. It seeks to maximize the accumulation of resources within the country and use those resources for one-sided trade. ...
-like attitude towards foreign commerce; they tended to resist the importation of foreign goods because of a mixture of
Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, religion, theory of government, or way of life. Founded by Confucius ...
doctrine, which deprecated trade, and the underlying ethnocentrism felt by the Chinese—they did not need to actively search for trade because the inferior white "barbarian" states would instinctively bring it to them as a form of tribute. Because of these factors, American traders began to focus their funds on acquiring Chinese goods—a practice that the Chinese were more willing to adopt—rather than on purchasing those of the United States. What resulted was the flooding of Chinese teas, cotton, silks,
rhubarb Rhubarb is the fleshy, edible stalks ( petioles) of species and hybrids (culinary rhubarb) of ''Rheum'' in the family Polygonaceae, which are cooked and used for food. The plant is a herbaceous perennial that grows from short, thick rhizomes. ...
, cassia,
nankeen Nankeen (also called Nankeen cloth) is a kind of pale yellowish cloth originally made in Nanjing, China from a yellow variety of cotton, but subsequently manufactured from ordinary cotton that is then dyed.''Oxford English Dictionary'' The ter ...
s (durable, yellow cloth), floor-matting,
lacquerware Lacquerware are objects decoratively covered with lacquer. Lacquerware includes small or large containers, tableware, a variety of small objects carried by people, and larger objects such as furniture and even coffins painted with lacquer. Before ...
, fans, furniture, and porcelains, into the US, to the extent that even those of poor social classes possessed some Chinese items—perhaps a painting of Guangzhou's harbor or a pair of trousers made out of nankeen cloth.


The development of the Canton System


The Cohong monopoly and supercargoes

In 1757, the
Qianlong Emperor The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, personal name Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of China, emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China pr ...
of the
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
confined all Western trade to Guangzhou and regulated it through the use of
merchants A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...
known collectively as the '' Cohong''. This group owned a licensed monopoly on trade with foreigners and served as trading intermediaries accountable for their behavior and cargoes. Relations between the ''Cohong'' and the foreign merchants were cordial and very peaceful, as both parties valued their reputations and had vested interests in preventing the disruption of trade. The ''Cohong'' reviewed the cargo of each ship and collected tariffs that were then passed onto the '' Hoppo'' (Inspector of Customs). The ''Cohong'' was at the mercy of the government's demands for revenue, and they had to add costs to the foreign merchants, in order to extract extra money for bribes to please the officials; although Qing court officials did not actively supervise foreign trade, China's government treasury reaped the benefits of tariff revenues. Additionally, each foreign vessel had to contract a
comprador A comprador or compradore () is a "person who acts as an agent for foreign organizations engaged in investment, trade, or economic or political exploitation." An example of a comprador would be a native manager for a European business house in Eas ...
responsible for supplying the ship with provisions and servicing the factories onshore. Before the rise of four American trading houses in the 1820s that controlled seven-eighths of the China trade by 1825—Perkins and Company, Jones Oakford and Company, Archer, and T. H. Smith—the American trade was conducted through the use of
supercargo A supercargo (from Italian or from Spanish ) is a person employed on board a vessel by the owner of cargo carried on a ship. The duties of a supercargo are defined by admiralty law and include managing the cargo owner's trade, selling the mer ...
es. Each American ship had a supercargo who acted as the commercial agent responsible for the purchases of Chinese goods. He had to arrive and leave on his vessel. It was not until 1800 that supercargoes began to establish themselves as resident agents in Guangzhou. These agents either served trading houses or operated off of commissions from other private merchants' transactions. Upon their emergence, large trading houses, greater capitalization, and higher volumes of trade became possible.


Finding media of exchange

One of the largest problems faced by foreign traders in Guangzhou was finding a reliable medium of exchange that would enable sustainable trade with the Chinese. The Chinese were always willing to accept bullion, in exchange for tea and other products. This was because the Chinese were fairly self-sufficient and did not have a large desire for foreign goods. Specie was very expensive and difficult to acquire considering that the supply coming from South America fluctuated and it required a lot of goods to attain through a trade. Unable to afford to sustain high-level trading in specie, British merchants turned to the lucrative opium trade, obtaining trading rights for opium from India and importing it to China. Beginning in 1767 and rapidly expanding through the early 1800s, opium was illegally traded for specie with Chinese merchants and then reinvested in tea for importation to British markets. The Americans had less difficulty finding a variety of different products to barter for tea. The Empress of China and the following early vessels were able to use ginseng and some species to secure tea. Yet, the market for ginseng was rather small, so the Americans began trading furs with Indian tribes in the American Northwest, which was in turn traded for species in Guangzhou, which was then used to purchase tea. From 1790 to 1812 supplies of furs and then sealskins were depleted and new products had to be found as demand also waned. In the Pacific Islands, merchants evaded cannibals and traded with natives to get sandalwood and sea slugs that could be traded for species. But those items soon ran their course, and by 1814 species had risen to nearly 70% of total American exports. In the 1820s, they attempted to compete with the British opium trade that monopolized crops produced in India by trading for Ottoman opium. Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital and the Boston Athenæum, the Bunker Hill Monument, many factories, mines, the US's first railroad, university buildings, high schools, public libraries, and an orphanage were built with the proceeds of opium smuggling. The opium trade was profitable for American traders and some of these profits were reinvested to support the industrial revolution. However, the opium trade had a damaging effect on Chinese society. The innovation of the British credit system and issuance of banking bills allowed the American traders to clear their debts with ''Cohong'' merchants and gradually substitute their cargoes away from carrying specie and more towards domestically manufactured items. The Americans could then later pay off the principal and interest on their loans to the British banks. From 1830 to 1850, faster and larger tea clippers were introduced, thereby replacing the earlier, smaller privateering vessels from the American Revolution. As a result, Americans could achieve greater scale with the combination of tea clippers and British credit. Tea could be transported to American markets in less time and with greater freshness, translating into higher profits. By 1834, tea accounted for over 80% of the American trade from China.


American diplomacy in China

The American trade in Guangzhou existed primarily through private traders and without the supervision and supporting authority of the United States government. Soon after 1784, an American consul was appointed in Guangzhou and functioned as a reporting agent on trade to the U.S. government. The consul was not recognized by the Chinese authorities or the ''
hoppo Hoppo or Administrator of the Canton Customs ( zh, t=粵海關部, s=粤海关部, p=Yuèhǎi Guānbù), was the Qing dynasty official at Guangzhou (Canton) given responsibility by the List of emperors of the Qing dynasty, emperor for controlli ...
'', and was not allowed to fly the American flag over its factory until well after 1799. The Americans had to trade with the Chinese as subordinates instead of equals and use the ''Cohong'' for any and all demands. Consequently, the Americans did not have the leverage to raise political or legal protests and had to submit themselves to the Chinese justice system that believed in a "life for a life" and holding groups accountable for the actions of individuals. The chief concern of foreign traders was preventing the Chinese from closing trade, as they could threaten to do over legal disputes.


Denouement

At the end of the First Opium War in 1842, Britain and China signed the
Treaty of Nanking The Treaty of Nanking was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese ...
, which effectively overthrew the original mercantilist system and opened the ports of Guangzhou,
Xiamen Xiamen,), also known as Amoy ( ; from the Zhangzhou Hokkien pronunciation, zh, c=, s=, t=, p=, poj=Ē͘-mûi, historically romanized as Amoy, is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Stra ...
("Amoy"),
Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...
("Foochow"),
Ningbo Ningbo is a sub-provincial city in northeastern Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises six urban districts, two satellite county-level cities, and two rural counties, including several islands in Hangzhou Bay and the Eas ...
("Ningpo"), and
Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
to British merchants. Seeing that Britain could easily eliminate foreign competition in China with its new privileges and considerable trading prowess, the Americans found the need to reestablish their diplomatic relations and commercial equality in China. For the previous fifty-nine years, the Americans had been interacting with China merely through their business transactions, without government-to-government communication. As a result, the administration of President
John Tyler John Tyler (March 29, 1790 – January 18, 1862) was the tenth president of the United States, serving from 1841 to 1845, after briefly holding office as the tenth vice president of the United States, vice president in 1841. He was elected ...
sent the commissioner Caleb Cushing to negotiate a treaty in which the United States would receive the same privileges as Britain. Cushing, in the Treaty of Wanghsia in 1844, not only achieved this goal but also won the right of
extraterritoriality In international law, extraterritoriality or exterritoriality is the state of being exempted from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations. Historically, this primarily applied to individuals, as jurisdict ...
, which meant that Americans accused of crimes in China were to be tried by American courts only. This treaty was monumental in that it laid the foundation for a more extensive and regulated American trade with China; American ships would no longer make the sporadic—and somewhat reckless—voyages to China so characteristic of the Old China trade.


Category of the trade


Fine art


Porcelain

In the late 18th century, Chinese porcelain could be purchased from two sources: the licensed Hong merchants or the porcelain specialized shopkeepers.


=Porcelain specialized shopkeepers

= From the records, the original porcelain market was concentrated on a street several blocks north of the thirteen factory area. Until 1760, after the ''Cohong'' was created, all the small shopkeepers were moved to a new street on the quay which was later referred to as "China Street" (called Jingyuan Jie 静远街/靖远街 in Chinese). There were about 180 different names of porcelain shops from foreign trade records between 1700 and 1800. However, since many of them appear in records only once or for a few years, there were only a total of 25 to 30 shops dealing with the porcelain business. Most of the porcelain dealers in Guangzhou were small, family-run operations with sales of less than 1,000
tael Tael ( ),"Tael" entry
at the
Jingdezhen Jingdezhen is a prefecture-level city in eastern Jiangxi province with a total population of 1,669,057 (2018), bordering Anhui to the north. It is known as the "Porcelain Capital" because it has been producing Chinese ceramics for at least 1,0 ...
from October to December. The items were completed and shipped to Guangzhou in August or September for export. From the early 1780s to the 1810s, the export market started to shrink. Records show that in 1764, there were 20,116 piculs exported, while in 1784, the porcelain export declined to 13,780 piculs. Although it reached 25,890 piculs in 1798, soon the porcelain exports shrank to only 6,175 piculs in 1801. Finally, the amount of porcelain exported remains at an average level of 6,000 piculs per year around the 1820s. The reason for the drastic change in amounts of porcelain exported could result from the increase in the porcelain price due to the increasing labor cost and Chinese duties on exporting porcelain.


Legacy of the Old China Trade in Salem, Massachusetts

In
Salem, Massachusetts Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the North Shore (Massachusetts), North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem was one ...
there are important examples of
American colonial architecture American colonial architecture includes several building design styles associated with the Colonial history of the United States, colonial period of the United States, including First Period English (late-medieval), Spanish Colonial, French Colon ...
and
Federal architecture Federal-style architecture is the name for the classical architecture built in the United States following the American Revolution between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was influenced heavily by the works of And ...
from the Old China Trade in two historic districts, Chestnut Street District, part of the Samuel McIntire Historic District containing 407 buildings and the
Salem Maritime National Historic Site The Salem Maritime National Historic Site is a National Historic Site consisting of 12 historic structures, one replica tall-ship, and about 9 acres (36,000 m2) of land along the waterfront of Salem Harbor in Salem, Massachusetts, United Stat ...
, consisting of 12 historic structures and about of land along the waterfront in Salem, Massachusetts. File: Hamilton Hall (Salem).jpg, Hamilton Hall File: Salem Inn (West-Cogswell_House).jpg, The Salem Inn on Summer Street File: Stephen Phillips House.jpg, Stephen Phillips House at 34 Chestnut Street File: Pickering House - Salem, Massachusetts.JPG, The Pickering House, 18 Broad Street File: Peirce-Nichols House.jpg, Peirce Nichols House, Federal Street File: Benjamin Hawkes House - Salem, Massachusetts.JPG, Hawkes House, Derby Wharf File:Nathaniel_Bowditch_House_-_Salem,_Massachusetts.JPG, Nathaniel Bowditch House File: Gardner-White-Pingree Place, 128 Essex Street, Salem (Essex County, Massachusetts).jpg, Gardner-Pingree House File: Derby House - Salem, Massachusetts.JPG,
Derby House The College of Arms, or Heralds' College, is a royal corporation consisting of professional Officer of Arms, officers of arms, with jurisdiction over England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some Commonwealth realms. The heralds are appointed by the ...
in Salem Massachusetts. Elias Hasket Derby was among the wealthiest and most celebrated of post-Revolutionary merchants in Salem, Massachusetts, and owner of the ''Grand Turk'', the first New England vessel to trade directly with China.


Noted China Trade merchants

* William Henry Aspinwall * George Cabot * John Perkins Cushing * Elias Hasket Derby * Fanning & Coles *
John Murray Forbes John Murray Forbes (February 23, 1813 – October 12, 1898) was an American railroad magnate, merchant, History of opium in China#Growth of the opium trade, opium merchant, philanthropist and Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist. ...
*
Robert Bennet Forbes Robert Bennet Forbes (September 18, 1804 – November 23, 1889), was an American sea captain, China merchant and ship owner. He was active in ship construction, maritime safety, the opium trade, and charitable activities, including food aid to I ...
* Charles W. King * Abiel Abbot Low * Gideon Nye * David Olyphant * Joseph Peabody * Thomas Handasyd Perkins *
Russell Sturgis Russell Sturgis (; October 16, 1836 – February 11, 1909) was an American architect and art critic of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1870. Sturgis was born in Baltimore Count ...
* John Renshaw Thomson * Israel Thorndike *
William Shepard Wetmore William Shepard Wetmore (January 26, 1801 – June 16, 1862) was an American Businessperson, businessman and Philanthropy, philanthropist who was an Old China Trade merchant. Early life He was born on January 26, 1801, to Nancy Shepard and Seth ...
*
John Jacob Astor John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-born American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor. Astor made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by exporting History of opiu ...
* Warren Delano Jr.


See also

* Foreign relations of Imperial China *
History of the west coast of North America The human history of the west coast of North America is believed to stretch back to the arrival of the earliest people over the Bering Strait, or alternately along the ice free coastal islands of British Columbia. This was followed by the develop ...
* ''Paul Jones'' (1843 ship) * Turkey merchant * Jiao (commercial guild)


References


Citations


Further reading

* * * * * * * * * Haddad, John R. ''America's First Adventure in China: Trade, Treaties, Opium, and Salvation'' (2013
online
* * * * * * * Morris, Richard J. "Redefining the economic elite in Salem, Massachusetts, 1759-1799: A tale of evolution, not revolution." '' New England Quarterly'' 73.4 (2000): 603–624. online * Richards, Rhys (1994), "United States trade with China, 1784-1814" ''The American Neptune'', a special supplement to Vol 54. * Various reprints. * *


External links


Forbes House Museum
(
Milton, Massachusetts Milton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Milton is an immediate southern suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. The population was 28,630 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Milton is located in the relatively hilly ...
)
Peabody Essex Museum
{{Economic history of China China–United States economic relations History of foreign trade of the United States History of foreign trade in China Illegal drug trade in Asia Drugs in China