The First Opium War, also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the opium trade by seizing private opium stocks from merchants at Canton and threatening to impose the death penalty for future offenders. Despite the opium ban, the British government supported the merchants' demand for compensation for seized goods, and insisted on the principles of free trade and equal diplomatic recognition with China. Opium was Britain's single most profitable commodity trade of the 19th century. After months of tensions between the two states, the Royal Navy launched an expedition in June 1840, which ultimately defeated the Chinese using technologically superior ships and weapons by August 1842. The British then imposed the Treaty of Nanking, which forced China to increase foreign trade, give compensation, and cede Hong Kong Island to the British. Consequently, the opium trade continued in China. Twentieth-century nationalists considered 1839 the start of a century of humiliation, and many historians consider it the beginning of modern Chinese history.
The Swedish East India Company was founded in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1731 for the purpose of conducting trade with India, China and the Far East. The venture was inspired by the success of the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company. This made Gothenburg a European Centre of trade in eastern products. The main goods were black pepper, spices, silk, tea, furniture, porcelain, precious stones and other distinctive luxury items. Trade with India and China saw the arrival of some new customs in Sweden. The cultural influence increased, and tea, rice, arrack and new root vegetables started appearing in Swedish homes.
Robert Bennet Forbes, 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 Ireland, which became known as America's first major disaster relief effort.
In the United States, members of the Delano family include U.S. presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant and Calvin Coolidge, astronaut Alan B. Shepard, and writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. Its progenitor is Philippe de Lannoy (1602–1681), a Pilgrim of Walloon descent, who arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the early 1620s. His descendants also include Eustachius De Lannoy, Frederic Adrian Delano, Robert Redfield, and Paul Delano. Delano family forebears include the Pilgrims who chartered the Mayflower, seven of its passengers, and three signers of the Mayflower Compact.
John Ledyard was an American explorer and adventurer.
Trade dollars were silver coins minted as trade coins by various countries to facilitate trade with countries in East Asia, especially China and Japan. They all approximated in weight and fineness to the Spanish dollar, which had set the standard for a de facto common currency for trade in the Far East.
The Canton System served as a means for Qing China to control trade with the West within its own country by focusing all trade on the southern port of Canton. The protectionist policy arose in 1757 as a response to a perceived political and commercial threat from abroad on the part of successive Chinese emperors.
Richard Chancellor was an English explorer and navigator; the first to penetrate to the White Sea and establish relations with the Tsardom of Russia.
The Old China Trade refers to the early commerce between the Qing Empire and the United States under the Canton System, spanning from shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 to the Treaty of Wanghia 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. The trade era overlapped the First Opium War, which resulted from an attempt by China to enforce its prohibition on opium smuggling by Western traders and blockade-runners.
The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, located at 219 S. 6th Street between St. James Place and Locust Street in the Society Hill section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a special collections library and museum founded in 1814. The Athenaeum's purpose, according to its organizational principles, is to collect materials "connected with the history and antiquities of America, and the useful arts, and generally to disseminate useful knowledge" for public benefit.
RMS Empress of China was an ocean liner built in 1890-1891 by Naval Construction & Armament Co., Barrow, England for Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP). This ship—the first of three CP vessels to be named Empress of China—regularly traversed the trans-Pacific route between the west coast of Canada and the Far East until she struck an underwater reef and sank in Tokyo harbour in 1911.
John Henry Cox was an English explorer who charted Great Oyster Bay, Maria Island, and Marion Bay on the east coast of Tasmania in 1789, aboard his armed brig HMS Mercury.
William Bolts (1738–1808) was a Dutch-born British merchant active in India. He began his career as an employee of the East India Company, and subsequently became an independent merchant. He is best known today for his 1772 book, Considerations on India Affairs, which detailed the administration of the East India Company in Bengal which began shortly after their victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The observations and experiences he recorded offer a unique resource for scholars inquiring into the nature of Company rule in Bengal. Throughout his life, Bolts continued to propose and execute various trading ventures on his own behalf and in conjunction with various commercial and governmental partners. The ventures of individual traders like Bolts did much to spur governments and large corporations into the expansion of their own interests.
Pazhou is a subdistrict of Haizhu in southeastern Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, in China.
The maritime fur trade, a ship-based fur trade system, focused largely on acquiring furs of sea otters and other animals from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and natives of Alaska. Entrepreneurs also exploited fur-bearing skins from the wider Pacific and from the Southern Ocean.
China–Portugal relations, can be traced to 1514 during the Ming dynasty of China. Relations between the modern political entities of the People's Republic of China and the Portuguese Republic officially began on 2 February 1979. China and Portugal established the comprehensive strategic partnership in 2005. Both nations maintain friendly relations, which is due to three main reasons- the first being the Portuguese handover of Macau in 1999, the second being the Portuguese prominence in the Lusophone, which includes nations China wishes to promote relations with, and third being the extensive history of Portuguese presence in Asia.
James Hanna was the first European to sail to the Pacific northwest to trade in furs. This maritime fur trade was an important factor in the early history of the Pacific Northwest and the westward expansion of the United States and Canada.
Austrian East India Company is a catchall term referring to a series of Austrian trading companies based in Ostend and Trieste. The Imperial Asiatic Company of Trieste and Antwerp and Asiatic Company of Trieste or the Trieste Company were founded by William Bolts in 1775 and wound up in 1785.
The Sydney punchbowls, made in China during the Jiaqing Emperor's reign (1796–1820) over the mid-Qing dynasty, are the only two known examples of Chinese export porcelain hand painted with Sydney scenes and dating from the Macquarie era. The bowls were procured in Canton about three decades after the First Fleet's arrival at Port Jackson where the British settlement at Sydney Cove was established in 1788. They also represent the trading between Australia and China via India at the time. Even though decorated punchbowls were prestigious items used for drinking punch at social gatherings during the 18th and 19th centuries, it is not known who originally commissioned these bowls or what special occasion they were made for.
Atahualpa was a United States merchant ship that sailed on four maritime fur trading ventures in the early 1800s. In 1813, in the Hawaiian Islands, Atahualpa was sold to the Russian-American Company (RAC) and renamed Bering or Behring. In January 1815 Bering, under the command of the American James Bennett, returned to Hawaii where it wrecked at Waimea Bay, Kauai.
United States