Speaker is dale norwood. Hes a historian of 19th Century America who studies Global Commerce and how it has shaped american politics and economics, both domestically and in u. S. Foreign relations. So this will really be an opportunity for us to hear more about global earlier america and how things were connected long before we got to the globalized world were in today. Dr. Norwood earned his ph. D. At princeton in 2012 and is now an assistant professor. The department of history at the university of delaware. And with that, i will hand it over to him. And theres a cell phone here. Well, thanks so much for the kind introduction. And thank you all for coming out and go. Phillies, of course. I particularly to thank mabel rosen a heck and emily miller for making arrangements for this event and the crew here for filming and making that possible and to offer some things to. Stephanie tanner, who first extended the invitation. Im really glad to be here. Lancaster is a great place and im delighted to speak with you today about my new book, trading freedom how trade with china defined early america. So for this talk, i want to do a couple of things. I like the enthusiastic. So i want to do a couple of things to earn that applause later. I want to tell you how i came to this project because its bit weird to spend a decade of your life studying new england opium traders and then come and talk about it and other places. I want to give you an overview and, a synopsis of the book, not to forestall you from it, but to see what you might get if do know. I give you some of the big takeaways and i want to get into the meat of what i think interesting or one of the things that i think is interesting about studying this history and that is drugs and money and how the two are connected and how they influenced america. That, im sure is that i think is relevant to us today. And i to kind of wrap up with what i think some of the big takeaways doing this kind of history is for how should view the past and and possibly the present. So so thats the road map for today. The short version of how i got into project was that i had a chance back room encounter with a drug smuggler in a sleepy town and that became useful mystery for me that i really couldnt let alone. And thats a semi salacious way of saying that i first heard about the china trade when i was a college student, and i was working at a local Historical Society and one much less impressive than this one, though enjoyed it. Nonetheless, in book. Middletown, connecticut. Oh, no uh, thank you. See if i can. Yeah. Great book in middletown. And one of my jobs there was to process the personal papers of local, including a man by the name of Samuel Russell, who was an antebellum bigwig, who built an impressive greek revival mansion on the hill at the center of town. And its now part of the campus of wesleyan university. Now a big rich guy. Building a big house is not all that interesting or new, but the source of russells was before retiring to middletown, connecticut, a city i should note that is on the coast. He made his smuggling opium from india into and then using the profits to buy tea to ship from china to the us and to europe. And in fact, wasnt just one man in this business. He was the cofounder of russell and company, the largest American Firm operating asia. Over the course of the entire 19th century. So the incongruous fact of Samuel Russells narco empire and its results in middletown, connecticut, which again is a very nice building, stuck with me after i left. That job was my kind of Cocktail Party conversation, but it didnt become a useful puzzle for me until later when i started a ph. D. In American History and needed to write about. And so reading through the scholarship on early america i noticed something and that was that up until about the revolutionary era stories about how americans were to the rest of the world, how they were engaged, Global Affairs were front and center in both the scholarship, but also in some of our public stories. But then after you get past the revolution, those angles drop out. Did when i started this project and the rest of the world seems to vanish, we Pay Attention to kansas and and other very interesting places until the early 20th century, when world wars bring the rest of the world roaring back in. Or maybe the spanishamerican war. If youre if you want to start there. And that seemed fishy to me because i knew a guy ran giant smuggling empire in between those two things. And i wanted to figure out what was actually going on there. Did americans really take a century off from interacting with the rest the world . Did events in iowa or illinois really overshadow all of those connections . And and what about samuel opium operation . Did that fit in to American History and especially how did it fit to other areas of American History that we know got kind of messy chinese exclusion, chinese migration, that kind of thing . So thats what led me to write this book. And those are some of the questions that got me digging into this material. And what i found me and i hope will surprise you as well, first and most notably i learned in doing this research that far from being an outlier or a weirdo, Samuel Russell well, he might have been a weirdo. I dont want to go that far. Sam russell and his were part of a very large and a very and very profitable business something that contemporaries called the china trade and the china briefly put was the maritime shipping business of purchasing carrying and marketing the goods of asia in the western world and vice versa. Right . So making importing stuff from asia, exporting stuff to asia. And the second thing i learned was not only was this trade old and profitable, but it was also much more than a simple bilateral. In fact, i think the china trade was americans key to the global economy, and now thats partly a matter of size and scale, right in the late 18th, in the early century, the us is small, not a big power, right . Its not the continental empire leading economy. But in that same period, china was big as is now. China was then chinas asias greatest and its most important empire. China produced things desired globally, many of which you could only get in china. Ti silk porcelains. And as a result, chinese ports like canton, gwangju were global crossroads. So by going to china, traders from United States, the small peripheral, the united could gain access to goods that would sell well in the world. So it opened a lot of doors them. But you know, as anyone whos ever been to a fancy Department Store or a auto dealership where you cant the things on display getting to the valuable stuff is only half the story. You also have to have a means for paying for it. So americans had to figure out how to pay for stuff in china and that a pretty difficult problem them in the 18th and early 19th centuries there was little to no demand for american agricultural or manufactured goods in china or really anywhere in asia. And so americans couldnt trade with goods from they had to either find cash, they had to get credit or they had to goods that the chinese did want elsewhere and then bring those to china. So that meant that they had to do a lot more legwork. And it expands our definition. What the china trade is. The china trade includes the whole chain of enabling transactions that made purchases in asia possible to not just the back and and that chain had many many links in the first decade of the china trade. American from ports up and down the west, the east coast had to sail world over to gather the coin and the rare required for purchases in china. They traded european and south american ports for spanish silver dollars. The always the only always accepted Currency International trade, but particularly in chinese ports. But they also gathered ginseng from appalachian forests. They hunted sea otters and other cute things in the Pacific Northwest for furs. They stopped at hawaii for sandalwood birds nests and best of their sea slugs. The latter is something you eat, not a pet. And in the early 1800s, they found a profitable new when they began visiting the mediterranean ports of the Ottoman Empire and the British Ports in india for opium. So they had to go lots of different places. And as the trade developed, carrying goods expanded also into carrying Chinese People. Us ships transported chinese migrants to north and south america, to the caribbean and to australia, among other places. None of these segments worked independently from each other. They all inter intertwined and the way that they were intertwined changed over time, beginning in the early decades of the trade, merchants made multiple stops these individual voyages turned to the years long, not because things were necessarily just far away, but because you had to stop at multiple places to gather cargoes that you needed. Later, american merchants built ship and multiyear ventures complex circuits exchange that ran from boston to batavia, from london to lima, from shanghai to san and everywhere in between. As often as not americans with china never touched us, which if youre trying to be in the business of figuring out how big it was, is a bit of a problem so this business is big. Its on a global scale from really the beginning and its a little out you in third. And perhaps most importantly i learned that this trade was not independent of politics either domestic or international. The china trade depended as much on the navigation Credit Networks in diplomatic protocols as it did on the management of ships and sail it also produced a new kind politics, or rather new kinds of politics. The china trade put american merchants and sailors into direct contact, a vast array of new peoples and places, and at critical moments, the existence, the trade in the outcome and the it made and the products it supplied inspired policymakers and politicians and sometimes american publics to consider National Products and domestic disputes global terms. So because of the extent of the goods, capital and people, it involved trade with china profoundly shaped americans perceptions of themselves, of their government and their nations in the world. And they helped define and shape how their nation developed from its earliest days. So trading narrates this development chronological. Cli. Im a historian go and order of the years and i begin with the First American trading voyage, china, which leaves new york harbor for in 1784. And the book to a close a century later with the passage of the chinese exclusion act in 1884, which happens to have coincided with the death major trading, major u. S. China merchant firms in the 1880s and 1890s. In other words, the book tracks the beginnings of the china trade from its origins to end in the course of that century free commerce with china shifted into something americans embraced as part of their National Project to something that they feared that would damage their National Project. So in the early years, the china trade is something that american publics and policymakers sought to promote and expand. And by the end of the 19th century, its something they feared would destroy what they had built and they sought to control and and that conceptual shift from, understanding uschina commercial relations as, a mode of accessing a wider global of a system of Global Commerce that would benefit the nation, i call it in the book the china trade mindset to figuring trade with china is something that can be broken into discrete sources of either new consumers, new laborers or, new commodities that had to be separated in order to be remain safe. I call that the china market mode of thought and we are still living in the consequences of that of china is something that policymakers want to control and regulate that commerce as opposed to this century were embracing it in the widest means was core to americans of themselves. Now within that wider art thats, the big picture. Each chapter of the book focuses on specific characters, institutions and incidents that did that, i think did the to establish or change the politics or the meaning of uschina commercial relations. And so today im going to talk mainly about of those stories, the rise and consequences of americans engagement in the opium trade. But other chapters of the book detail topics like how the revolutionary generations utopian hopes for Global Commerce led them to set up the first u. S. Tax system to privilege trade with china, free trade with china, or how the china trade inspired the transcontinental railroad, or how antebellum slaveholders and their northern allies like buchanan happy to say more about him. How antebellum slaveholders successfully defined free chinese as enslaved people, paving the way for our contemporary immigration that excludes certain people the basis of their national origins. Thats something with antebellum origins in, the politics of slavery. So collectively, the books chapters are an argument for taking the early history of uschina relations seriously as a foundation for present, but also as evidence of how and how global eyes the us was already in the past. And so with that in mind, want to get into the nitty gritty of one of these episodes the rise of the opium in some of its key characters and some of the key documents i use to investigate and tell that story. And befitting a book that is about on the cover of this this story begins in the hold of a ship. This is not literally the hold of the ship. We when the ship congress sailed from boston harbor, bound for the Dutch Colonial port of batavia, todays jakarta in 1824, it went with a bundle of receipts, invoices and correspondence. And these documents are collectively as ships papers and. They make up sort of a floating business archive. Its the working papers of the venture as a as a business. And they give us a great snapshot in this particular case of where american trade with china had been in terms of how it was practiced and where it was going at a very critical moment. So on the more traditional side of the ledger. Jacob and benjamin of benjamin britten, all 100 spanish milled dollars, spanish silver coins to an agent on board that ship who to carry and invest it from port, port and that practice loading some capital and trusting your agent to invest it in a cargo and flip those cargoes. Flip those cargoes and flip those cargoes is known as a cabotage strategy. Youre moving from port to port and its traditional in the american trying to trade, from the beginning of the revolution on through into the 1820s. Its designed make the most out of limited resources right. Trying to turn your capital over and make good bets. And its characteristic of american trade with china since the revolution also on board the congress, though, is william grays cargo. Now william gray, the congress is owner ship owner adopting a more sophisticated approach in terms of what he put on board, a wealthy merchant whose obituary claimed that there was not a commercial place in the civilized world where his name was not familiar. Gray was a fixture of bostons mercantile elite and a player in state politics. In his prime, he owned and managed of the nations largest commercial fleets, and in his later years, he was instrumental organizing and leading the Boston Branch of the bank of the United States. Well come back to that now. Great use the knowledge his vast financial and commercial relationships provided to guide his investments in the congress. He packed the hold with nearly 8,000 of what im terming here western commodities, candles, beef, flour, seltzer, water, anything that would make for an exciting weekend at any Colonial Port across globe and readily salable as such. He also invested nearly 20,000 in opium, a smokable narcotic, a large and growing market in Southeast Asia and especially chinas southern ports gray also gave the of the ship. Nathaniel kinsman access to up to up to 50,000 in credit with his london bankers at bearing brothers and company so that kinsman might take advantage of good prices for return cargoes of asian as he encountered them right so time the market as he was there that could be an innocent in his Instruction Letter to kinsman, he identifies things like teas at gwangju or sugars at manila or cottons at calcutta. Theres lot of different kinds of products that he could buy, and that credit was to be drawn on via bills of exchange, which kinsman most likely carried as a packet of preprinted forms. And ill show you an example of this kind of thing in minute, but a bill of exchange effectively a credit instrument that works like a check, right you could sign it over to other people. It shows that youre drawing on a particular account, that particular bank right now. Grace choices took advantage of the new system of Global Exchange that took shape after the napoleonic wars, after 1815, before the decades global warfare between Great Britain and france were decided at waterloo. American merchants and the Us Government had handsomely from their status as neutral shippers. And i say the government as well, because the Us Government, until the institution of the income tax was mainly funded by tariffs us shippers are the ones paying those tariffs. So if you have a good merchant marine, you also have Good Government revenues. But its all dependent on international trade, which if two giant powers at war. You can make a lot of shipping between them right . But the end of this conflict in near disaster of the war of 1812, which in which americans trade, dragged them into this conflict meant that these old strategies no longer worked for merchants like grain. That meant that shifting they had to shift their activities to support British Imperialism asia rather than filling in its gaps for politicians in washington, that meant treating the celebrated china trade as a problem for National Security rather than as a. Now. That shift was part a broader reorientation for american politics, which i dont have a good image for. So ive gone to black screen. Abstract concepts are hard to hard to after facing near annihilation in the second war with Great Britain in the war of 1812, u. S. Legislators came see relying on trade as an engine for National Prosperity as well as government revenue is more dangerous than useful. So from the perspective of the National Republicans then ruling in washington in the 18 tens and 1820s, only active Government Intervention could strengthen the nations domestic economy sufficiently to withstand or ideally avoid next war in this american, in henry clays phrase, it was designed to create infrastructure necessary to make international unnecessary right both financial, physical, a side of this reorientation away from international and toward Domestic Development was that powerful americans began to regard china traders as impediments to National Prosperity. China traders under particular scrutiny for unique business practices. Annually, they shipped millions of dollars worth of silver coin to china and that silver drain, which picked up in this period, attracted great deal of interest from publicists and policy makers concerned that it was ruining nations currency and thereby threatening the republic. Stability. So merchants had shipped significant amounts of silver specie, silver coin, spanish silver coin to asia decades. You can see them picking up in purple here. This on this chart here. The reason they were doing that is that spanish minted dollars were the only always welcome in gwangju as markets. And because of the United States, considerable in latin american and Caribbean Trade places where spanish silver dollars were made as well as traded us based merchants usually had access to a ready supply either from their own dealings or from banks. Spanish also held a special place in American Economy. They were legal tender, so you could use spanish coins as you would american coinage and. They were a common medium for commercial transact actions, particularly large ones, particularly international transactions, and they functioned. This is really critical for the money supply. They functioned as the reserve currency upon banks issued banknotes. So they were deeply they were deeply important to the stability of private bank notes because. Thats what was in the vaults. That was guaranteeing those bank notes. I could see i could say a lot more about american money. I will not bore you like i usually do my students when i segue into antebellum banking, but suffice to say that drain is concerning because it means that banks have less reserves, fewer reserves to draw on that trend of americans becoming major exporters of silver specie and accelerating also happens a moment that the American Economy hits a hits a tailspin. You can see that it eventually drops off in the 1830s. But as ramping up the us undergoes a recession, the panic of 1819 and many contemporaries connected the unprecedented flow of silver asia to the credit contractions the bank runs and the currency instability that plagues the country. In the aftermath, the panic of 1819, the arch protectionist niles weekly register. The closest thing that the the nation had to a National Newspaper at this point argued that traders to china who exported specie silver coin were destructive merchants whose business ought to be annihilated for trouble that they caused. A later follow up to that article and that same newspaper said that not only should they ruin these peoples business and ban them from exporting silver, we should also take away the franchise. They should not be allowed to vote because they become such irresponsible citizens. Its a little hard to imagine taking anyones business man. Business mans right to vote away today, but thats thats how head up people were about this. So the infamy of specie exportation proved a really stubborn it really it really changes the public impression of the china trade. For decades. But it also became a crucial component. The bank of the United States president Nicholas Biddle plan to domesticate and secure global flows of capital for americans benefit and. His banks profit. So biddle, a pennsylvanian, was elected the presidency of the second bank of the United States in 1822. Hes new guard come to fix what this bank had not done well during this previous economic crisis. The of this point is a controversial institution. The second because the first bank had been allowed to lapse the its got a federal new federal charter biddle comes in to clean it up its the its the countrys Largest Corporation and it alone had the ability to conduct operations in all u. S. States, giving it extraordinary power. And depending on who you talk to, extraordinary responsibility. By 1825, biddle had noticed that spring china merchants made large calls on local banks. The northeast for silver specie. They were outfitting their voyages to out to china. The trouble that these calls intensified the already challenge of retaining liquidity across the bank. United states has branches, but also banks they helped serve. Right the bank of the that states is kind of a bank. For banks, its a little bit like the fed. Its not a central bank in the same way, but it is other banks. All these specie calls make his life much more difficult. It makes the prospect of failing banks much more likely. If theres a if a credit crunch. So bills idea to smooth out these disruptions, these these annual flows of silver caused in the spring of 1825 beatles bank began what he termed east india bills or east in these bills. And these are bills of exchange like the kind william gray had that were issued by the bank of the United States to american that drew in the banks accounts with european banks. And ill diagram this a little bit in next thing here, the bank of United States east india bills were indistinguishable from other private bills already in use in the china trade. Theyre not inventing something new here, but they benefited from. Having the weight of the nations largest Financial Institution behind them. And basically the way that this worked is that if you would go to the bank and say, hey, id like to buy some east india bills, theyd say, great, well sell them to you for either cash now or promise an iou in the future. Youd get these preprinted forms that say, i, the bank the United States allow soandso to draw on Bank United States accounts in london, you then use those bills to make purchases. Asia, the person who you paid to would then send the bills back to london where they would be cash to those banks. So its like a little bit like an American Express check used to work. Like for those folks who remember that. So biddle intended that east india bills he them to do more than just help merchants move money. Right thats fun. But biddle wanted to make his bank an interview theory in Global Finance capable, absorbing what he called the sudden and violent of international trade. So the bank already works that way in the United States economy. He wants to position the bank between the rest of the world and the u. S. So east india bills provided the means to head off financial panics that could result when the spread in price and specie domestically versus foreign markets widened sufficiently to induce the export of silver rate of silvers higher priced abroad. You send it abroad right . Hes trying to head that off. He had the chance to test this method the same year that he debuted these bills in 1825, when a summer slump in cotton caused a wave of failures on both of the atlantic and the bank of england an even bigger bank to contract credit, which led to a wave of failures in the British Empire that threatened to spread to the states and increased specie calls on american banks. Right. We want you to pay back your loans in hard money now to head off disaster. Biddle works the bank as what he a balance wheel selling coin, issuing notes to provide liquidity to other institutions and counter prevailing market. It works so well or he claimed it worked so well that he later made that success a centerpiece of his defense against andrew attacks on the bank. The United States. One of his supporters highlighted success crowing in a newspaper how bills you steal the bills allowed the u. S. To and im not going to show it here, but imagine gigantic all caps type here. It allowed the u. S. To escape from the misfortunes which have overwhelmed British Empire, which is a nice national boost for americans as well, like it to overwhelm beat the brits. In an irony, while biddle intended his experiments to protect americans from economic misfortunes in china, they helped accelerate americans entangle with British Imperial schemes. And thats a consequence not just of what biddle was doing, but how americans in the china trade reorganized following the end of the napoleonic wars. Okay, so want to say a little bit about how this trade worked just of generally before i tell you how it changed in the first decades of the american china trade, the Business Decisions for each voyage were managed by an official known as a super cargo whos a floating agent for the ships investors and cargo owners who oversaw all transactions involving cargo, not the sales and the management of the ship. The cargo, in return for a share of the profits. Its very common for a merchant family to put the, you know, the smart nephew, the super cargo and sometimes to put the nephew. And then you dont get your return on your investment. But its that kind of its a its a principle problem management. As the business grew, more firms found that having a resident agent in gwangju provided an advantage. So people started to stay over and not just accompany single voyages, but work year round. And they lived in the quarter of canton, of gwangju, which you can see pictured here in 1805, the way chinese authorities have the china trade set up is that foreigners are restricted to a certain area outside of the city. You can see its a little bit of a suburb there down in the left hand corner here, factory is what with the neighborhood is called, its outside the city walls. Its a way of quarantining them from access to the regular part of the city. But they rent these things called factories or hogs, which are a combination and living space and. Most other traders organize their their ventures by through a National Company that have had a monopoly on the trade. The english east india right. Americans organize it as private ventures. But they still tended to live in the same place. And so thats why you see the flags here. Most of that is indicating which company or which nationality, which for most people is the same thing, except for americans are doing this. The private traders. So living in the segregated neighborhood designated by law for foreign traders year round resident merchants developed a better knowledge of local conditions and cultivated closer with Chinese Business partners Getting Better prices on goods, higher prices on sales. You know, if youre buddies with your with the guys youre working with, you get you get sweeter deals and thats thats the thats the reason most American Firms particularly after the napoleonic wars, switched to having resident merchants, they all rely on resident merchants. And those resident merchants use extra time they had in china to explore new lines of business and know one rung more from this system than john perkins cushing, who i dont, unfortunately a good portrait of. But imagine a guy named, john perkins. Cushing you can just picture him in your minds eye, whatever he looks like. Thats what he looks like to you. Cushing ran the gwangju outpost of perkins and company a boston based merchant firm with representatives all over the world who coordinated interdependence of trade and first silver teas and cotton goods. The office was one of the most important of locations, and during his nearly 30 years in china, he started there as a teenager. He retired in middle age. He complemented the the advantage that his favorable position in this network with his own innovations and specifically he devised new ways of smuggling that flooded the canton market with opium, revolutionizing the china trade. Yep. Okay. So the opium trafficking system cushing put at the center of the perkins business was a response to British Colonial policy in the late 18th century, the British East India Company noticed that there was a new market for smokable opium in Southeast Asia, and they began forcing indian peasants to cultivate opium poppies to supply it. Thats the opium poppy there in the image opium provided the company with new source of revenue and help balance purchases of tea in china. But the east India Company had a problem in that the ching dynasty had prohibited importations opium particularly smokable opium since the 17th thirties, and kept reiterating those bans it was an illegal drug. It had always been an illegal drug as long as the british were importing it. So the east India Company decided not to ship it in their own ships, but to sell it to third parties known as country because they were trading between india and china. So still in the country of, asia, the country territory and these private third parties move the drug into china proper. Now, americas first experiments in importing opium to used different methods. At first they were excluded, buying opium in india until 1813, when the east india Company Monopoly ceases in india. So they instead turned to the ottoman port smyrna. Todays izmir for their supply and that turkey that americans imported from the anatolia and coast was of lower quality than that produced india but still found a market and by being the cheap alternative helped expand the market for the narcotic right and addictive substances. Its something that can rapidly expand the market on as long as its cheap enough. When the British East India Companies monopoly on the indian trade was withdrawn in 1813 during the middle of the war of 1812, during wartime american resident merchants in kent, china, got directly into the business. India and cushing was a critical figure using his firms capital to float early american dealers in indian opium, notably Samuel Russell of, russell and company, who would later merge with perkinss firm. Now, cushing didnt just float loans to traders, he also helped them build new smuggling system. Cushing knew from his years of residence that chinese officials a tight grip on gwangju, his official port whampoa, canton. Really, gwangju is really up at the end of a river. Delta whampoa is like the shipping zone. There was a lot of policing there but lower down in the pearl river delta was less tightly controlled so cushing and other merchants set a shadow port around a river island called linton, where they anchored warehouse to receive incoming opium and. Eventually, lots of other kinds of smuggled goods in gwangju proper. They sold chits to chinese brokers, went to linton to pick up the opium before selling. Its the end product consumers. So they offloaded risk and stayed out of the view of chinese authorities. And with the system in place, opium imports doubled and tripled in. The nearly quadrupled in a decade. The boom cemented opium as the keystone commodity for the china trade, doing for the creation of modern capitalist Market Dynamics in asia with tobacco and sugar had done for the Atlantic World. Opium imports increasingly replaced silver in western purchases exchanges for teas and silks in china, or at least did so as a trade. Good. I wouldnt recommend trying to use opium money. Its viscous, its bulky, it smells quite notably. Its easily recognized as contraband. So it doesnt serve as currency instead credit instruments took the place of silver money in exchanges mostly the forms of bills of exchange drawn on the same kind of bills of exchange. Gray was carrying the same kind of bills in exchange that the bank of the United States started selling. So americans had intermittently used before the war of 1812. But the changes in the trade accelerated in the late 18 tens and 1820s as their ability draw on credit in london. And heres where this kind of opium trade has an interesting wrinkle. Americans better access to london bills of exchange because of the cotton boom in the american south. Thats what british factories to buy american cotton often paid for it in British Commercial paper, which then china traders could use to make purchases for to cover their opium and tea purchases. So slavery helps expand the opium trade. The opium trade helps expand slavery. Its all part of the same system. The rise of bills, of exchange as a medium of exchange at gwangju meant that even those who were not directly involved in the opium trade themselves relied on the infrastructure it created. Even oliphant and co a us firm staffed by committed and very zealous evangelicals who very loudly and very often proclaim their refusal to deal in the drug. They still paid for their teas silks using bills that were made liquid and made valuable by the illicit flow of opium. And so here we have Robert Bennett forbes, whos a mentee of john perkins, cushing, and not a fan of oliphant. And koch writing back to his wife, explaining why, its okay, hes dealing with opium. He says. Everyone trading at canton explained to his wife, Robert Bennett. Forbes explained to his wife depended on bills to get money for purchases. The opium trade affects everyone. Trading here, right . Its the cash. Its the coin of the realm. So by the late 1820s, this complex improvised circuit of global commodity exchanges had into a new system. Americans drank chinese to paid for by southern cotton through the medium of london bills and asian opium. So the flourishing of the american china trade after the pulling out of wars was put it a different way, only possible because the rapid growth of a capitalist system, a global capitalist system that depended black market narcotics, native dispossess and slavery and confidence, the precarious promises encoded paper bills. Its a system that eroded state authority over policy both in asia and in the americas. Now in china, american involvement in the opium trade pushed them into closer collaboration with british traders and into conflict with ching officials policing. That illicit trading right. So chinese authorities was drawn foreign merchants for their violation of smuggling laws, which were crimes. But the prevalence of those crimes, the rise in those crimes convinced imperial officials not gwangju, but in beijing, convinced imperial administrators. Opium import imports were not just a social problem, but the cause of silver exports that they thought were destabilizing the empires money supply and, thereby weakening the dynastys authority. So the complicated complicating here for the chinese was that the growth of the opium smuggling trade made the tea trade grow. Thats what people are exchanging. The tea trade is an important Revenue Source for the chinese imperial government. So theres corruption at the local level that ripples backwards and reasons for the imperial government not to crack down or when they did crack down, it turned out to be too late. This all came to a head in 1839 with the outbreak of the opium war, a conflict that began when the british, when forces invaded the china coast in order to force the qing authorities to pay the cost of opium that local officials had seized as contraband right. The opium war is extremely known. Its a war to force the chinese to pay for opium. They destroyed after they had seized it as contraband. British victory in that war to a new set of treaties that vastly expanded trading rights for british traders and that colonial incursion americans in a couple of different ways. First, they acted as neutral parties during the war themselves itself. They made a lot of money trading at gwangju when when british shippers could not, but also afterwards when the Us Government, like other western powers, rushed in after the war to, make similar unequal agreements unequal because all the benefits went to western powers and none of them to the chinese. And it set the basic terms of uschina until the communist takeover in 49. That new business realities of opium also influence the tragic theory of us politics. When the bank of the United States came under sustained attack from jacksonian democrats in the bank war. But a half a decade before biddle and, his allies pointed repeatedly to the east india bills as proof of the good that the bank had done, that this is a trustworthy institution does not need any more government oversight. But much to little surprise, it shouldnt have been that surprising to him. His claims about the amount of control he over the American Economy backfired on him. Right. George democrat as clayton, one of the leading antibank leaders in the house of representatives, seized on the explanation of how the east india bills replaced specie exports as evidence that there was something in their operation. Worse, the bills because they were credit were quote, dealing without capital. Pure speculation that would lead to bank crashes. And another reason why this bank should not be trusted without a political oversight so to kind of step back a little bit from this in aftermath of the war of 1812, americans increasingly their increasingly close entangled with british systems of imperial commerce at gwangju formed a new and influential between us, the us political and global markets. One that complemented deepening ties that were ongoing because of the boom in cotton among the rising generation of practical american politicians enough glimpsed how integral new of silver of bills and of were to american fiscal monetary health to make controls on these flows a public concern. And in this regard american from Nicholas Biddle to James Buchanan and other jacksonian, they paralleled their counterparts among the official class in china, both that they disagreed with each other, but also that they saw these things a problem they were all worried their countrymens Profitable Enterprises and, canton, were destabilizing the money supply and subverting the state. And like their counterparts in china, americans were unable to fully account or control what the system in motion. In the 1820s and 1830s, american policymakers attempt to evade the gyres of world trade have the ironic effect immersing americans more deeply in what one merchant called the troubled waters of speculation. Now, those are depths the drowned, a very large number of them. But everyone, as thomas h. Perkins this is the head of perkins, a company that johns perkins cushing worked for, as he advised his business partners. The opium war broke out. Crisis could opportunity while the trouble lasts, you will be enabled to do great things, but one such chance happens in a lifetime youll feel a profit one must take advantage. Perkins was speaking from personal because he made his first fortune that he later reinvested in the china trade trading slaves and sugar during the haitian revolution in the caribbean. So hes a guy that knew how to profit from disorder. Now perkins sentiment. And im going to win this up here perkins sentiment captures a great deal of how american merchants approach to their business in china. But im a little bit loath to give a slave trader turned opium dealer turned philanthropist the last word. So im going to say a couple more about what i think this all means and why it matters what tracking the politics of the china trade demonstrates in this example, as in others, is that the United States has never lived in a vacuum from the republics earliest years, americans rarely saw themselves as engaged solely in a north american realm or even in the atlantic or pacific one. Their frame of reference from the beginning encompassed the entire globe. One of the core ways many early define themselves and their nation was through their commercial relations, the traffic in goods and people and ideas flows bound them to the rest of the world as well as set them apart and gave them distinct approaches. So the alleged novelty of our current era, late capitalism or globalization, sometimes obscures the fact the world inhabited by folks like Thomas Perkins or Thaddeus Stevens was no hole, no less round and no less known to be so than our own. So in trading freedom, i argue that understanding the role of global as illustrated by the american trade with china provides a way back that early american mode of seeing. And with that vision, i think a deeper understanding of the context and motivations that move people and what the world to do with it. And i think engaging that point of view also provides a useful perspective on what the limits on our present vision of the world and particularly the us relationship with china might be. So as with all history, i hope it promotes a bit of humility among us all. So yeah, thats my spiel. Thank you very much. Your time. And i believe were taking questions from the audience and potentially from zoom. Yes, im going to handle the q a. Thank you so much im going to actually ask about to repeat the questions that you might have so that the audience, through cspan also hear what it is that we are throwing your way. Does anybody want to ask the first question. Thank you for time and im and then talking especially right. Yeah. Um what i meant on the consumer and how American Consumers were opm and who was buying it seems like such an abstract commodity and the way that it moves around the world. But there mustve been a big market in america. People who are interested in opm and really rich people. And how are they using it. Yeah, thats a great question. So the question is about whats the market for opm in the United States . How were people using it that kind of thing. So opm in the United States, the same period is not commonly smoked. Opium is something that starts in the 18th century, maybe the 17th century in Southeast Asia, we think in indonesia, we think with the introduction of tobacco from americas, thats thats how we we it gets started. But that practice doesnt become in the west for a long and never really takes over in the way it does in another in Atlantic World and in the United States opium is eaten right just kind of chopped or or or drunk in a concoction known as a tincture, known as laudanum, which is opium and alcohol. And thats a very common narcotic. And you know, its helpful to remember that this is a world where there is not tylenol, there is not advil, if you want it to not feel pain. There was one thing and thats opium, right. And its you know, its a very ancient medicine known since the greeks before. So its in wide use, as you say. But in the United States, its often added to patent medicines as a form of of of and although it is kind of interestingly gendered right there is kind of laudanum is is is more associated with women and or abuse of laudanum is more associated in the 19th century with women. Later after the civil war when theres injectables of of opiates, morphine and later heroin, that becomes the abuse of those narcotics. Or as the concept of starts to form, which is something thats kind of in motion, well into, the 20th century, that becomes with veterans and men who are soldiers suffering, war wounds. But but even so, its used medicinally. Its prescribed, but its also freely available. The United States has not banned the importation or the sale of opium until well into the 20th century. I hope that it gets a thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. In the back. You know we have a question from zoom. What role do tariffs play in the trade story . Thats a great question. I you can see my face light up so the question from zoom is what role did tariffs play in the trade story . So tariffs are you know, tariff is is the tax on imported goods into the United States and the tariff is the critical source of revenue for the United States. Its also until income tax in the 20th century, and it is also the main Economic Policy engine United States, if you raise the tariff on certain goods and you know that are already expensive, you you can promote industry if you lower the tariffs on other things, you can promote cheaper construct consumption. Its its the main economic battle that. American publics and politicians for most of the 19th most of the history of the country until the income tax right so when the trade story whats really interesting about the tariff is that the first tariff that the United States puts and continuing is the 1820s, that tariff loss specifically privileges and promotes american trade with. And it does so in a couple of different ways. It specifically says that goods coming from asian ports face a much lower duty. They have a much less high of a much lower tax rate. So if youre shipping goods, if you were shipping goods in an American Ship directly from china to the United States, you pay a third of what someone buying those goods in does or bouncing around. It also lowers that lowers that that first tariff and subsequent you know, the next 25 years or so, lower tariffs, specific goods, cottons from t from china. So not just things coming from asian ports, but also tariffs on specific categories of goods. And theres a couple of reasons for that and one is this an Economic Policy that people in Congress James madison, that First FederalCommerce Congress very explicitly say we want to promote shipping as an as an industry thats important to National Security, thats important to our economic development. If youre an atlantic power, you to have a good what they called a merchant marine, a good commercial fleet so you dont have to depend on other powers, right . This is the opposite of the situation. The United States, which is entirely dependent on foreign shipping. So they lowered those goods, the tariff for ships to promote that industry. But also wanted to promote industry direct trade with asia, because they saw as a way of bypassing europe and europe. Its a bit like kind of building your own airline or launching own satellites. Its proof you can if you can have a thriving business with asia, made it as a nation. Youve done it. Thats how the particularly the first few voyages you get in the harbor and who dont know anything about trade to their buddies and say, isnt this great . This is really sticking it to the british. It wasnt because they were working with the thats business, but whatever. But really take it on as a point of National Pride so trade and the idea of trade with china as a thing that will benefit United States through the tariff you can see that expressed in concrete means through the tariff. Thanks very much for the question. I love talking about the tariff. I was seem like a self motivated interest question. But as the stewards of buchanans home, of course we always want to know how James Buchanan play into the picture. And im wondering, buchanan responded to american trafficking drugs and presumably people i would imagine migrant laborers from china. Yeah interestingly. So american politician is dont care about americans trafficking in opium at all. And they and buchanan is among them. And they do so for two reasons, theyre able to kind pretend that its not happening as as part of kind of anti british sentiment particular among democrats being an anglo phobe is is part of the coin of the realm. And buchanan is very much participating in that the difficulty for him is that americans not only were trafficking in opium, but they were also trafficking in people. American officials in china, who after that, after the opium war, United States signed a treaty with china after 1844. There is usually an american diplomat. The scene in china, not just other merchants, but actually a u. S. Government official, usually a flunky whos like a lower hanging on of whatever administration riding on. Thats, you know, some things in terms of foreign appointments and some things dont. But often its a political loyalists. So for buchanan, his political loyalist out is a guy by the name of William Bradford reed, whos also pro confederate later. So much cut from the same cloth he, writes to buchanan and says, hey, im here in china. And you know what . Americans are doing is theyre endangering and then illegally shipping Chinese People to go work on plantations. And i think thats a problem because we have an anti slave trading statute also that seems to compete with all these slave owners that we have and that are an important part of your coalition. Indeed, the people that you answer to most directly in congress, what should i do the Buchanan Administration . This which is the same thing that that their predecessor had done. Eventually reed gets a back from the the of state who ran it through the ag and the ag says you know technically have a slightly anti slave trading statute but for you dont worry about it shut up and thats the thats the thats the party line on it that was the party line four administrations before that depending on whos in power you know concern over migrants who were being mistreated indentured people who are termed coolies, which is not a great term, but thats the thats what the trade is called. Whats interesting about that is that theres this kind of jujitsu move where slave holders who are worried about competition for other labor sources, they look at chinese migrants coming to places in the americas as replacements for plantations in, slave people on plantations, and they look at those folks and they worry that thats going to happen to them and they worry thats going to happen in places they to expand, particularly cuba. And so there becomes this anti antebellum slave upholder rhetoric of our abolitionist enemies are actually human traffickers who are trafficking in white people to cuba so they racialize the chinese as white. They define them as being enslaved, even though theyre in a different form of bondage. And they raise a whole lot of hell about it. And thats why buchanans appointees are worried about it. Right. The jujitsu move here is that antislavery people and abolitionist to say, yeah, actually this trade is like slavery, this is terrible. What happens out of the civil war is that that opprobrium of being trafficked sticks to Chinese People. So the rhetoric of decrying the chinese as people cannot become citizens. People who are racially other, you know, it gets folded into a widespread see that is also in antiblackness right . Its this weird thing where the chinese get defined as white by slaveholders, but because they get defined as being enslaved matter how theyre moving throughout the world. The people who come to california are not trafficked in that way. Theyre defined as being enslaved and unworthy of citizenship. Thus they be excluded. So theres this kind of interesting turnabout that buchanan is a key cog in that machine. But yeah, he doesnt care what theyre doing unless its a thumb. He can put in the eye of whatever British Foreign hes talking with. Yeah, sorry. That was a really long answer. Great answer. Thank you. Any final questions. I prefer ignorance about this. During the timespan, youre looking at. Was trade between america and, japan something that was combative or problematic heck with our trade with china as well. Oh, thats a really good question. So the question is, was during the same time period, was trade with japan combative . Did interact with trade with china in the same way thats . A really good question in in some ways the trade with china what sparks the efforts to open japan. Right. Theres some early efforts that before perry, china merchants and evangelicals try sail into japans harbor. And, you know, they do it with a who who not does not become famous because he gets punched and pushed back onto his boat. And then perry shows up with a bunch of guns, a couple of years later. And then thats a different conversation. But through the 19th century trade with japan, it remains at pretty low levels. The kind of interactions between china and the United States is really about how does the the japanese state react to westernization and opening . And they want to the japanese look at whats happening to china to avoid it. And so they want to adopt technologies they want to change. Theres more incentive to change Government Systems and take on a lot of americans become kind of experts that are helping the meiji kind of redesign things because they look at what happened in china which the opium war you know theres the first opium war the second will be more the and the french and sometimes the americans also theyre kind of cheering them on are invading china and and demanding new trading concessions and biting away chinese sovereignty and the japanese look at that and say not for us and they they succeed in keeping that distant in terms of trade eventually japans tea trade overtakes american trade with tea in china. But its thats a late 19th century and early 20th century thing, and it has to do with kind of americans taste in tea which is green americans like green tea and not not the not the harder stuff in part because when they first getting the trade its cheaper. But the japanese become really good at making an product for tea. But theres not in terms of interacting, there is a lot of the same people are investing China Ventures as are in japanese ventures. But the take off point, you know, the china trade kind of peaks the 1870s, 1880s. It keeps growing but not as fast and trade with japan takes off at the same a little bit later it becomes more important as just as a business. But its a lot of the same investors. Yeah. Thank you. One last question i want to do last. Question and another question from zoom. Where do you think the future u. S. China trade headed . So the question from zoom is asking a historian a terrible and thats to predict the future. Yeah, i dont know. I mean, you know, theres a lot of the i describe you know, i came to this project as an american historian, as a specialist in china. I up some knowledge of china the way a lot has changed in china since, you know, a lot of changes in the United States as well. Its easier for me to say see the things the United States that are. And one of the things that is a continuity is that how americans approach their relationship with. China has a lot to do. What they think it can do for them domestically in their politics. Right. So contemporary ideas about protectionism or lost or, you know, various forms of White Supremacy towards asian folks, thats a lot about domestic american politics always has been. And i think whats useful about this history is that it makes it really visible. Right. I also think what it makes visible is that there is a past, a long past where regarded the relationship with china as something that could be mutually beneficial and that free commerce and open communication was something that they could offer the that other powers could not. And that was American Special sauce for a while. Theres a moment in where americans are really putting together a what their representative calls a cooperator policy that really has the promise as reconstruction did to really reshape relations, but also economic relations. And it falls apart and is a moment of loss, i think. So i dont what the future holds. I can say, though, that if it follows on the track of the past, where, you know, ideas about White Supremacy and ideas about, you know, keeping things locked down and controlled for a specific interest benefit, overwhelm, then that seems like a continuity with the 20th century rather than the 19th or the 18th. That i dodge it enough. I dont know. Two areas, one, how would you describe how safe trade china was . In other words. We know a lot of the trade merchants would ship a load and theyd split it amongst two or three ships. Anticipate. Hitting, you know, problem either interdiction or bad weather. So one thats one thing. And the other is you address fishing, the fishing trade with china, as we know, one point here in the is one recent book. Where people in colchester were more accustomed to meeting neighbors in china than they would back in massachusetts because everybody was at sea. Yeah im always to hear gloucester brought up im from massachusetts originally ive hidden it well in my accent but so yeah so the question of safety yeah i mean shipping is just dangerous right and it and it and it is in the 18th century and is in the 19th century in terms you know financial safety. These guys were really good. The successful them, i should say, were really good at insuring themselves, distributing as you said, cargoes between different ships not putting all the eggs in one basket, having your nephew go out and manage your china affairs, that kind of thing. These are all a of the structure of american trade with china is about financial safety, is about being aware the dangers of the sea, which on the china coast could involve piracy at various points. Its never as you know its never as know they never go full johnny depp. Its never a, you know, pirates of the caribbean stuff. But but piracy a concern but also just dangerous. These are dangerous routes and thats partly why it paid so well right thats partly why it was such a profitable and high status trade is that to be able to go and come back and sail around cape horn, you know, thats thats or spend time clubbing seals to gather furs. Thats nuts. Thats thats dangerous occupation but its also dangerous on board the ships because of the labor and social conditions. So in the in the indentured chinese migrant trade. A lot of those ships become famous as disasters at sea because of mutinies, because of mass suicides and because theyre killing people in the holes by suffocate them. And those that really captivates the American Press for a while about. The dangers of shipping people or dangers of just mistreating your sailors and they mutiny against you. Thats thats a danger. Part of whats interesting about the kind of slow extension of american Governmental Authority to china is that, you know, before theres a diplomat in place, theres consuls. Consuls technically have authority over sailors whove gone rogue. They can jail them. Theyre supposed to take care of their hospital bills. And their constant work is dealing with guys who jumped ship or beat up the ship master just wanted to leave. And that like everyday violence of of the maritime trade is really i think that sometimes from that the kind of view given here, which is kind of a birds eye view that like every day violence of, life on these ships is really not. But its a very violent life, even if the cargo itself is somewhat safe in terms of people meaning people abroad. Yeah. I mean, you know, fishing is not as big of a deal in this period, although there are leaders moments where where fishing or the whale fishery is is a big deal in the pacific and builds on a lot of these china trading routes like hawaii is first to stop over point or the sandwich islands is first a stopover point for china traders and then it becomes a stopover for whalers and thats also an incredibly dangerous profession, although again, the way that these businesses structured is they often offload the danger and the risk to the laborers rather than the finance. Right. You dont succeed in business by by by by it mattering. If a bunch of guys dying or whaling vessel. So so yeah, i the point about safety is really well taken. I will also say once once they shift steamboats, steamboats also blow up all the time. So theres that aspect. It too. So even if youre not hitting icebergs, you might just so yeah, very dangerous time and, and very thats part of why the premium on these goods is so high and why the prestige of being a guy whos gone around and commanded a ship is such a you people. People need a couple of china trading voyages and they go around being called captain or for the rest of their lives. And its because its a high prestige thing, that prestige over facing danger. So, yeah, thanks very much for the question well, given that you have ten years of research into this book, i suspect we could keep you going all night. Were really so grateful that youre here tonight. And since you all have three opportunities for entertainment to leave here, you can go watch the phillies. You can go watch the eagles, or you can go home or out to the lobby, buy a copy of dr. Norwoods book. So take your pick and please join me in thanking dr. Norwood for a great presentation. Thanks so much for your time. Its good to see you here