The First Opium War, (The First Anglo-Chinese War or the Opium War) 1839-42
a. United Kingdom vs. Qing Dynasty China
i. Canton a busy port city
1. Thirteen Factories on Shameen Island
a. Thirteen Hongs
b. British East India Trading Company
ii. Lucrative trade for British and Chinese
1. Tea
2. Silver
3. Opium
a. Grown in India
b. Used as medicine in China
c. Laws against abuse
iii. Opium sales increase
1. Silver outflow from China back to Britain
2. Opium abuse. Harmful to China
3. Opium Competition
a. Prices fell and sales increased
b. British East India Trading Company loses
monopoly on opium
i. Americans get opium from Turkey
iv. British reformers break up BEITC.
v. Qing made opium illegal
1. Corrupt officials
a. Bribes
2. Lin Zexu
a. Crackdown on opium trade
b. Banned Sales of opium
c. Opium trade punishable by death
3. British Superintendent of Trade, Charles Elliot
a. Agrees to hand over opium
b. Avoid diplomatic catastrophe
4. Burning and destruction of opium on June 3, 1839
vi. Letter to Queen Victoria
1. Lin Zexu writes explaining the why opium was destroyed
2. Never reaches Queen Victoria
vii. Atmosphere becomes tense with crackdown
1. Chinese coast is armed
2. Arresting foreign sailors and merchants who were in
Kowloon collecting supplies
3. Sailors riot
4. 6 sailors kill a Chinese villager named Lin Weixi during the
riot
viii. China did not have a jury trial system or evidentiary process
1. British claimed “extraterritoriality”
2. China demand sailors be turned over, British refused
a. British Act of Parliament
i. Charles Elliot had authority to try sailors
ii. However, British government claims
Charles Elliot does not have ability to try
sailors without permission from China
iii. Charles Elliot decides to have British leave
the port and prohibit British trade
3. Fighting breaks out
a. Some merchants feel Charles Elliot overstepped his
power
b. Continue trading
c. Elliot blockades the Pearl River (Port of Canton) to
stop merchants from trading
i. Merchant ship armed with weapons Royal
Saxon fights the blockade
ii. Naval ships fire warning shots
iii. Chinese military Junk ships attack Royal
Naval ships, “protect” merchant ship
1. Huge losses for Chinese
d. Chinese decree the end of aid to British ships
i. Macau
ii. Cut off from supplies
e. Lord Palmerston, British Foreign Secretary
i. Leads Royal Navy in an attack on Canton
ii. Justify attacks as making Chinese
government pay for the losses to British
trading
4. Treaty of Nanjing August 1842
a. Unequal Treaty
i. Extraterritoriality
ii. Opening of all trading ports
iii. Reparations
1. Hand over of Hong Kong to Britain
2. Silver paid for opium losses and war
damages
b. End of old Canton System
c. Opening of China to foreign control