DO NOW: Ms. Cannistraci
Name:______________________________ Date:_____
Modern History Sourcebook: The People of Canton: Against the English, 1842
Behold that vile English nation!...its people are at one time like vultures, and then they are
like wild beasts, with dispositions more fierce and furious than the tiger or wolf, and natures
more greedy than anacondas [snakes] or swine [pigs]. These people having long steadily
devoured all the western barbarians, and like demons of the night, they now suddenly exalt
themselves here…[The English linked]themselves with traitorous Chinese traders, they have
carried on a large trade and poisoned our brave people with opium [a very addictive
drug]…the English barbarians murder all of us that they can. They are dogs, whose desires
can never be satisfied. Therefore we need not inquire whether the peace they have now
made be real or pretended. Let us all rise, arm, unite, and go against them.
From: Eva March Tappan, ed., China, Japan, and the Islands of the Pacific, Vol. I of The World's Story: A History of the World
in Story, Song, and Art, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), p. 197.
State two reasons the People of Canton are against the English.
1st
2nd
Ms. Cannistraci
Opium Trade
Name:______________________________ Date:_____
…The Chinese had long been opposed to the opium trade. The drug had been introduced into
China by Dutch traders during the seventeenth century. As early as 1729, there were imperial
decrees forbidding the sale and smoking of this “destructive and ensnaring vice.” In 1796,
Jiaqing, the new emperor, placed a complete ban on its importation, but he was a weak
administrator and soon pirates and opium merchants were bribing officials to look the other
way. By 1816, the [British] East India Company had imported 3,000 chests of opium from its
poppy fields in the north Indian state of Punjab. By 1820, this had risen to 5,000 and by 1825
to almost 10,000. As more and more Chinese became addicts, and silver flowed out of the
economy to British coffers, the Chinese government moved toward confrontation. The
emperor Daoguang, who came to the throne in 1821 was a reformer, and, supported by his
advisor Lin Zexu (1785–1850), the emperor banned opium in 1836 and ordered the
decapitation of “foreign barbarians” who concealed and traded the drug.…
Source: Perry M. Rogers, ed., Aspects of World Civilization: Problems and Sources in History, Volume II, Prentice Hall (adapted)
According to Perry Rogers, what was one reason the Chinese were unsuccessful in halting
the opium trade?
According to Perry Rogers, what was one impact the opium trade on China?
If Absent Choose ne document of the following three to investigate
Ms. Cannistraci
Name:______________________________ Date:_____
Document 1:
Modern History Sourcebook: Commissioner Lin: Letter to Queen Victoria, 1839
. . . Our celestial empire [China] rules over ten thousand kingdoms! Most surely do we
possess a measure of godlike majesty which ye cannot fathom! Still we cannot bear to slay or
exterminate without previous warning, and it is for this reason that we now clearly make
known to you the fixed laws of our land. If the foreign merchants of your said honorable
nation desire to continue their commercial intercourse [trade relations], they then must
tremblingly obey our recorded statutes, they must cut off forever the source from which the
opium flows, and on no account make an experiment of our laws in their own persons! Let
then your highness [Queen Victoria] punish those of your subjects who may be criminal, do
not endeavor to screen or conceal them, and thus you will secure peace and quietness to
your possessions, thus will you more than ever display a proper sense of respect and
obedience, and thus may we unitedly enjoy the common blessings of peace and happiness.
What greater joy! What more complete felicity [harmony] than this! . . .
— Chinese High Commissioner Lin Zexu’s letter to Queen Victoria
From: Chinese Repository, Vol. 8 (February 1840), pp. 497-503; reprinted in William H. McNeil and Mitsuko Iriye,
eds., Modern Asia and Africa, Readings in World History Vol. 9, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp.
111-118.
State two demands of Commissioner Lin in his letter to Queen Victoria.
1st
2nd
Ms. Cannistraci
Document 1:
Name:______________________________ Date:_____
Modern History Sourcebook: Commissioner Lin: Letter to Queen Victoria, 1839
. . . Our celestial empire [China] rules over ten thousand kingdoms! Most surely do we
possess a measure of godlike majesty which ye cannot fathom! Still we cannot bear to slay or
exterminate without previous warning, and it is for this reason that we now clearly make
known to you the fixed laws of our land. If the foreign merchants of your said honorable
nation desire to continue their commercial intercourse [trade relations], they then must
tremblingly obey our recorded statutes, they must cut off forever the source from which the
opium flows, and on no account make an experiment of our laws in their own persons! Let
then your highness [Queen Victoria] punish those of your subjects who may be criminal, do
not endeavor to screen or conceal them, and thus you will secure peace and quietness to
your possessions, thus will you more than ever display a proper sense of respect and
obedience, and thus may we unitedly enjoy the common blessings of peace and happiness.
What greater joy! What more complete felicity [harmony] than this! . . .
— Chinese High Commissioner Lin Zexu’s letter to Queen Victoria
From: Chinese Repository, Vol. 8 (February 1840), pp. 497-503; reprinted in William H. McNeil and Mitsuko Iriye,
eds., Modern Asia and Africa, Readings in World History Vol. 9, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp.
111-118.
State two demands of Commissioner Lin in his letter to Queen Victoria.
1st
2nd
Ms. Cannistraci
Document 2:
Name:______________________________ Date:_____
Modern History Sourcebook: Commissioner Lin: Letter to Queen Victoria, 1839
Suppose the subject of another country were to come to England to trade, he would certainly
be required to comply with the laws of England, then how much more does this apply to us of
the celestial empire! Now it is a fixed statute of this empire, that any native Chinese who sells
opium is punishable with death, and even he who merely smokes it, must not less die. Pause
and reflect for a moment: if you foreigners did not bring the opium hither, where should our
Chinese people get it to re-sell? It is you foreigners who involve our simple natives in the pit
of death, and are they alone to be permitted to escape alive? If so much as one of those
deprive one of our people of his life, he must forfeit his life in requital for that which he has
taken: how much more does this apply to him who by means of opium destroys his fellowmen? Does the havoc which he commits stop with a single life? Therefore it is that those
foreigners who now import opium into the Central Land are condemned to be beheaded and
strangled by the new statute, and this explains what we said at the beginning about plucking
up the tree of evil, wherever it takes root, for the benefit of all nations.
— Chinese High Commissioner Lin Zexu’s letter to Queen Victoria
From: Chinese Repository, Vol. 8 (February 1840), pp. 497-503; reprinted in William H. McNeil and Mitsuko Iriye,
eds., Modern Asia and Africa, Readings in World History Vol. 9, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp.
111-118.
State two complaints of Commissioner Lin in his letter to Queen Victoria.
1st
2nd
Ms. Cannistraci
Document 3:
Name:______________________________ Date:_____
Modern History Sourcebook: Commissioner Lin: Letter to Queen Victoria, 1839
We have heard that in your own country opium is prohibited with the utmost strictness and
severity: this is a strong proof that you know full well how hurtful it is to mankind. Since then
you do not permit it to injure your own country, you ought not to have the injurious drug
transferred to another country, and above all others, how much less to the Inner Land! Of the
products which China exports to your foreign countries, there is not one which is not
beneficial to mankind in some shape or other. There are those which serve for food, those
which are useful, and those which are calculated for re-sale; but all are beneficial. Has China
(we should like to ask) ever yet sent forth a noxious article from its soil? Not to speak of our
tea and rhubarb, things which your foreign countries could not exist a single day
without…And further, as regards your woolens, camlets, and longells, were it not that you get
supplied with our native raw silk; you could not get these manufactured! If China were to
grudge you those things which yield a profit, how could you foreigners scheme after any
profit at all?
— Chinese High Commissioner Lin Zexu’s letter to Queen Victoria
From: Chinese Repository, Vol. 8 (February 1840), pp. 497-503; reprinted in William H. McNeil and Mitsuko Iriye,
eds., Modern Asia and Africa, Readings in World History Vol. 9, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp.
111-118.
State two reasons Commissioner Lin demands the opium trade be stopped in China.
1st
2nd
Ms. Cannistraci
Name:______________________________ Date:_____
The Treaty of Nanjing was signed by Great Britain and China following the Opium War
(1839–1842). An Excerpt from the Treaty of Nanjing
ARTICLE II.
His majesty the Emperor of China agrees that British subjects…shall be allowed to
live…without being bothered or restrained at the cities and towns of Canton, Amoy,
Foochow-fu, Ningpo, and Shanghai…
ARTICLE III. It being obviously necessary and desirable, that British Subjects should have some Port
whereat they may careen and refit their Ships, when required, and keep Stores for that purpose, His
Majesty the Emperor of China cedes [gives] to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, etc., the Island
of Hongkong, to be possessed in perpetuity [forever] by Her Britannic Majesty, Her Heirs and
Successors, and to be governed by such Laws and Regulations as Her Majesty the Queen of Great
Britain, etc., shall see fit to direct.
ARTICLE VI.
The government of her Britannic Majesty having been obliged to send out an expedition to demand
and obtain payment for the violent and unjust actions of the Chinese high authorities toward Her
Britannic Majesty’s officer and subjects, the Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of twelve million
dollars to make up for those expenses
Source: “Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking), 1842,” USC-UCLA Joint East Asian Studies Center
What did the British gain as a result of the Treaty of Nanjing?
Ms. Cannistraci
Name:______________________________ Date:_____
The Treaty of Nanjing was signed by Great Britain and China following the Opium War
(1839–1842). An Excerpt from the Treaty of Nanjing
ARTICLE II.
His majesty the Emperor of China agrees that British subjects…shall be allowed to
live…without being bothered or restrained at the cities and towns of Canton, Amoy,
Foochow-fu, Ningpo, and Shanghai…
ARTICLE III. It being obviously necessary and desirable, that British Subjects should have some Port
whereat they may careen and refit their Ships, when required, and keep Stores for that purpose, His
Majesty the Emperor of China cedes [gives] to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, etc., the Island
of Hongkong, to be possessed in perpetuity [forever] by Her Britannic Majesty, Her Heirs and
Successors, and to be governed by such Laws and Regulations as Her Majesty the Queen of Great
Britain, etc., shall see fit to direct.
ARTICLE VI.
The government of her Britannic Majesty having been obliged to send out an expedition to demand
and obtain payment for the violent and unjust actions of the Chinese high authorities toward Her
Britannic Majesty’s officer and subjects, the Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of twelve million
dollars to make up for those expenses
Source: “Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking), 1842,” USC-UCLA Joint East Asian Studies Center
What did the British gain as a result of the Treaty of Nanjing?
Posted on smartboard
The Treaty of Tientsin
Article XVI.
Chinese subjects who may be guilty of any criminal act towards British subjects shall be
arrested by the Chinese authorities according to the laws of China
British subjects who may commit a crime in China shall be tried and punished by the Consul
or other Public Functionary authorized thereto according to the laws of Great Britain.
Justice shall be fairly and impartially administered on both sides…
The Chinese were against the Treaty of Tientsin, based on the document why do you think
the Chinese felt the treaty was unfair.