Time: May 6 (Saturday) 5Pm (PST)
Registration：https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_j6Vio94dTRat5XCx1X31XQ
Speaker: John Haddad, Ph.D.Professor of American Studies
The American Opium Trade in China: Merchants, Missionaries, Mandarins, and the Self-Made Man
This lecture explores American Opium smuggling in China – what Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s grandfather called a “fair, honorable and legitimate” trade. In the nineteenth century, American merchants smuggled vast quantities of opium into China. This presentation explains the fundamentals of the American opium trade: why it got started, who engaged in it, how it operated, and what effect it had on China’s people and economy. Going beyond commerce, this presentation also explores the social dimensions of the opium trade. It sheds light on the expatriate community in Canton where opium caused friction between the opium smugglers on the one hand and the missionaries and law-abiding merchants on the other. The latter two groups used their condemnation of opium to win the favor of Chinese officials. The presentation also reveals the role opium played in the class aspirations of young American men, many of whom used it to climb the social ladder to wealth, influence, and reputation. Indeed, some of New England’s most elite families—Cabot, Lowell, Forbes, Perkins, Cushing, and Delano— have enjoyed lofty status precisely because an ancestor made a fortune in China trafficking in narcotics.
