The golden ghetto : the American commercial community at Canton and the shaping of American China policy, 1784-1844

The golden ghetto : the American commercial community at Canton and the shaping of American China policy, 1784-1844

American commercial community at Canton and the shaping of American China policy, 1784-1844

Bethlehem, [PA] : London : Lehigh University Press ; Associated University Press, 1997.

495 p., [1] leaf, [2] p. of plates : ill., map, ports. ; 24 cm.

337.51 D748 1997

(OCoLC)34046271

Details the life of American merchants and missionaries who lived at Canton, the only port in the Celestial Empire open to foreigners in the sixty years after the Revolution before America developed a China policy; covers the institutions of the community, its development of informal policies for dealing with emergencies and with the Chinese, the guild of merchants with whom foreigners dealt, and the Chinese bureaucracy that regulated and observed their lives in China. Opium smuggling receives especial emphasis, since it provided the economic base of the community and affected the traders' views of China and the Chinese.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 459-487) and index.
Contents: pt. 1. The Golden ghetto. Old Canton and its trade. American business under the old system. Opium transforms the Canton System -- pt. 2. The residents and their firms. The dominant firms. The other houses. The China trader -- pt. 3. Cushing's Treaty. The creation of an officical policy. The mission to China. Retrospection -- Epilogue: The legacy of Old Canton.
L2015M138

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