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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 April 2011
During the last ten years an increasing number of scholars have turned their attention to examining the history of American relations with Eastern Asia. Almost without exception these studies have focused on American relations with China, Japan and Korea and have tended to ignore the areas of Southeast Asia which are at present the focus of so much attention and concern on the part of the American public and government. This is all the more surprising when one considers that American interests and activities in this area are at least as old as those in China. American Marines first landed in Vietnam in 1846 not 1965. There are records of American pirates and traders (sometimes it was hard to distinguish between them) in the East Indies as early as the 17th century, and before the beginning of the 19th century Americans had already opened a thriving trade with Java, Sumatra and the Philippine Islands.
1 Two notable exceptions are the works of Trager, Helen, Burma Through Alien Eyes, (New York 1966)Google Scholar and Gould, James W., Americans in Sumatra, (The Hague 1961).CrossRefGoogle Scholar There is also the illuminating introduction in R., Thomas and McHale, Mary C., Early American Philippine Trade: The Journal of Nathaniel Bowditch, (New Haven 1962).Google Scholar
2 Paullin, Charles O., “American Naval Vessels in the Orient”, United States Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 36, June, 1910.Google Scholar
3 Most of the sources cited in this study have been chosen because as books, missionary letters of congressional documents, etc. they were easily accessible to the interested public.
4 “Remarks of Commodore Perry upon the Expediency of Extending further Encouragement to American Commerce in the East” in Narrative of An Expedition to Japan and the China Seas, (Washington 1857), Vol. 2, pp. 173–180, House Exec. Doc, 97, 33rd Cong., 2nd Sess.Google Scholar
5 Judson, Ann, An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire, (London 1823), p. 87.Google Scholar
6 Roberts, Edmund, An Embassy to the Courts of Cochin-China, Siam and Muscat, (New York 1837), p. 450.Google Scholar
7 Cosenza, Mario E., ed., The Complete Journals of Townsend Harris, (New York 1930) P. 153.Google Scholar
8 Edmund Roberts, op. cit., pp. 220–221.
9 Judson, Edward, The Life of Adoniram Judson by His Son, (New York 1883), p. 93.Google Scholar
10 Perry to Secretary of the Navy, October 7, 1854, in Expedition to Japan, p. 194.
11 Edmund Roberts, op cit., p. 268.
12 The Complete Journals of Townsend Harris, p. 153.
13 Edward Judson, op. cit., p. 73.
14 Warriner, Francis, The Cruise of the Frigate Potomac, (New York 1835), p. 124, (W.S.W. Russchenberger, A Voyage Round the World Including an Embassy to Muscat and Siam, (Philadelphia 1838), p. 357).Google Scholar
15 Joseph Balestier to Secretary of State John M. Clayton, April 30, 1850, National Archives, Record Group 59, Special Agents.
16 Roberts, op. cit., p. 479.
17 Thomas R. and Mary C. McHale, op. cit., p. 36.
18 The Complete Journals of Townsend Harris, pp. 14, 5, 161.
19 Captain James Silver letter to Salem Register, September 13, 1838.
20 Roberts, op. cit., p. 27.
21 Wood, Robert Maxwell, Fankwei or the Son Jacinto in the Seas of China and Japan (New York 1859) p. 141.Google Scholar
22 Balestier to Clayton, March 13, 1850, Senate Document No. 38, 32nd. Congress, 1st session.
23 Perry, “Remarks”, p. 176.
24 The Complete Journals of Townsend Harris, p. 157.
25 W.S.W. Russchenberger, op. cit., p. 310.
26 Perry to Secretary of the Navy, October 7, 1854, in Expedition, p. 19.
27 Roberts, op. cit., p. 285.
28 Trager, Helen N., Burma Through Alien Eyes, (New York 1966), p. 136.Google Scholar
29 William Maxwell Wood, op. cit., p. 194.
30 The Journals of Townsend Harris, p. 107.
31 Balestier to Clayton, March 19, 1850, Senate Document No. 38, 32nd Congress, 1st session.
32 Runciman, Steven, The White Rajahs, (Cambridge 1960), p. 68.Google Scholar
33 Edward Judson, op. cit., p. 93.
34 Francis Warriner, op. cit., p. 178.
35 Russchenberger, op. cit., p. 311.
36 The Journals of Townsend Harris, p. 73.
37 Helen Trager, op. cit., p. 72.
38 Warriner, op. cit., p. 179.
39 Perry, Expedition, 178.
40 Curti, Merle, “Young America”, American Historical Review XXXII (1926) pp. 34–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
41 State Department Dispatches from Netherlands, Vol. 15, No. 9, December 6, 1853, National Archives.
42 Gould, James W., Americans in Sumatra, unpublished Ph.D. DSS, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1955, p. 242.Google Scholar
43 Perry, Expedition, p. 189.
