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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2017
This article examines the role of the private merchant firm Jardine Matheson in procuring Chinese tea cultivators for the East India Company's experimental tea plantations in Assam in the 1830s. Where existing literature has detailed the establishment of a Tea Committee by the East India Company to oversee these tea plantations, the focus of this article is on the way that the illicit opium-distribution network of Jardine Matheson was used to extract labour, tea specimens, and knowledge from China. The colonial state's experimental tea plantations were directly connected to the devastation of the opium trade. The multiple uses of Jardine Matheson's drug-distribution networks and skilled employees becomes evident upon examination of their role in facilitating Chinese migration. The recruitment of tea cultivators from China in the 1830s also impacted on colonial concepts of racial hierarchy and the perceived contrast between savagery and civilization. Ultimately, Jardine Matheson's extraction of skilled labour from the China coast informs our understanding of the evolving private networks that became crucial to British imperialism in Asia, and through which labour, capital, people, information, and ideas could be exchanged.
I am grateful to my PhD supervisors, Joseph Hardwick, Tanja Buletmann, and Tony Webster, for their support and advice as I researched this topic. I would also like to thank my PhD examiners, Robert Bickers and David Gleeson, as well as the anonymous reviewers at Modern Asian Studies for their comments and feedback. All errors and oversights are mine alone.
1 British concern over maintaining access to Chinese markets in the 1830s has been discussed in depth in the following articles: Carroll, J. M., ‘The Canton system: conflict and accommodation in the contact zone’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, vol. 50, 2010, pp. 51–66 Google Scholar; Gao, H., ‘Prelude to the Opium War? British reactions to the “Napier Fizzle” and attitudes towards China in the mid eighteen-thirties’, Historical Research, vol. 87, no. 237, 2014, pp. 491–509 Google Scholar; Melancon, G., ‘Peaceful intentions: the first British Trade Commission in China, 1833–5’, Historical Research, vol. 73, 2000, pp. 33–47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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4 This was only one solution; as will be seen throughout the article, other sources of labour were later used.
5 Sharma, J., Empire's Garden: Assam and the Making of India, Duke University Press, London, 2011 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Antrobus, H. A., The History of the Assam Company, 1839–1953, T. and A. Constable Ltd., Edinburgh, 1957 Google Scholar.
6 A good overview of the range of Jardine Matheson's commercial activities is Connell, C. Matheson, A Business in Risk: Jardine Matheson and the Hong Kong Trading Industry, Praeger, London, 2004 Google Scholar.
7 See Kumagai, Y., Breaking into the Monopoly: Provincial Merchants and Manufacturers’ Campaigns or Access to the Asian Market, 1790–1833, Brill, Boston, 2013 Google Scholar for an overview of the campaigns to remove the EIC monopoly of the China trade.
8 This is particularly evident in the failed Napier expedition of 1834.
9 Though many texts have discussed the firm in depth, none has addressed Jardine Matheson's role in facilitating Chinese emigration; see Connell, A Business in Risk; Chong, W. E., Mandarins and Merchants: Jardine Matheson & Co., a China Agency of the Early Nineteenth Century, Curzon Press, London, 1979 Google Scholar; Blake, R., Jardine Matheson: Traders of the Far East, Weidenfield and Nicholson, London, 1999 Google Scholar; Keswick, M. (ed.), The Thistle and the Jade: A Celebration of Jardine, Matheson & Co., Octopus, London, 1982 Google Scholar.
10 Connell, A Business in Risk, p. 6.
11 Ibid.
12 Le Pinchon, A. (ed.), China Trade and Empire: Jardine, Matheson, & Co. and the origins of British rule in Hong Kong, 1827–1843, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, p. 33 Google Scholar.
13 The extraction of ‘useful knowledge’, such as knowledge of tea cultivation, from China has been the subject of recent scholarly inquiry; see Berg, M., ‘Britain, industry and perceptions of China: Matthew Boulton, “useful knowledge” and the Macartney Embassy to China’, Journal of Global History, vol. 1, no. 2, 2006, pp. 269–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chen, Songchuan, ‘An information war waged by merchants and missionaries at Canton: the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China, 1834–1839’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 46, no. 6, 2012, pp. 1705–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 The term ‘coolie’ (deployed with caution due to its pejorative usage) is derived from the Tamil term Kuli, meaning hire; Bahadur, G., Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture, Hurst & Co., London, 2013, p. xxCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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18 Ibid., p. 50.
19 Following the 1833 Charter Renewal, the EIC was no longer a commercial organization, but was an instrument of government.
20 The ‘contact zone’ concept is taken from Pratt, M. L., Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, Routledge, London, 1992 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Hillemann, U., Asian Empire and British Knowledge: China and the Networks of British Imperial Expansion, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for more on contact zones as sites within which knowledge of China and racial hierarchies was simultaneously constructed.
21 Sharma, Empire's Garden.
22 Antrobus, The History of the Assam Company, p. 5; Anonymous, Assam: A Sketch of Its History, Soil, and Productions, Smith, Elder and Co., London, 1839, p. 24 Google Scholar.
23 Of course, the idea of a ‘discovery’ is a Western misnomer; locals had long made use of the tea plant; Sharma, S. K. and Sharma, U. (eds), North-East India: Volume 5: Assam—Economy, Society and Culture, Mittal, New Delhi, 2005, p. 40 Google Scholar.
24 Reading Mercury, 4 May 1835.
25 Canton Register, 6 October 1835; the Register was owned and printed by James and Alexander Matheson.
26 Captain F. Jenkins to N. Wallich (5 May 1836), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 70.
27 W. C. Bentinck, Calcutta (24 January 1834), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 6.
28 Jardine Matheson Archive (Cambridge University Library), http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD/GBR/0012/MS%20JM [accessed 16 March 2017].
29 Le Pinchon, China Trade and Empire, p. 24.
30 Minute by the Governor General (24 January 1834), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 5.
31 Parliamentary Papers, A Bill to Regulate the Trade to China and India, 1833 (528).
32 Melancon, ‘Peaceful intentions’, pp. 33–47; Gao, ‘Prelude to the Opium War?’, pp. 491–509.
33 Proposition to the Honourable Directors of the EIC to Cultivate Tea upon the Nepaul Hills, and such other parts of the Territories of the EIC as may be suitable to its growth. By Mr Walker, Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 6.
34 Lawson, P., The East India Company: A History, Longman, London, 1993, p. 157 Google Scholar.
35 See Pitts, J., A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2005 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the centrality of civilizational superiority as the guiding philosophy of imperial expansion.
36 Observations on the Cultivation of the Tea plant, for Commercial purposes, in the mountainous parts of Hindostan, drawn up at the desire of the Right honourable C. Grant, President of the Board of Control for Indian Affairs, by N. Wallich, British Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 15.
37 Antrobus, The History of the Assam Company, p. 30.
38 Bruce, C. A., An Account of the Manufacture of the Black Tea, as now Practised at Suddeya in Upper Assam, Bengal, Military Orphan Press, Calcutta, 1838, pp. 6–7 Google Scholar.
39 Sharma, ‘Lazy natives’, p. 1291.
40 Ball, S., An Account of the Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea in China, Longman, London, 1848, p. 335 Google Scholar.
41 Ibid., p. 342.
42 Crawfurd, J., View of the Present state and Future Prospects of the Free Trade and Colonisation of India, James Ridgway, London, 1829, p. 18 Google Scholar.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid., p. 19.
45 For more on the role of Crawfurd's influence on debates over the EIC, see Kumagai, Breaking into the Monopoly, pp. 76–113.
46 Sharma, Empire's Garden, p. 5.
47 Sharma, ‘Lazy natives’, p. 1297, the peculiar irony being that Chinese opium addiction had maintained the economic viability of the tea trade.
48 G. Thompson, Report of a Public Meeting and Lecture at Darlington . . . on China and the Opium Question, J. H. Veitch, Durham, 1840, p. 13.
49 Singapore Chronicle, 6 August 1836; Asiatic Journal, vol. 26, 1838.
50 Scott, J. C., The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, Yale University, New Haven, 2009, pp. 1–40 Google ScholarPubMed.
51 Hillemann, Asian Empire and British Knowledge, p. 128.
52 W. H. Macnaghten, Esq., Secretary to the Government of India, to the Tea Committee (18 April 1836), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 63.
53 The Dutch experience is referred to in the correspondence of the Tea Committee: From the members of the Tea Committee to C. Macsween, Esq., Secretary to Government, Revenue Department (15 March 1834), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 17.
54 Peers, Douglas M., ‘Bentinck, Lord William Henry Cavendish- (1774–1839)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 Google Scholar; online edn, Oct 2009, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2161 [accessed 16 March 2017]; Sharma, Empire's Garden, p. 35.
55 Anonymous, Assam, p. 23.
56 Ibid., p. 24.
57 Antrobus, The History of the Assam Company, p. 30.
58 The Tea Committee to C. Macsween, Esq., Secretary to Government, Revenue Department (15 March 1834), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 17.
59 Ibid.
60 H. H. Mann, The Early History of the Tea Industry in North-East India, reprinted from the Bengal Economic Journal, 1918, p. 12.
61 Antrobus, The History of the Assam Company, p. 249.
62 For more on the decline of the EIC as a commercial organization, see Webster, A., The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution of Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics, 1790–1860, Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2009 Google Scholar.
63 Letter from Mr Gordon to Dr Wallich, Acting Secretary to the Tea Committee, Macao (24 July 1834); Tea Committee to W. H. Macnaghten, Esq., Secretary to the Government of India (18 September 1835), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 30.
64 Tiedemann, R. G., ‘Gützlaff, Karl Friedrich August (1803–1851)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 Google Scholar, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/54362 [accessed 16 March 2017]; Charles Gutzlaff will be used in this article as opposed to his other names and pseudonyms: Karl Gutzlaff, Philosinesis, Guo Shili Gaihan, Shande.
65 Lutz, J. G., Opening China: Karl F. A. Gutzlaff and Sino-Western Relations, 1827–1852, Eerdmans, William B., Cambridge, 2008, p. 83 Google Scholar.
66 Bickers, R., The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832–1914, Allen Lane, London, 2011, p. 30 Google Scholar.
67 Mr Gordon to Dr Wallich, Macao (24 July 1834), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 30.
68 Williamson, A. R., Eastern Traders: Some Men and Ships of Jardine, Matheson & Company, Jardine Matheson, Hong Kong, 1975, p. 152 Google Scholar.
69 Mr Gordon to Dr Wallich, Macao (24 July 1834), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 30.
70 Jardine, William, Canton, to Captain Rees, on the Colonel Young (9 March 1835), in MS JM/B2, Jardine Matheson Archive (Cambridge University)Google Scholar.
71 Parliamentary Papers, A Bill to Regulate the Trade to China and India, 1833 (528).
72 Tiedemann, ‘Gützlaff’.
73 Ibid.; Endacott, G. B., A Biographical Sketch-Book of Early Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, 2005, p. 105 Google Scholar.
74 Lutz, Opening China, pp. 76–85.
75 For example, Gutzlaff's General Description of China was published through Jardine Matheson's agent, Thomas Weeding; Charles Gutzlaff, Lintin, to James Matheson, Canton (2 July 1834), in MS JM/B11, Jardine Matheson Archive (Cambridge University).
76 Gutzlaff, C., China Opened, vol. I, Smith, Elder and Co., London, 1838 Google Scholar.
77 Gutzlaff, C., A Journal of Three Voyages Along the Coast of China; in 1831, 1832 &1833, Frederick Westley and A. H. Davis, London, 1834, p. 167 Google Scholar.
78 Bickers, The Scramble for China, pp. 48–50; Bickers, R., ‘The challenger: Hugh Hamilton Lindsay and the rise of British Asia, 1832–1865’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, vol. 22, 2012, p. 141 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
79 Bickers, The Scramble for China, p. 27.
80 Ibid. Fuzhou was routinely Romanized as ‘Foochow’ or ‘Fuh-chow’, as seen in Gutzlaff's journal.
81 Gutzlaff, C., Journal of a Residence in Siam: And of a Voyage Along the Coast of China to Manchou Tartary, Chinese Repository, Canton, 1832, p. 48 Google Scholar.
82 Lutz, Opening China, p. 83.
83 Gordon, G. J., ‘Visit to the Ankoy tea-district’, The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register, vol. 17, 1835, p. 281 Google Scholar.
84 The Tea Committee to C. Macsween, Esq., Secretary to Government, Revenue Department (15 March 1834), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 17.
85 Napier, P., Barbarian Eye: Lord Napier in China, 1834 The Prelude to Hong Kong, Brassey's, London, 1995 Google Scholar.
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87 Gordon, G. J., Address to the People of Great Britain; Explanatory of our Commercial Relations with the Empire of China, Smith, Elder and Co., London, 1836, p. 78 Google Scholar.
88 Ibid.
89 Ibid., p. 66.
90 Mr Gordon to Dr Wallich (23 November 1834), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 41.
91 Ibid.
92 Ibid., p. 42. Bizarrely, Gordon also gave tea seeds to the widow of William Napier to plant in Scotland.
93 From the Tea Committee to W. H. Macnaghten (18 September 1835), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 46.
94 From the Tea Committee to W. H. Macnaghten (6 August 1836), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 79. Frustratingly, this also prevents the tracking of the shipment of these tea cultivators.
95 Tea Committee (12 March 1835), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 39.
96 An advertisement for his 1836 book made reference to his ‘personal observation’ of China.
97 W. H. Macnaghten, Esq., Secretary to the Government of India, to the Tea Committee (11 April 1836), Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 62.
98 Tea Committee, to W. H. Macnaghten (14 April 1836), in Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 62.
99 Tea Committee, to W. H. Macnaghten (6 August 1836), in Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 78.
100 Royle, J. Forbes, ‘Report on the progress of the culture of the China tea plant in the Himalayas, from 1835 to 1857’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 12, 1850, p. 132 Google Scholar.
101 Taknet, D. K., The Heritage of Indian Tea: The Past, the Present, and the Road Ahead, IIME, Jaipur, 2002, p. 21 Google Scholar.
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103 Antrobus, The History of the Assam Company, p. 265.
104 Yorkshire Gazette, 19 January 1839; The Era, 13 January 1839.
105 Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation (India): Return to an Order of the Honourable the House of Commons, dated 15 February 1839;—for, Copy of Papers Received from India Relating to the Measures Adopted for Introducing the Cultivation of the Tea Plant within the British Possessions in India, 1839 (63).
106 This publication was approved by Robert Gordon, the Commissioner of the Board of Control, at the request of the Assam Company.
107 Antrobus, The History of the Assam Company, p. 37; in this meeting of the Assam Company, it was discussed that the EIC had agreed to ‘speedily make available’ information on Assam; Minute Book of the Assam Company, 12 February 1839–17 December 1845, MS 9924/1, London Metropolitan Archives (London).
108 Antrobus, The History of the Assam Company, p. 269.
109 Ibid., p. 271.
110 Gordon to the Tea Committee (16 May 1836), in Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 63.
111 Nathaniel Wallich, Calcutta, to Jardine Matheson, Canton (15 February 1839), in MS JM/C10, Jardine Matheson Archive (Cambridge University).
112 Matheson, J., The Present Position and Prospects of the British Trade with China, Smith, Elder and Co., London, 1836 Google Scholar.
113 Nathaniel Wallich, Calcutta, to Jardine Matheson, Canton (15 February 1839).
114 Ibid.; the term ‘lackerer’ refers to ‘lacquer’ and the application of this protective coating as part of the transportation process.
115 Ibid.
116 Lutz, Opening China, p. 91.
117 James Matheson, Hong Kong, to Dr N. Wallich, Calcutta (25 September 1839), in MS JM/C10, Jardine Matheson Archive (Cambridge University).
118 These contracts are still located at the Jardine, Matheson & Co. archive at Cambridge University Library.
119 Tea Cultivator Contracts, in MS JM/F11, Jardine Matheson Archive (Cambridge University Library).
120 Ibid.
121 Agreement with Low-a-sam, Tea Cultivator (15th August 1839), in MS JM/F11/3, Jardine Matheson Archive (Cambridge University).
122 Matheson, The Present Position, p. 1.
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125 Ibid.
126 Ibid.
127 Webster, The Twilight, p. 119.
128 Gow, W. and Gow, S. (eds), Tea Producing Companies of India and Ceylon: Showing the History and Results of those Capitalised in Sterling, A. Southey & Co., London, 1897, p. 3 Google Scholar.
129 Dr Lumqua's salary of 1,110 Rs. can be compared to the total labourers’ advance of Rs 20,586 prior to 31 December 1839, from Report of the Bengal Branch of the Assam Company, Samuel Smith & Co., Calcutta, 1840, p. 17.
130 Report of the Bengal Branch of the Assam Company, p. 9.
131 Ibid.
132 Ibid., p. 10.
133 Ibid., p. 378; note the implication that the Chinese required British supervision.
134 Assam Company, Report of the Local Directors Made to the Shareholders at a General Meeting, Held at Calcutta, August 11th, 1841, Bishop's College Press, Calcutta, 1841, p. 5 Google Scholar.
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136 Ibid., p. 25.
137 Assam Company, Report of the Local Directors Made to the Shareholders at a General Meeting, 1841, p. 6.
138 Ibid., p. 7; Mann, The Early History, p. 24.
139 Assam Company, Report of the Provisional Committee Made to the Shareholders at a General Meeting, Held at the London Tavern, Bishopsgate Street, 31st January 1840, Smith, Elder and Co., London, 1840, p. 6 Google Scholar.
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141 Assam Company, Report of the Local Directors Made to the Shareholders at a General Meeting, 1841, p. 12.
142 Assam Company, Report of the Directors and Auditors Made to the Shareholders at a General Meeting, 1841, p. 18.
143 Ibid.
144 Assam Company, Report of the Directors and Auditors Made to the Shareholders at a General Meeting, 1842.
145 Sharma, ‘Lazy natives’, p. 1324.
146 Tinker, A New System of Slavery, p. 50.
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151 Report on the Tea plant of Upper Assam, by assistant-surgeon William Griffith, Madras Establishment, late member of Assam Deputation, Parliamentary Papers, Tea Cultivation, p. 104.
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