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Hong Kong (香港, lit. 'Fragrant Harbour') is one of the two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China, the other being Macau. It is situated on China's south coast and, enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea. It is known for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour.<br/><br/> With a land mass of 1,104 km2 (426 sq mi) and a population of seven million people, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Hong Kong's population is 93.6% ethnic Chinese and 6.4% from other groups. Hong Kong's Han Chinese majority originate mainly from the cities of Guangzhou and Taishan in the neighbouring Guangdong province.<br/><br/> Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after the First Opium War (1839–42). Originally confined to Hong Kong Island, the colony's boundaries were extended in stages to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and then the New Territories in 1898. It was occupied by Japan during the Pacific War (1941–45), after which the British resumed control until 1997, when China resumed sovereignty.
Astor was a German-American business magnate, merchant and investor who was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi-millionaire in the United States. He was the creator of the first trust in America.<br/><br/> He went to the United States following the American Revolutionary War and built a fur-trading empire that extended to the Great Lakes region and Canada, and later expanded into the American West and Pacific coast. In 1816, he joined the opium smuggling trade. His American Fur Company purchased ten tons of Turkish opium, then shipped the contraband item to Canton (Guangzhou).<br/><br/> In the early 19th century, he diversified into New York City real estate and later became a famed patron of the arts.
In the 'Examining Hall' of the opium factory, 'the consistency of the crude opium as brought from the country in earthen pans is simply tested, either by the touch, or by thrusting a scoop into the mass. A sample from each pot (the pots being numbered and labelled) is further examined for consistency and purity in the chemical test room'.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he attended the common schools in Princeton, New Jersey, and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). In 1817, he went to China and became a merchant in Canton (Guangzhou) where he was United States Consul from 1823 to 1825. He returned to the United States, and in the winter of 1825 married Annie Stockton, a daughter of Richard Stockton, and settled in Princeton.<br/><br/> He was a director and Secretary of the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company; and was President, and later Treasurer, of the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad. He was a delegate to the New Jersey State Constitutional Convention of 1844, and was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor of New Jersey the same year. In 1845, he married Josephine A. Ward, daughter of Congressman Aaron Ward.<br/><br/> He was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of his brother-in-law Robert F. Stockton, and was re-elected in 1857, holding office from March 4, 1853, until his death in Princeton, New Jersey. He was Chairman of the Committee on Patents and the Patent Office (36th United States Congress) and the Committee on Pensions (Thirty-sixth Congress).
The Old China Trade was the name given to the early commerce between the Qing Empire and the United States under the Canton System, spanning from shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 to the Treaty of Wanghsia in 1844. The Old China Trade represented the beginning of relations between the United States and East Asia, including eventually U.S.–China relations.<br/><br/> In Salem, Massachusetts there are important examples of American colonial architecture and Federal architecture from the Old China Trade in two historic districts, Chestnut Street District, that is part of the Samuel McIntire Historic District containing 407 buildings and the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, consisting of 12 historic structures and about 9 acres (36,000 m2) of land along the waterfront in Salem, Massachusetts.
Augustine Heard was born into a wealthy merchant family of Ipswich, Massachusetts. His father, John Heard (1744-1834), had made his fortune by trading with the West Indies, and his half-brother Daniel (1778-1801) also worked in foreign trade with the West Indies and China.<br/><br/> Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, Augustine did not graduate and instead, in 1803, began working for a prominent Boston, Massachusetts merchant, Ebenezer Francis. Two years later, Heard embarked as supercargo to Calcutta on one of Francis' ships. Climbing the ranks of trading companies, Heard was, by 1812, captain of his first ship, the brig Caravan. He pursued his naval career for 18 years, becoming a renowned navigator.<br/><br/> In 1830, at the age of 45, Heard settled in Canton, China, where we became partner in the American trading firm Samuel Russell & Co. In 1834, he returned to Boston for health reasons, and managed his business from there. He also developed close ties with his nephews, the sons of his brother George Washington Heard, and developed a business relationship with them. set up his own company, Augustine Heard & Co. in 1840 with Joseph Coolidge and John Murray Forbes, friends and partners who had remained in Canton. The firm became very successful, and rapidly grew to become the third largest American firm in China.
Augustine Heard (1785 - 1868) was an American entrepreneur, businessman and opium trader, the founder of the Augustine Heard & Co. firm in China.
Sir James Nicolas Sutherland Matheson, 1st Baronet (17 October 1796 – 31 December 1878), born in Shiness, Lairg, Sutherland, Scotland, was the son of Captain Donald Matheson, a Scottish trader in India. He attended Edinburgh's Royal High School and the University of Edinburgh.<br/><br/> On 1 July 1832, Jardine, Matheson and Company, a partnership, between William Jardine, James Matheson as senior partners, and Hollingworth Magniac, Alexander Matheson, Jardine's nephew Andrew Johnstone, Matheson's nephew Hugh Matheson, John Abel Smith, and Henry Wright, as the first partners was formed in Canton, and took the Chinese name 'Ewo' (怡和 'Yee-Wo' literally Happy Harmony). The name was taken from the earlier Ewo Hong founded by Howqua which had an honest and upright reputation.<br/><br/> In 1834, Parliament ended the monopoly of the British East India Company on trade between Britain and China. Jardine, Matheson and Company took this opportunity to fill the vacuum left by the East India Company. With its first voyage carrying tea, the Jardine clipper ship 'Sarah' left for England. Jardine Matheson began its transformation from a major commercial agent of the East India Company into the largest British trading hong, or firm, in Asia from its base in Hong Kong.<br/><br/> Jardine wanted the opium trade to expand in China and despatched Matheson to England to lobby the Government to press the Qing government to further open up trade. Matheson's mission proved unsuccessful and he was rebuked by the then British Foreign Secretary The Duke of Wellington. In a report, he complained to Jardine over being insulted by an 'arrogant and stupid man'. Matheson returned to Asia in 1838 and the following year Jardine left for England to continue lobbying.<br/><br/> Jardine's lobbying efforts proved more effective than his partner's and he succeeded in persuading the new British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston to wage war on Qing China. The subsequent First Opium War led to the Treaty of Nanking which allowed Jardines to expand from Canton to Hong Kong and Mainland China.
Sir James Nicolas Sutherland Matheson, 1st Baronet (17 October 1796 – 31 December 1878), born in Shiness, Lairg, Sutherland, Scotland, was the son of Captain Donald Matheson, a Scottish trader in India. He attended Edinburgh's Royal High School and the University of Edinburgh.<br/><br/> On 1 July 1832, Jardine, Matheson and Company, a partnership, between William Jardine, James Matheson as senior partners, and Hollingworth Magniac, Alexander Matheson, Jardine's nephew Andrew Johnstone, Matheson's nephew Hugh Matheson, John Abel Smith, and Henry Wright, as the first partners was formed in Canton, and took the Chinese name 'Ewo' (怡和 'Yee-Wo' literally Happy Harmony). The name was taken from the earlier Ewo Hong founded by Howqua which had an honest and upright reputation.<br/><br/> In 1834, Parliament ended the monopoly of the British East India Company on trade between Britain and China. Jardine, Matheson and Company took this opportunity to fill the vacuum left by the East India Company. With its first voyage carrying tea, the Jardine clipper ship 'Sarah' left for England. Jardine Matheson began its transformation from a major commercial agent of the East India Company into the largest British trading hong, or firm, in Asia from its base in Hong Kong.<br/><br/> Jardine wanted the opium trade to expand in China and despatched Matheson to England to lobby the Government to press the Qing government to further open up trade. Matheson's mission proved unsuccessful and he was rebuked by the then British Foreign Secretary The Duke of Wellington. In a report, he complained to Jardine over being insulted by an 'arrogant and stupid man'. Matheson returned to Asia in 1838 and the following year Jardine left for England to continue lobbying.<br/><br/> Jardine's lobbying efforts proved more effective than his partner's and he succeeded in persuading the new British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston to wage war on Qing China. The subsequent First Opium War led to the Treaty of Nanking which allowed Jardines to expand from Canton to Hong Kong and Mainland China.
His parents, James Perkins and Elizabeth Peck, had ten children in eighteen years. When Perkins was twelve, he was in the crowd which first heard the Declaration of Independence read to the citizens of Boston. The family had planned to send Perkins to Harvard College, but he had no interest in a college education. In 1779 he began working, and in 1785 when he turned 21 he became legally entitled to a small bequest that had been left to him by his grandfather Thomas Handasyd Peck, a Boston merchant who dealt largely in furs and hats. Until 1793 Perkins engaged in the slave trade at Cap-Haïtien Haiti.<br/><br/> In 1785, when China opened the port of Canton (now Guangzhou) to foreign businesses, Perkins became one of the first Boston merchants to engage in the China trade. He sailed on the Astrea to Canton in 1789 with a cargo including ginseng, cheese, lard, wine, and iron. On the trip back it carried tea and silk cloth. In 1815 Perkins and his brother James opened a Mediterranean office to buy Turkish opium for resale in China.<br/><br/> Perkins was also a major industrial investor within Massachusetts. He owned the Granite Railway, the first commercial American railroad, which was built to carry granite from Quincy quarries to Charlestown for construction of the Bunker Hill Monument and other city buildings in Boston. He also held significant holdings in the Elliot textile mills in Newton, the mills at Holyoke and Lowell, New England canals and railroads, and lead and iron mines including the Monkton Iron Company in Vermont. In addition, Perkins was politically active in the Federalist Party, serving terms as state senator and representative from 1805–1817.<br/><br/> In later years Perkins became a philanthropist. In 1826, he and his brother, James Perkins, contributed half the sum of $30,000 that was needed for an addition to the Boston Athenaeum, and the old Boston Athenaeum Gallery of Art was moved to James Perkins's home. The Perkins School for the Blind, still in existence in Watertown, Massachusetts, was renamed in his honor after he donated his Boston mansion to the financially troubled 'Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind' in 1832. He was also a major benefactor to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, McLean Hospital, and helped found the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Warren Delano, grandfather to President Roosevelt, descended from a long line of seafaring Delanos. Warren inevitably followed in his ancestors' footsteps and became an apprentice at a Boston merchant bank and shipping firm. At this time he built connections with other men who would proffer opportunities to make the profitable investments that allowed Warren to count his family among the four hundred wealthiest families in America.<br/><br/> Warren left the United States in 1833 to follow the trading routes the Delanos had already developed. Warren ventured to South America, the Pacific Islands and then on to China. In Canton he replaced Samuel H. Russell of the Boston tea company Russell and Company. Warren lived in China for nine years, earning the position of Chief of Operations for Macau, Canton, and Hong Kong. His greatest achievement was the expansion of Russell & Company’s trade in opium.<br/><br/> Warren returned to the United States at age 33 a very wealthy, and thus a suitable, match for aristocratic young women. He was home only a brief time in 1843 when he married Catherine Robbins Lyman, the daughter of a Massachusetts Supreme Court Judge.<br/><br/> in 1851 Delano settled in Newburgh, N.Y. There he eventually gave his daughter Sara in marriage to a well-born neighbour, James Roosevelt, the father of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The old China trader was close-mouthed about opium, as were his partners in Russell & Company. It is not clear how much F.D.R. knew about this source of his grandfather's wealth. But the President's recent biographer Geoffrey Ward rejects efforts by the Delano family to minimize Warren's involvement.
His parents, James Perkins and Elizabeth Peck, had ten children in eighteen years. When Perkins was twelve, he was in the crowd which first heard the Declaration of Independence read to the citizens of Boston. The family had planned to send Perkins to Harvard College, but he had no interest in a college education. In 1779 he began working, and in 1785 when he turned 21 he became legally entitled to a small bequest that had been left to him by his grandfather Thomas Handasyd Peck, a Boston merchant who dealt largely in furs and hats. Until 1793 Perkins engaged in the slave trade at Cap-Haïtien Haiti.<br/><br/> In 1785, when China opened the port of Canton (now Guangzhou) to foreign businesses, Perkins became one of the first Boston merchants to engage in the China trade. He sailed on the Astrea to Canton in 1789 with a cargo including ginseng, cheese, lard, wine, and iron. On the trip back it carried tea and silk cloth. In 1815 Perkins and his brother James opened a Mediterranean office to buy Turkish opium for resale in China.<br/><br/> Perkins was also a major industrial investor within Massachusetts. He owned the Granite Railway, the first commercial American railroad, which was built to carry granite from Quincy quarries to Charlestown for construction of the Bunker Hill Monument and other city buildings in Boston. He also held significant holdings in the Elliot textile mills in Newton, the mills at Holyoke and Lowell, New England canals and railroads, and lead and iron mines including the Monkton Iron Company in Vermont. In addition, Perkins was politically active in the Federalist Party, serving terms as state senator and representative from 1805–1817.<br/><br/> In later years Perkins became a philanthropist. In 1826, he and his brother, James Perkins, contributed half the sum of $30,000 that was needed for an addition to the Boston Athenaeum, and the old Boston Athenaeum Gallery of Art was moved to James Perkins's home. The Perkins School for the Blind, still in existence in Watertown, Massachusetts, was renamed in his honor after he donated his Boston mansion to the financially troubled 'Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind' in 1832. He was also a major benefactor to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, McLean Hospital, and helped found the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Samuel Russell was born in Middletown, Connecticut on August 25, 1789, to Capt. John Russell and Abigail Warner. Russell was orphaned at the age of 12, did not receive any significant inheritance, and did not attend college. Instead, he began his career as apprentice clerk for a maritime trade merchant, Whittlesley & Alsop, in Middletown. It is there that Russell began learning his skills as a trader.<br/><br/> In 1810, his apprenticeship having ended, he moved to New York where he hoped to prosper. In 1812, he joined Hull & Griswold, a merchant house, based in New York but established by investors with family ties in Connecticut. He began traveling on company ships as supercargo and soon began trading on a commission basis which enabled him to found his first company, Russell & Company, a commission trader for Hull & Griswold, in his hometown of Middletown.<br/><br/> Attracted by financial prospects, Russell set out for China, an assured profitable venture. He arrived in Canton, China, in 1819, engaging in trade on behalf of the Providence firm of Edward Carrington & Company in various goods and products including opium, an extremely profitable activity despite being outlawed-yet protected by foreign forces.<br/><br/> The profits made by Russell enabled him to found Russell & Company in Canton, China, in 1824. Dealing mostly in silks, teas and opium, Russell & Company prospered, and by 1842, it had become the largest American trading house in China. It kept its dominance until its closing in 1891.<br/><br/> Russell withdrew from the company in 1836. He returned to America, and lived in his mansion in his hometown of Middletown, Connecticut, until his death in 1862.
Elias Hasket Derby (August 16, 1739 — September 8, 1799) was among the wealthiest and most celebrated of post-Revolutionary merchants in Salem, Massachusetts, and owner of the Grand Turk, the first New England vessel to trade directly with China.<br/><br/> Derby is often referred to as 'King Derby' or as America's first millionaire. However, it is improbable that Elias Hasket Derby was known as King Derby during his lifetime. Nathaniel Hawthorne bestowed the title on him in 'The Scarlet Letter' (p. 4). As for being America's first millionaire, Derby was but one of a number of highly successful Massachusetts merchants of the period.
Russell Sturgis (1750 - 1826) was the second son of Thomas Sturgis, Jr. (1722-1785), and Sarah Paine, of Barnstable, Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Perkins (1756-1843), daughter of James Perkins (d. 1773), on November 11, 1773. Her grandfather was the Boston merchant and fur trader Thomas Handasyd Perkins, with whom Sturgis apprenticed at age sixteen, then worked as a hatter and furrier. Sturgis served as lieutenant of the Boston regiment of the Massachusetts militia in August and September 1778, and from 1787-1792 served under John Johnston as first lieutenant in Boston.<br/><br/> Sturgis's brothers-in-law, James Perkins (1761-1822) and Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1765-1854), were notable China traders. In 1795 Sturgis joined them in ownership of a new ship, the Grand Turk, which was sent to Canton in March 1796. When the Perkins brothers opened a branch office in Canton (now Guangzhou) in 1803, Sturgis invested substantially, and three of Sturgis's sons subsequently voyaged to China. In 1818 all three were involved in the opium trade as partners in the firm of James P. Sturgis and Company.<br/><br/> Sturgis was also active in Boston public affairs. From 1790-1796 he was a fire warden; in 1792 he was elected to a committee to assess a smallpox outbreak; and he served as Boston selectman from 1796-1797 and 1799-1802. He represented Boston in the Massachusetts state senate in 1801, and ran unsuccessfully as the Republican candidate for state senator in 1805.
'In the Mixing Room, which otherwise looks like a somewhat spartan bathhouse, the contents of the earthen pans are thrown into vats and stirred with blind rakes until the whole mass becomes a homogeneous paste'.
His parents, James Perkins and Elizabeth Peck, had ten children in eighteen years. When Perkins was twelve, he was in the crowd which first heard the Declaration of Independence read to the citizens of Boston. The family had planned to send Perkins to Harvard College, but he had no interest in a college education. In 1779 he began working, and in 1785 when he turned 21 he became legally entitled to a small bequest that had been left to him by his grandfather Thomas Handasyd Peck, a Boston merchant who dealt largely in furs and hats. Until 1793 Perkins engaged in the slave trade at Cap-Haïtien Haiti.<br/><br/> In 1785, when China opened the port of Canton (now Guangzhou) to foreign businesses, Perkins became one of the first Boston merchants to engage in the China trade. He sailed on the Astrea to Canton in 1789 with a cargo including ginseng, cheese, lard, wine, and iron. On the trip back it carried tea and silk cloth. In 1815 Perkins and his brother James opened a Mediterranean office to buy Turkish opium for resale in China.<br/><br/> Perkins was also a major industrial investor within Massachusetts. He owned the Granite Railway, the first commercial American railroad, which was built to carry granite from Quincy quarries to Charlestown for construction of the Bunker Hill Monument and other city buildings in Boston. He also held significant holdings in the Elliot textile mills in Newton, the mills at Holyoke and Lowell, New England canals and railroads, and lead and iron mines including the Monkton Iron Company in Vermont. In addition, Perkins was politically active in the Federalist Party, serving terms as state senator and representative from 1805–1817.<br/><br/> In later years Perkins became a philanthropist. In 1826, he and his brother, James Perkins, contributed half the sum of $30,000 that was needed for an addition to the Boston Athenaeum, and the old Boston Athenaeum Gallery of Art was moved to James Perkins's home. The Perkins School for the Blind, still in existence in Watertown, Massachusetts, was renamed in his honor after he donated his Boston mansion to the financially troubled 'Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind' in 1832. He was also a major benefactor to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, McLean Hospital, and helped found the Massachusetts General Hospital.
In the 'Balling Room', where the opium paste is shaped into small spheres: 'Each ball-maker is furnished with a small table, a stool, and a brass cup to shape the ball in a certain quantity of opium and water and an allowance of poppy petals, in which the opium balls are rolled.<br/><br/> Every man is required to make a certain number of balls, all weighing alike. An expert workman will turn out upwards of a hundred balls a day'.
The finished opium balls are stored before shipping in the Stacking Room, where 'a number of boys are constantly engaged in stacking, turning, airing, and examining the balls. To clear them of mildew, moths or insects, they are rubbed with dried and crushed poppy petal dust'. Finally, the balls are transferred into cardboard boxes and loaded into ships bound for Calcutta and, ultimately, China.
After balling, the balls are taking to the Drying Room, where each is placed in an individual earthenware cup. The image shows men examining the balls, and puncturing with a sharp style those in which gas, arising from fermentation, may be forming'.