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Abstract
Relying on unutilized archives and secondary literature on foreign establishments in modern China, this article uses the experience of Francis and Albert Knight, U.S. merchants and consuls in Niuzhuang, to examine American merchants in Chinese treaty ports in the mid-nineteenth century. It argues that U.S. presence in China in the said era concentrated on commercial activities in the treaty ports, and American commercial interests and protection over American commercial community there was the main focus of U.S. relations with China; and that free-lance resident merchants like the Knight brothers played a key role in defining American presence in China, especially in commerce, consular service, and the contour of expatriate foreign community, making U.S. power in China more “soft” or non-governmental due to a weak official presence. As the first research on the Knight brothers in Niuzhuang, this article fills a gap in the field of nineteenth-century U.S.-China relations.
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to my panel commentators Drs. Xiansheng Tian and Chuck Hayford and to the two peer-reviewers for their suggestions. Sincere thanks also go to Drs. Steve Levine and Dong Wang for their help.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
Shuhua Fan is Professor in the History Department at the University of Scranton. She is the author of The Harvard-Yenching Institute and Cultural Engineering: Remaking the Humanities in China, 1924–1951 (Lexington Books, 2014).
Correspondence to: Shuhua Fan. Email: [email protected], History Department, University of Scranton, Scranton, PA 18510, USA.
Notes
1 Eldon Griffin, Clippers and Consuls: American Consular and Commercial Relations with Eastern Asia, 1845–1860 (Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Bros., 1938), 33. Also see Charles S. Kennedy, The American Consul: A History of the United States Consular Service, 1776–1914 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), 108.
2 The Albert M. Knight Papers, hereafter abbreviated as AMK Papers, contain letters, written from 1863 to 1872, from Albert Knight to Abigail Knight, his fiancée and also first cousin, and one letter from Abigail to Albert. While Albert was in China, Abigail left her family in Lancaster, Massachusetts to teach in Edisto Island, South Carolina during the Reconstruction era. See the AMK Papers, the Harvard Business School Library, Boston, Massachusetts. All correspondences from Albert to Abigail cited in this article are from this collection.
3 See Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power (New York: Routledge, 2016); Robert Nield, China’s Foreign Places: The Foreign Presence in China in the Treaty Port Era, 1840–1943 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015); programs of “The Treaty Ports in Modern China Conference,” held at the University of Bristol, July 7–8, 2011; and Steve Upton’s report on “Foreigners at Chinese Treaty Ports Workshop,” held in Shanghai, China, April 11–12, 2017.
4 James Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 50.
5 Introduction to the AMK Papers.
6 Albert to Abigail, June 10, 1866.
7 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 166; P. D. Coates, China Consuls: British Consular Officers, 1843–1943 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988), 292.
8 Cited from Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 169.
9 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 167.
10 Coates, China Consuls, 292; Lo Hui-Min and Helen Bryant, British Diplomatic and Consular Establishments in China: 1793–1949, II Consular Establishments 1843–1949 (Taipei: SMC Publishing Co., 1988), 284; Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 166–167.
11 D. S. Crawford, “James Watson, MD, LRCSE: An Edinburgh-Trained Physician and Surgeon in Northeastern China, 1865–1884,” The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, vol. 36, no. 4 (2006): 362 (http://digitool.library.mcgill.ca/webclient/StreamGate?folder_id=0&dvs=1505407930485~106, accessed August 16, 2017).
12 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 167.
13 Lo and Bryant, British Diplomatic and Consular Establishments, 285.
14 Lo and Bryant, British Diplomatic and Consular Establishments, 285. Also see Jian Shen (沈健), Chuang Guandong: Lishi shang de da yimin (⟪闯关东：历史上的大移民⟫, Brave the Journey to Northeast) (Beijing: Beijing gongye daxue chubanshe, 2013).
15 Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865.
16 Francis Knight mentioned to Dr. Charles Eliot, President of Harvard University, that his brother Albert had a good command of the Chinese language, but he himself did not acquire a knowledge of the language. See Francis Knight to Charles Eliot, Feb. 22, 1877, the Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, MA.
17 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865.
18 The Chinese Customs House, comp., Treaties, Conventions, Etc., Between China and Foreign States. 2nd edition (New York: AMS Press, 1973), vol. 1, 679.
19 The Chinese Customs House, Treaties, Conventions, Etc., vol. 1, 720.
20 Albert Feuerwerker, “Economic Trends in the Late Ch'ing Empire, 1870–1911,” in John K. Fairbank and Kwang-ching Liu, eds., The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 11, Late Ch'ing, 1800–1911, Part 2 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 48. The 1842 Sino-British Treaty of Nanjing did not include regulations regarding opium trade. Although the 1844 Sino-American Treaty of Wangxia banned opium trade, the trade continued after the series of treaties of the 1840s. Opium trade did not become legalized until 1858 when the Treaty of Tianjin was signed.
21 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 4, 16; Feuerwerker, “Economic Trends,” 48.
22 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865.
23 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 167.
24 John K. Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), 159–160.
25 Guangyu Huang (黄光域), comp., Waiguo zaihua gongshang qiye cidian (⟪外国在华工商企业辞典⟫, The Universal Dictionary of Foreign Business in Modern China) (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1995), 741; Gugong bowuyuan mingqing dang’anbu and Fujian shifan daxue lishixi, comps., Qingji zhongwai shiling nianbiao (⟪清季中外使领年表⟫, Chronology of Foreign Embassies and Consulates in Qing China) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), 122, 134, 150, 173, 188, 203.
26 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 16.
27 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 160.
28 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865; June 10 and Sept. 2, 1866; April 27, 1868.
29 Introduction to the AMK Papers; Huang, Waiguo zaihua gongshang qiye cidian, 741.
30 The Chinese Customs House, Treaties, Conventions, Etc., vol. 1, 352; Nield, China's Foreign Places, 26.
31 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 17.
32 The Chinese Customs House, Treaties, Conventions, Etc., vol. 1, 87–88, 407–8, 717, 719, 818.
33 Lo and Bryant, British Diplomatic and Consular Establishments, 284–285. Also see Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 166–167; Coates, China Consuls; and Crawford, “James Watson,” 362.
34 Kennedy, The American Consul, 110. Also see Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 3, 17; Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 161.
35 Frank E. Hinckley, American Consular Jurisdiction in the Orient (Washington, D.C.: W. H. Lowdermilk and Co., 1906), 32; Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 8.
36 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 161.
37 The Chinese Customs House, Treaties, Conventions, Etc., vol. 1, 678.
38 The Chinese Customs House, Treaties, Conventions, Etc., vol. 1, 717.
39 See Lingjun Wu (吴翎君), Meiguo da qiye yu jindai Zhongguo de guojihua (⟪美国大企业与近代中国的国际化⟫, American Big Business and Modern China's Internationalization) (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2014), chapter 1.
40 The U.S. Consulate, Niuzhuang, China, Dispatches from United States Consuls in Newchwang (Niuzhuang), 1865–1906.
41 Huang, Waiguo zaihua gongshang qiye cidian, 741; Qingji zhongwai shiling nianbiao, 122, 134, 150, 173, 188, 203.
42 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 17.
43 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 17; Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 198; Par Cassel, “Extraterritoriality in China: What We Know and What We Don't Know,” in Bickers and Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China, 34.
44 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 198, 325, 328, 373; Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 17.
45 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 373.
46 Huang, Waiguo zaihua gongshang qiye cidian, 741; Qingji zhongwai shiling nianbiao, 122, 134, 150, 173, 188, 203.
47 Albert to Abigail, Sept. 2, 1866.
48 Warren Cohen, America’s Response to China: A History of Sino-American Relations. 5th edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 29.
49 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 208.
50 Tekong Tong, United States Diplomacy in China, 1844–1860 (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1964), 64.
51 Tong, United States Diplomacy, 58.
52 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 208; Tong, United States Diplomacy, 57–58, 64.
53 https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/embassy-consulates/guangzhou/consulate-guangzhou-history/ (accessed July 2017).
54 https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/embassy-consulates/shanghai/history/ (accessed July 2017).
55 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 373; Tong, United States Diplomacy, 63.
56 Tong, United States Diplomacy, 20, 63.
57 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 393; Akira Iriye, Across the Pacific: An Inner History of American-East Asian Relations (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1967), 3.
58 Tong, United States Diplomacy, 57–58.
59 Tong, United States Diplomacy, 33–34.
60 Kennedy, The American Consul, 108.
61 Kennedy, The American Consul, 113; Tyler Dennett, Americans in Eastern Asia: A Critical Study of United States’ Policy in the Far East in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1963), 187–88.
62 Dennett, Americans in Eastern Asia, 555.
63 Tong, United States Diplomacy, 58, 64.
64 Dennett, Americans in Eastern Asia, 186–87.
65 Kennedy, The American Consul, 110. Also see Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 3, 17; Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 161.
66 Albert mentioned that some of his family members had assumed at his departure time that he would be gone and stay in China for five years. Instead, he stayed in China for seven years, and did not return to the United States until 1872. See Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865.
67 Albert wrote Abigail:
There is no place in our country I love better than dear old Lancaster. Boston has many charms as a city, my first-place and the place for social and intellectual enjoyment. But of country life, the beautiful woods and meadows of your home is mine also.
68 I have no information on the exact date of Albert's departure for Europe. In one letter dated Dec. 29, 1867, Albert wrote: “Three years ago today, I bid you farewell!” This probably means Albert and Abigail bid farewell on Dec. 29, 1864. In the same letter dated Dec. 29, 1867, Albert stressed that that day was “the anniversary of my departures,” but he did not say his departure location(s) on this date—whether it was Boston (to New York City) or NYC (to China via Europe) or both (leaving Boston for NYC and then NYC for Europe on the same day). See Albert to Abigail, Dec. 29, 1867.
69 Albert to Abigail, July 20, 1865.
70 Albert to Abigail, March 14, 1865.
71 Albert, on board ship Peterborough, at the mouth of the Thames, England, to Abigail, Lancaster, MA, March 17, 1865.
72 Albert to Abigail, July 20, 1865.
73 Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865 (Albert started writing the letter on July 30 while on board the British barque Corinne, but did not finish it until Aug. 13).
74 Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865 (Albert started writing the letter on July 30 while on board the British barque Corinne, but did not finish it until Aug. 13).
75 John R. Haddad, “China of the American Imagination: The Influence of Trade on US Portrayals of China, 1820 to 1850,” in Kendall Johnson, ed., Narratives of Free Trade: The Commercial Cultures of Early US-China Relations (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), 64; Tong, United States Diplomacy, 25.
76 Albert to Abigail, June 10, 1866.
77 Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865 (Albert started writing the letter on July 30 while on board the British barque Corinne, but did not finish it until Aug. 13).
78 Albert to Abigail, June 10, 1866.
79 Albert mentioned this matter one year later, see Albert to Abigail, Dec. 1, 1867.
80 Albert to Abigail, Dec. 1, 1867.
81 Albert to Abigail, June 10, 1866.
82 Albert to Abigail, Feb. 9, 1868.
83 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 24, 1868.
84 This is the focus of my new book project tentatively titled “Empire, Commerce, Language, and Sino-American Relations: Francis Knight, Ko Kunhua, and Introduction of Chinese Instruction at Harvard, 1877–1882.”
85 Albert recalled this in a letter written in July 1865. See Albert to Abigail, July 2, 1865.
86 Hans Van de Ven, Breaking with the Past: The Maritime Customs Service and the Global Origins of Modernity in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014); Donna Brunero, Britain's Imperial Cornerstone in China: The Chinese Maritime Customs Service, 1854–1949 (New York: Routledge, 2009).
87 John R. Haddad, America’s First Adventure in China: Trade, Treaties, Opium, and Salvation (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2013), 4.
88 Albert to Abigail, Sept. 2, 1866.
89 Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865 (Albert started writing the letter on July 30 while on board the British barque Corinne, but did not finish it until Aug. 13).
90 Albert mentioned this in his letters to Abigail dated June 10 and Sept. 2, 1866.
91 Albert to Abigail, June 10, 1866.
92 Albert to Abigail, June 10, 1866.
93 In a letter dated Nov. 21, 1867 Albert summarized the different dates for the winter closing of the Niuzhuang port in 1865, 1866 and 1867:
We are hourly expecting a steamer from Tientsin. … The autumn has been delightfully mild. You will remember that in '65, the ice swept down Nov. 14th; In '66, the 24th of the same month, but this year we need not expect it before the 10 proximo. Two ships are still in port, but will sail today or tomorrow, and the arrival of the steamer mentioned will constitute the final of our business life for 1867. (See Albert to Abigail, Nov. 21, 1867.)
94 For example, Francis Knight went to Beijing on consular affairs in the summer of 1866. See Albert to Abigail, Dec.10, 1865 and July 10, 1866.
95 Albert to Abigail, Dec. 1, 1867.
96 Albert to Abigail, Dec. 1, 1867.
97 Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865.
98 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865.
99 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865.
100 Albert to Abigail, Sept. 2, 1866.
101 Albert to Abigail, Sept. 2, 1866.
102 Albert to Abigail, Dec. 10, 1865.
103 Tong, United States Diplomacy, 57.
104 Albert to Abigail, July 20, 1865.
105 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 169; Crawford, “James Watson,” 362. For the establishment of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service branch in Niuzhuang, see Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 410–38.
106 Coates, China Consuls, 295.
107 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 169.
108 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865. Before setting up the British Consulate in Niuzhuang in 1861, Thomas Taylor Meadows had published a book on the Taiping Rebellion in 1856. See Thomas T. Meadows, The Chinese and Their Rebellions: Viewed in Connection with Their National Philosophy, Ethics, Legislation, and Administration (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1856).
109 John K. Fairbank, The United States and China. 4th edition/enlarged edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 167.
110 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 157.
111 Coates, China Consuls, 295.
112 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865.
113 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 160.
114 Cited from Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 161.
115 Michael Schaller, The United States and China: Into the Twenty-First Century. 3rd edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 12.
116 Frances Wood, No Dogs and Not Many Chinese: Treaty Port Life in China, 1843–1943 (London: John Murray, 1998); Par Cassel, “Treaty Ports and the Foreign Community in Modern China,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (Published online in May 2018 & accessed Jan. 2019: http://oxfordre.com/asianhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277727-e-159).
117 Schaller, The United States and China, 12.
118 Yang-tse-kiang refers to the Yangtze or Yangzi River, Eng refers to the British quarter, and Fr. refers to France the French quarter. See Albert, on board the British Barque Corinne, to Abigail, Lancaster, MA, July 30, 1865.
119 Albert to Abigail, July 20, 1865.
120 Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865.
121 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865.
122 Albert did not finish the letter dated July 30 until Aug. 13 after he got to Niuzhuang. See Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865.
123 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865.
124 Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865.
125 Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865.
126 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865.
127 Albert to Abigail, Oct. 22, 1865. Dr. W refers to Dr. James Watson of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. He was trained in Edinburgh, and was the first Western physician and surgeon to practice in Manchuria in the nineteenth century. He practiced in Niuzhuang from 1865 to 1884, and then went back to practice in Britain. See Crawford, “James Watson,” 362–65.
128 Albert to Abigail, Dec. 10, 1865.
129 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 161.
130 Crawford, “James Watson,” 363.
131 Albert and Abigail shared interests in collecting fresh flowers and making flower specimens. Albert told Abigail that his “book of flowers is much admired” in the expatriate foreign community in Niuzhuang; and that his brother and Mr. Huntington who lived in the same house said that they never saw anything so beautifully arranged. See Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865.
132 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865.
133 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 161.
134 Coates, China Consuls, 295.
135 Albert to Abigail, December 10, 1865.
136 Hoi-to Wong, “Interport Printing Enterprise: Mecanese Printing Networks in Chinese Treaty Ports,” in Bickers and Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China, 139–57.
137 Anne Reinhardt, “Treaty Ports as Shipping Infrastructure,” in Bickers and Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China, 103–105; Francis Knight to Hon. Assistant Secretary of State in Washington, D.C., March 31, 1875, in Annual Report of the Director of the Mint to the Secretary of the Treasury, for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1875.
138 Albert to Abigail, July 20, 1865.
139 Albert to Abigail, Oct. 22, 1865.
140 Crawford, “James Watson,” 362.
141 Albert to Abigail, Aug. 17, 1865.
142 Albert to Abigail, Oct. 22, 1865.
143 Albert to Abigail, July 30, 1865.
144 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 272.
145 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 167.
146 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 167.
147 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 20–21.
148 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 156–57, 160, 168, 171.
149 Ralph Covell, W. A. P. Martin: Pioneer of Progress in China (Washington, DC: Christian University Press, 1978), 98; W. A. P. Martin, A Cycle of Cathay (Taipei: Cheng-wen Publishing Co., 1966), 445; Paul Cohen, China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Anti-foreignism, 1860–1870 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard East Asian Studies, 1963).
150 Cited from Covell, W. A. P. Martin, 98: Lu Shiqiang (吕实强), Zhongguo guanshen fanjiao de yuanyin, 1860–1874 (⟪中国官绅反教的原因, 1860-1874⟫, The Origin and Cause of the Anti-Christian Movement by Chinese Officials and Gentry, 1860–1874) (Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 1966), 202–60.
151 Coates, China Consuls, 296.
152 Coates, China Consuls, 296.
153 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 169. Also see Lo and Bryant, British Diplomatic and Consular Establishments; Coates, China Consuls.
154 Albert to Abigail, Dec. 10, 1865.
155 Nield, China’s Foreign Places, 169. Also see Lo and Bryant, British Diplomatic and Consular Establishments; and Coates, China Consuls.
156 Nield, China’s Foreign Places; Lo and Bryant, British Diplomatic and Consular Establishments; Coates, China Consuls.
157 Albert to Abigail, May 14, 1866.
158 Albert to Abigail, May 14, 1866. Bell probably refers to U.S. admiral Henry H. Bell.
159 Griffin, Clippers and Consuls, 33.
160 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 466.
161 Cited from Robert Bickers, The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832–1914 (New York: Penguin Books, 2011), 380.
162 Bradford Perkins, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: Volume 1: The Creation of a Republican Empire, 1776–1865 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 201.
163 Kennedy, The American Consul, viii.
164 Haddad, America’s First Adventure in China, 3.
165 Dennett, Americans in Eastern Asia, 186–87.
166 Cohen, America's Response to China, 28; Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 373; Perkins, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, vol. 1, 202–203; Emily Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890–1945 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2007).
167 John Darwin, “Afterword: A Colonial World,” in Robert Bickers and Christian Henriot, eds., New Frontiers: Imperialism’s New Communities in East Asia, 1842–1953 (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000), 250; Perkins, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, vol. 1, 201. Also see Michael H. Hunt, The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and China to 1914 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983).
168 Bickers, The Scramble for China, 14–15, 380, 382; Par Cassel, “Extraterritoriality in China,” in Bickers and Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China, 23.
169 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 467.