The Opium Wars In China

African slaves were shipped to the West Indies and America as part of the Triangular Trade. Many slaves died on the voyage due to the ghastly conditions that accompanied the Middle Passage and others committed suicide. Portugal held a near monopoly on the export of African slaves for a period of about 200 years from the early 14-1600s. The peak years of the slave trade were during the 16th and 17th century, but Africans were forced across the Atlantic for an astonishing timeframe of around 400 years.

China has 5000 years of history which experienced wars, collapses, failures and successes. The Opium War in the year 1839 and 1856 marked the changing point of China’s trade policy with foreigners, especially with British in opium and tea. China changed from getting tributes to being forced to sign the Nanjing Treaty and Tianjing Treaty with British and French. Due to China’s over confidence and unwelcome attitude toward foreigners and opium, it caused the British to declare the Opium War to China which made Chinese suffer for many years, but at the same time it also forced China to open its doors to the foreigners.

While westerners in China pushed to claim rights and generally oppose Chinese reformers who worked to better China, the Chinese government and society continued to face internal problems.

British merchants were disappointed after a British missionary was unable to establish further trade rights with Britain so they looked

Imperialism is like a kingpin putting his hardest working, most experienced partners in a territory that they have sole control over, with the main job of making the money to bring back to the kingpin, getting their “cut” thereafter. It was the same for the British. Imperialism was vastly growing in the new British Empire. New Imperialism gave rise in East Asia and Africa with the new trade networks and new products and goods that were made to be profitable. According to Abina and the Important Men, palm oil became a new “golden” standard for the British. It was a necessity to how machines in factories worked post-Industrialization era. As for East Asia, opium became extremely profitable, although it put many of the population(s) at extreme

While most of the Western Hemisphere was undergoing drastic advancements, such as former colonies gaining their independence and transforming into more modernized nations, a lot of mishaps were occurring in the Eastern Hemisphere—China, specifically—a nation that was notorious for its isolation from foreign influences. European nations began to greedily eye China’s abundance of desirable resources, such as tea, porcelain, and silk. However, China had very little need or desire for European goods. In an attempt to resolve the trade imbalance Britain began importing opium into China, which would prove to be disastrous for the Chinese population. The dispute over the importation of the drug eventually led to the

African people began to attack opposing tribes and taking captives, and then would sell the captives to the Europeans to use for slaves. They would be placed on slave ships, where they would be packed in, forced to sit with sicknesses, death and whippings. “I feared I should be put to death, the white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a manner; I had never seen among any people such instances of cruelty”(Equaino, Document D) The slaves were whipped on ships and treated like animals. The statement above was a quote from a previous slave. When slavery was brought to the New World, places with large agricultural based economies had many slaves. Sugarcane slaves were slaves that worked in the fields, planting, taking care of, picking and processing sugar cane. Life expectancy for these slaves was five years. The Silver mining slaves worked in conditions that would have them underground with poor ventilation, almost complete darkness, and natural disasters. They lived longer than Sugar Slaves, and most of the time could buy their freedom. The Columbian Exchange expanded the Atlantic Slave trade, which killed too

China viewed itself as an autarkic agricultural economic system and whilst Britain purchased large amounts of Chinese tea, silk and porcelain the Chinese held the European manufactured products at very little value. This monopolistic system of

The opium culture was already rampant before the CIA began their secret war in Laos, but the agency also facilitated the trade. A correspondent for Christian Science Monitor reported in 1970 that the CIA “is cognizant of, if not party to, the extensive movement of opium out of Laos.” A pilot also told the reporter that “opium shipments get special CIA clearance and monitoring on their flights southward out of the country.” One former CIA agent stationed in Laos, Anthony Poshepny aka “Tony Poe,” went on the record many years later. He said, “It was all a contractual relationship, just like bankers and businessmen. A wonderful relationship. Just a mafia. A big organized mafia.”

Because the European plantation owners could not obtain workers among the Native Americans, they then turned to the African slaves instead (Nunn, Qian). This initiated the transatlantic slave trade (Nunn, Qian). From the sixteenth to nineteenth century, more than twelve million African slaves were forcefully shipped to the Americas (Nunn, Qian). This is the biggest involuntary movement of people in the human history (Nunn, Qian). These imported slaves were forced to work on plantations all to to produce tobacco, cotton, coffee, sugar, and other

The Atlantic Slave Trade lasted between 1450 and 1750 and drastically impacted the lives of both European and African people. During this time, the Europeans, such as the British, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch, traveled to Africa in search of labor workers. In total, over twelve million slaves were taken, mainly because they workers to make money, but it also had to do with their race, religion – as they were not Christian – and to civilize them because the Europeans did not believe that they were humans. Due to these European beliefs, the Europeans saw themselves as the most powerful group and viewed slave trade as a business. The Africans, on the other hand, had a harder time transitioning into slavery. Many of them were taken from their homes and forced to accept a new life working as a slave. These events did not come without many sacrifices from the African people. One of the major reasons the slave trade was so expansive is due to the low life expectancy of the slaves after their capture. While the Europeans believed that they were helping the African culture, as well as themselves, the African society as a whole suffered the most.

Per CBS news’s timeline for the slave trade, 1502 was the first year that African slaves were reported in the new world. The reasons for this was a need of a labor force that would be very economically substantial but very effective and Africans who, at the time, were thought of as less-than people, not smart, but strong enough to help work for their captors, were the perfect fit for the roll. This wasn’t just in the British colonies and north America. The Atlantic slave trade had massive amounts of Human labor being shipped all over the Americas. The

In the early eighteen hundreds, Britain and other European countries demanded more and more Chinese commodities, especially tea and silk. However, only the port in Canton was opened to foreign countries, and Chinese would not take any other form of payments besides silver. The desire to make China into a free market that foreigners have more access to and the increasing, though illegal, European opium import to China eventually created tension between the European countries, especially Britain, and the Chinese government (Allingham Par. 1-2). The two battles fought and won by European powers were known as the Opium Wars. China’s politics, economy, and intellects were both positively and negatively

The opium problem in China during the nineteenth century was primarily viewed as an issue created by foreign traders bringing opium into their empire. Zhu Zun and Xu Naiji wrote memoranda in 1863 elucidating their diverging view to the government on how to combat the issue of opium use and trade. Xu advocated for the relaxing of anti-opium laws as a means of reducing illegal smuggling, while Zhu contends that more stringent enforcement of anti-opium laws is the preferable policy, which Commissioner Lin supports in his edict to foreign traders.

There were many problems with the system of trade in China; even before opium trading began. China, believing herself to be the most civilized and advanced country, did not feel the need to satisfy Britain, a “barbarian” country’s request for freer trade and were concerned the British wanted land. Britain however,