In the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, the new and nearly bankrupt US viewed the China trade as a way to settle war debts.
February 22, 1784, “the Empress of China cleared the wharf … launching America’s trade with China.” (Dolins)
She carried the hopes of a newly independent nation. Backers “of the Empress of China were all the signatories of the Independence agreement … This was a private enterprise but a national priority.” (Libby Chan Lai-pik)
With clearance from Bellona won
She spreads her wings to meet the Sun,
Those golden regions to explore
Where George forbade to sail before.
To countries placed in burning climes
And islands of remotest times
She now her eager course explores.
And soon shall greet Chinesian shores.
From thence their fragrant teas to bring
Without the leave of Britain’s king;
And Porcelain ware, enchased in gold.
The product of that finer mould.
(A Poem about the Empress of China, Philip Freneau)
Originally fitted as a privateer (privately owned armed vessel commissioned to attack enemy ships, usually vessels of commerce) and refitted as a trading ship, the Empress of China was the first American merchant ship to sail for China; the three-masted sailing vessel sailed from New York harbor on February 22, 1784 (George Washington’s birthday).
This was less than a year after the Treaty of Paris was signed (September 3, 1783 – ending the American Revolutionary War), and several years before George Washington took office as America’s first president on April 30, 1789.
It was a private venture that had national overtures. And marked the historical beginning of ties between China and the United States, and the assertion of the United States’ power as a sovereign nation. (Schimdt)
The Empress of China also carried 30-tons of ginseng and other trading goods. Ginseng was the most important herb of the Chinese.
In the 18th century ginseng was also popular in America. It is estimated that American colonists discovered it in the mid-1700s in New England.
“The history of human interaction with ginseng lurks in the language of the land … on the north-facing, ‘wet’ sides of depressions”. Look at a detailed map of almost any portion around the Colonies and ginseng is registered somewhere, often in association with the deeper, moister places, named ‘Hollows’. (LOC)
After trading, the Empress of China arrived in New York, May 11, 1785.
She carried 800 chests of tea, 20,000 pairs of nankeen trousers and a huge quantity of porcelain.
Stores up and down the East Coast sold her cargo. The voyage earned a 25% return on investment – enough to spawn a new era of commerce with China.
The Americans learned how to make real money in the China trade: sale of Chinese goods to Americans.
John Jay, the US foreign minister, shared the success with Congress.
Congress responded with ‘a peculiar satisfaction in the successful issue of this first effort of the citizens of America to establish a direct trade with China.’
The Empress of China proved that trade with China could enrich backers, funnel customs duties into the national treasury and make the US a competitor on the world stage. (NY Historical Society)
Post-Revolutionary direct trade with Asian countries allowed Americans to trade for their own luxuries. Americans would ship goods such as ginseng (used for medicinal and aphrodisiac purposes), tobacco, pitch, tar, turpentine, furs, and silver to China and East India.
Export of commodities such as ginseng and tobacco was acceptable, even necessary, according to Jeffersonian political doctrine, in order to expand the agricultural basis of the new nation.
In return, traders would receive tea, cotton nankeen cloth, silk, porcelain (which was so inexpensive in China that it was often shipped as ballast), pepper, and Chinese cinnamon. (Weyler)
For the next 60 years, the China trade would make New England merchants very, very wealthy. (NE Historical Society)
Other US merchants were quick to see the value of the China trade. At first, however, they flooded the Chinese market with ginseng. Chinese demand for the root dropped, and so did its price.
But the Chinese did want sea-otter pelts, which Yankees traded from Indians in the American Northwest. Sandalwood, found in the Sandwich Islands (Hawai‘i), also brought a high price from Chinese merchants. (Monroe Columbia University)
Click the following links to a general summary about the Empress of China:
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