I. Qing (Manchu) Dynasty--the final dynastic rulers in China, ruling during the period from 1644 to 1912 (with a brief reassertion of power in 1917). The Qing Dynasty originated in the Manchuria Province. The Qing followed most previous dynastic practices, except that they were more despotic and more insular. The Qing insisted on retaining all positions of power, and forbade intermarriage with Chinese.
A. Tributary Trade--the Qing Dynasty continued the Chinese practice of strictly controlling trade, insisting that trade would only take place with “barbarians” at certain ports, and would be supervised by government officials (“mandarins”).
1. The China Trade--with European contact with China, great attraction developed for Chinese trade goods: silk, porcelain, and tea--and trade was only allowed to take place at Canton. England was the last of the European powers to begin trading with China, but quickly became one the the country’s largest trading partners, particularly in regards to the trade in tea, which transformed English social practices.
2. The Chinese Trade Deficit--with Chinese officials controlling the trade relationship, the English were forced to trade silver for Chinese trade goods. Desperate for another commodity to trade for these goods (and worried about the amount of silver flowing out of the country), they turned to a plant that grew in India, and had provided powerful pain relief in Asia for hundreds of years.
3. The Opium Trade--opium was not unknown in China, but to the advent of the opium trade fostered by Britain, it was not used recreationally.
a) Effect of opium use--used recreationally, opium produces a state of euphoria, relieving stress, pain, stunting hunger pangs. Continued use creates the need to use larger and larger doses to reach these pleasurable states, however--and once addicted, opium users have a great deal of incentive to continue use of the drug.
b) Non-medicinal use of opium spread from China to parts of the rest of Asia (including back to India--and to parts of Europe, particularly France), particularly as economic conditions in China deteriorated and the Chinese diaspora took place.
c) Chinese attempts to halt trade--Chinese officials, greased with bribes paid by British opium merchants, had long allowed the opium trade to flourish. By the late 1830s, however, with an estimated 2 million opium addicts located in its port cities, Chinese government officials became alarmed and moved to act against the further importation of the drug. The seizure and destruction of a large quantity of opium “provoked” Great Britain into declaring war on China, in what became known as the Opium War.
B. The First Opium War (1839-1842)--Britain’s declaration of war did not concern China, since most members of the Qing court viewed them as an “inferior” race, interested only in acquiring wealth.
1. British technology--part of China’s lack of concern over these incidents was the fact that 7,000 miles of ocean lay between the two countries. However, that fact that Britain had made great leaps in naval technology, and could bring huge amounts of fire power to attack Chinese forts along the coast, and allowed them to even penetrate the interior of the county up navigable rivers.
2. Treaty of Nanjing--the first of the “unequal” treaties, granted Britain not only the right to continue trading opium for tea, but received the rights of ownership for a swampy island off the coast of China they had used for their base of operations while the war was being fought (Hong Kong--just given back to China in 2000, when their “lease” ran out), the right of access to other Chinese ports, the right of extra-territorality (that is, British citizens were exempt from the law of the land in China)--as well as demanding that the Chinese compensate the British for the cost of the war. These concessions to one European power soon had to be granted to other European powers, as well.
3. The Benefits of “Free Trade”--this “war” was about free trade--the right of Britain to freely trade a destructive substance to China for tea, so that British fears of impoverishment from the amount of silver flowing out of the country could be salved.
a) Tea and British society--tea has been portrayed as a “luxury” good in most accounts, but its use in Britain transcended the restrictions we usually think of when thinking about the people using luxury good. Tea was consumed by all levels of British society by the time of the First Opium War, including industrial workers, who regularly received “breaks” at work (in the morning at 10:00, and the afternoon at 4:00) to consume tea (along with another “luxury” item--sugar)
C. Second Opium War--China, in the midst of attempting to put down the Tai-p'eng Rebellion, boarded a ship called the Arrow suspected of smuggling and piracy. The British, claiming the fact that the ship had been registered in Hong Kong and therefore exempt from Chinese scrutiny under the Nanjing Treaty. Although distracted by the Sepoy Mutiny in India, the British launched the Second Opium War (or the Arrow War, as it is also known) in 1857, with assistance from the French, marching to Beijing and burning the Summer Palace and extracting further concessions and indemnities from the Chinese.
D. Tai-p’eng Rebellion--the internal weaknesses exposed by the First Opium War came to fruition in a popular rebellion led by a former school teacher (and former convert to Christianity) by the name of Hung Hsiu-ch’uan, who preached a doctrine of strict equality between people (particularly men and women), equal division of land, communal ownership of goods, and an end to social distinctions.
1. Rebels sense of purpose--and discipline led them to defeat those Chinese forces sent against them--initially. Success led many in command to develop a taste for the trappings of royalty; combined with the British and French aid to the Qing Dynasty to put down the rebellion (which they believed would undermine the growing European control of the country), led to the rebellion’s defeat in 1864--leaving the Qing in power for another 50 years
II. Transforming Colonization in India
A. Pre-Capitalist Colonies--before the linkage of India to maturing capitalism, British settlements existed at the pleasure of the princes who controlled the area around the colony--much like the slave factories on the African coast at the height of the slave trade remained open for business because some Africans found it profitable to exchange slaves for manufactured goods there.
1. Fall of the Mughal Empire
a) From the slow collapse of the Mughal Empire, power had devolved into six separate kingdoms that were usually at war with one another. This condition meant that there was little popular support for any of the six kingdoms. This situation was also detrimental, however, for the economic well-being of merchants, bankers, and tax-farmers (or peasants, for that matter, which is why popular support was lacking), who were under increased pressure to come up with the money to fund these wars, as well and the money necessary to maintain the opulent palaces and huge courts of these princes.
b) British East India Company--at the beginning of the 18th century, the East India Company was a marginal player in India, limited to redistributing the goods it bought in India to the rest of the world, and reliant upon remaining in the good graces of both the remaining Mughal princes and the Indian Merchants they traded with. In 1750 an official with the company in the province of Bengal saw on opportunity to advance the interests of the East India Company (as well as his own) by stepping into the power vacuum there and playing one claimant to the throne off another. After defeating French forces attempting the same technique, Robert Clive and his associates gained control of the government functions in Bengal, which was by far the richest province in India--but while still maintaining the prince as a figurehead, and supporting his retinue, as well. The Company collected taxes and ran the government, while the Indian official, called nawab, continued to hold the regalia of office. Britain gained a new control of its colonies in India just as it was losing control of its colonies in North America. The Company was able to do this cheaply because it skimmed money in return for collecting taxes from Indian peasants that they used a small portion of to employ upwards of 300,000 sepoy troops.
c) Success Breeds Success--other Indian rulers, seeing the efficacy of having the British East India Company run their government for them--enjoying all of the trappings of monarchy with none of the responsibilities--put up little resistance to “working with” the Company; and what resistance was put up was quickly overcome by force. Merchants welcomed the rise of the Company, because they bought much of textiles the company sold, and the power of the ruling elites was somewhat checked in regards to seizure of property. The Company further cemented its power among the uper classes in India by creating a new class of large landowners out of a portion of the old zamidars--but these landowners owed their alliegance to the East India Company, rather than to any Indian political leader.
B. Empire on the Cheap
1. Divide et impera--Divide and rule, the old Roman principle. Using bribery and violence in equal measure, the British were able to play one ruler against another, kingdom against kingdom, privileged class against privileged class, and caste against caste.
a) 1818 Maratha conquered
b) 1843 Sind
c) 1849 Sikhs
d) 1856 Oudh
2. Creation of British Wealth--colonization of India created wealth for those persons associated with British rule--particularly the British themselves, but including their Indian agents--became very wealth, while Indian peasants were increasingly impoverished.
a) Indian crop failure of 1769--set the stage for the rise of the East India Company. Famine brought on by crop failure is rarely a single year phenomenon. Mass starvation creates the conditions that continue to have detrimental effects for years afterward--particularly on non-mechanized societies that rely upon animal power to aid cultivation (the reason for the Vedic adoration of the oxen in the first place).
b) Impoverishment of the peasantry--the huge scale of Indian peasantry meant that they largely supported the superstructure of imperial government in India, largely by paying taxes (through turning over a large share of the crops that they raised).
c) Ruin of Indian textile industry--before the arrival of the British, most Indian cotton was utilized in the domestic Indian textile industry (textiles made by crafts people, however, rather than by machines). With the mechanization of textile manufacture in Britain (with machines), Indian cotton became an leading export item, that then made its way back as cotton cloth--cutting out Indian craft workers entirely, and impoverishing them as well.
(1) “Free Trade” at work--India was at this early period “de-industrialized” in order to advance British industry--while at the same time providing a huge market for cheaply-made British industrial goods.
3. 1857 Sepoy Mutiny--The prime example of the height of British arrogance. The Indian troops in the employ of the East India Company (called sepoys) mutinied because their officers insisted that they use ammunition lubricated with animal fat, both beef (an anathema to Hindus) of pork (Muslims). This caused the rank-and-file among the sepoy to rebel; eventually they took over control of much of northern India, and began to unravel much of the controls that the British had been able to install. Tellingly, the Hindu and Sikh sepoy in the region placed a Mughal Muslim heir to the throne of Delhi as the prince of the region. The mutiny was eventually put down with 40,000 British troops from outside India, as well as Sepoy from the southern region of the sub-continent. Some peasants who had joined the mutiny were publicly hung, other were publicly flogged (many sepoy avoided this fate as a condition of their surrender).
C. The Killing Fields of Capitalism--the Sepoy Mutiny marked a change in British colonial policy, and the British government began to assume greater control of the functions of the governing apparatus in India.
1. Thomas Malthus--On Population Control is the work Malthus is best known for. In this work, Malthus argues that the poor always have more children than they can support, because of their moral and spiritual failings--their lack of self-control is evidence of these failings, and the reason for their lack of wealth.
a) In combination with Adam Smith, the reasoning of Malthus led the British government in India to see the effects of famine in India (or at least to justify the inaction to those effects) as part of the moral failings of Indian peasants, who simply had too many children, and famine being a part of a “natural” thinning process on the human
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