Abstract
AbstractThis article examines the role of the private merchant firm Jardine Matheson in procuring Chinese tea cultivators for the East India Company's experimental tea plantations in Assam in the 1830s. Where existing literature has detailed the establishment of a Tea Committee by the East India Company to oversee these tea plantations, the focus of this article is on the way that the illicit opium-distribution network of Jardine Matheson was used to extract labour, tea specimens, and knowledge from China. The colonial state's experimental tea plantations were directly connected to the devastation of the opium trade. The multiple uses of Jardine Matheson's drug-distribution networks and skilled employees becomes evident upon examination of their role in facilitating Chinese migration. The recruitment of tea cultivators from China in the 1830s also impacted on colonial concepts of racial hierarchy and the perceived contrast between savagery and civilization. Ultimately, Jardine Matheson's extraction of skilled labour from the China coast informs our understanding of the evolving private networks that became crucial to British imperialism in Asia, and through which labour, capital, people, information, and ideas could be exchanged.
Highlights
The 1830s, a decade of tumultuous Anglo-Chinese diplomatic relations, were marked by British fears about the future supply of tea from China.[1]
This article examines the role of the private merchant firm Jardine Matheson in procuring Chinese tea cultivators for the East India Company’s experimental tea plantations in Assam in the 1830s
Where existing literature has detailed the establishment of a Tea Committee by the East India Company to oversee these tea plantations, the focus of this article is on the way that the illicit opium distribution network of Jardine Matheson was used to extract labour, tea specimens and knowledge from China
Summary
The 1830s, a decade of tumultuous Anglo-Chinese diplomatic relations, were marked by British fears about the future supply of tea from China.[1]. The recruitment of Chinese tea cultivators in the 1830s highlights the importance of Jardine Matheson’s commercial network and expertise in the development of new imperial resource pools, like Assam, which would be hugely significant in ensuring the future profitability of the Indian Government.[19] Though the firm’s primary concern was extracting Chinese capital for its own benefit through the opium trade, its operations allowed the accessing skilled labour, plant resources and specialist knowledge from areas of China that lay beyond the reach of Britain’s official commercial or diplomatic structures. The recruitment of Chinese tea cultivators from the China coast in the 1830s fed into both the economic development of British imperialism in Asia and the ideologies of racial hierarchy that were used to justify colonial control
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