EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
A History of the World since 1300
Jeremy Adelman, Princeton University
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E The Early 19th Century Market Revolution Notes taken on July 18, 2015 by Edward Tanguay |
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market revolution
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merchants didn't need anymore state sanctions to enjoy their privileges
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there emerged a new ideology of free trade
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Ali Pasha (1769-1849) made deal with the British to get access to markets
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drew inspiration from Adam Smith
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coupled with a transformation in finance
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new financial actors: merchant bankers
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old agrarian aristocracies of China, India and the Ottoman Empire were now being challenged by these new kinds of relationships
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being threatened less by formal empires and more by merchant trade practices
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penetration of market forces into ancient, aristocratic societies shook the balance of the Eurasia system
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China
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had never undergone a conquest in the way that the Americas had been conquered
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instead, a slow process of erosion of the sovereignty of the Qing Empire
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partly from forces from within
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like the Ottoman and Mughal Empire (1526-1857)
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spreading unrest as food became scarcer and more expensive
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new pressures from outside China
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reversing of trade balance between Europe and China
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Europe used to have to bring precious metals
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by 1828, silver began to flow out of China
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commodities from Europe began to flow into China
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cotton textiles and metal wares
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put pressures on prices in China
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ports like Canton were thriving with business
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after 1807, English and American Protestant missionaries would begin penetrating into China
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with a dream of converting 150 million heathens
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opium trade
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narcotics have always been a very lucrative business
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opium offered a great high and was allegedly an aphrodisiac
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a product that Chinese seemed to want from European merchants
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in particular from the East India Company
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brought opium from India
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Chinese government tried to shut down the opium dens
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tried to control the traffic
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concerned about spreading addiction
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by 1842, 40,000 chests of opium were being shipped per year to China markets
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government was very weak in trying to do this
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foreign powers were unwilling to collaborate with the Chinese since they were making money on this trade
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arrival of British steam ships
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defend the dens
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bombardment of Chinese ports in Canton
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Chinese used clubs and spears to defend themselves against British artillery
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1842 Treaty of Nanging
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humiliating treaty
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marked the end of the First Opium War (1839-1842)
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enormous indemnities to the victors
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creation of treaty ports
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laws for foreigners to enjoy their own laws when in China
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the triumph of free trade
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further hobbled the Chinese state
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1840s Chinese response
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try to protect against this
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but there was already a decline and dire circumstances for the state
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humiliation of the state
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spread of the consumption of illegal products like opium
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no apparent ability to control it
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people began to search out for a new moral order
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a new compass
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a new way of governing China
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this kind of decline attracted messianic and millenarian movements
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Hong Xiuquan
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influenced by Christian missionaries
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1837 had a dream
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saw himself as Jesus' brother
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failed the civil service examinations
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so founded the Society of God Worshipers
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led uprising against the Chinese state
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movement spread
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Taiping Rebellion
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Hong Xiuquan (1814–1864)
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claimed to be brother of Jesus
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preached with many Biblical allusions
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emerged as a national threat to the Qing authority
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1853
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army of 700,000 took Nanging
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target was the Manchu who were governing China
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also Confucian and Buddhist leaders believed that people the Taiping Rebellion would pull people away
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ultimate it was foreigner who were most alarmed, fearing chaos in this marketplace
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rushed troops and weapons to China to put down this rebellion
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took 15 years to put it down
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the worst civil war in history
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20-30 million people left dead
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left Qing state even more crippled and illegitimate than when it started out
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Qing government more indebted to foreigners than it was before
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the Qing's victory over the Taiping Rebellion was a Pyrrhic victory
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they were forced to allow foreigners to penetrate markets with even more preferential terms than ever
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so we can ask ourselves how free trade, this revolution in concepts of freedom, crept into, insinuated itself into an old, agrarian dynasty that was never conquered by the West but was slowly crippled by these new practices and doctrines, hollowed out from within to serve a new kind of commercial purpose