Author: daelnorwood

Archival Follies, Dismal Scientists

Extra, Extra! Territoriality

daelnorwood

Or, History: Slaughter Bench or Treasure Chest?

extra

Over at Marginal Revolution the other day, Tyler Cowen opened a discussion about extraterritoriality as a way to promote economic growth, part of a longer-running conversation about the viability / desirability / possibility of setting up what Paul Romer calls “Charter Cities,” which as far as I can tell are colonies-by-permission.

As Prof. Cowen references some historical works on the concept, I presume he — and his commenters — are at least passing familiar with the way violence was needed to originate and maintain extraterritorial rights, at least over the last two centuries. However, their discussion, as with most of this kind of neo-liberal thought experiment, appears to have no real sense of how power — its mechanics, its actual use, it as a motivating factor — maps on to all of this.

Rather kills the fun, I think.

In that context, I think this excerpt from a letter by an American diplomat in Shanghai — that experiment par excellence in modern extraterritoriality — might serve as a useful correction to the discussion. This is what extraterritoriality meant the first time it was used in earnest: creeping (or running!) imperialism.

It seems that the Imperial troops attempted to intercept cannon which they understood a British House was designing to deliver to the Insurgents, and for this purpose entered the foreign settlement. They were met by foreigners and were driven out of the settlement, with a loss of six of their number, who were shot in the conflict. The Chinese fired also, but did no material damage. There were no citizens of the United States involved in the affair. Commodore Perry has not communicated to me any details of the report of Commander Walker, and I must therefore confine my own statement to the repetition of the brief report of the occurrence as it is mentioned in a private letter from Mr. Cunningham, the vice-consul of the United States.

This affair is a legitimate result from the prior conduct of foreigners generally at Shanghai, and of the British authorities and residents in particular. The Chinese, either Rebels or Imperialists, are unable to protect themselves against European arms; and a knowledge of this fact seems to render foreigners perfectly careless of the extent to which they trespass on their rights. For my stern opposition to all violations of neutrality and my warning that its consequences must be and ought to be the generation of national hostility, I have become quite a mark for scribblers through the British Press in China and, I presume, of animadversion at home. I rely for my vindication upon the determination of my Government to sustain a public servant in the firm discharge of public duty.

In any other country than China men would be arrested and immediately executed for a great many offenses which have been committed here with impunity, and apparently with the sanction of the foreign public authority. I enclose a printed slip containing a remonstrance addressed to the British Consul at Shanghai to his countrymen, which admits a conclusive case against them, yet, it is said, he demanded an explanation of this affair from the Chinese Imperial General, and received some sort of apology for the resistance of the Chinese troops! It must be plain that the Chinese will entertain resentment for such conduct although at present they may be unable to exhibit it. This occurrence has been the apology for strengthening the British guard at Shanghai; and, the foreign quarter of that city may already be said to be, in effect, under British rule. A correspondent of mine writing from that city under date of November 30 says

“The fact is, the authorities of Great Britain are exercising here in Shanghai all the rights and prerogatives of sovereignty, as between themselves and the Chinese. They have actually garrisoned the place on their own hook, refusing to regard it as a mixed and common cause of all foreigners. If the crews of the Spartan and Salamander are not sufficient, of course a Regiment of Ceylon Rifles or British Infantry would be put in requisition. What more could sovereignty do?”

~Humphrey Marshall, U.S. Commissioner to China, to the Secretary of State, 8 December 1853

But hey, maybe if we had a Western power – governed by an ideology of a liberal economics bent, naturally – administer a major city in some poor country’s territory everything would be cool? It might work out this time.

Unlike all the other times…

Image cite: Leekelleher, “extra,” Flickr CC License

Archival Follies, Now in Actual Work

Wheatonesque

daelnorwood

Or, Nineteenth-Century Natural History and Geopolitics Go Together Like…*

Frame

Henry Wheaton was a busy man in 1843. Aside from his official duties as U.S. Minister to Prussia – which included everything from issuing passports and entertaining visiting Americans to more serious affairs like preparing for a treaty negotiations with the Zolleverein, the German Customs Union – he was also intensely engaged in writing reports, as a hobby.

And not just a few. In 1843, Wheaton wrote at least ten reports for the National Institution for the Promotion of Science – aka the “National Institute” – a Washington-based organization that sought to : “to promote Science and the Useful Arts, and to establish a National Museum of Natural History, &c. &c.”

Wheaton’s contributions to the Institute fell firmly in the “&c. &c.” category. Though best known for his legal work – he was the first professional reporter for the Supreme Court, and wrote the standard treatises on international and maritime law – his reports for the National Institute trace a wider circle, and depart significantly from the then-standard definitions of “scientific and useful arts.” He wrote absolutely no treatises on New England ferns or Great Lake mollusks (all popular topics with the Washington professionals cum amateur scientists that made up the bulk of the Institute’s membership), which probably accounts for his failure to get the Institute to help publish his work.

Instead, he wrote on a bewildering array of subjects, including:

The geography of Central Asia; the revival of Greek tragedy in Prussia; German canals; the state of the fine arts in Denmark ; the character of Frederick the Great; the last days of the Emperor Charles V; the genius and labors of Liebniz; the life and writings of Diderot; the Panama canal; the history of the reformation in Germany; Egyptian Antiquities, and the Ptolemaic canal across the Isthmus of Suez.

If we ignore the Teutonic flavor of some of the reports (likely the result of his location and occupation; he had been a diplomat in Prussia since 1835), a striking pattern emerges. Almost uniquely among the corresponding members of the National Institute, Wheaton was concerned with history, culture, art – and, above all commerce and geopolitics.
Continue reading “Wheatonesque” →

Uncategorized

A waste, really

daelnorwood

Or, Won’t Anyone Please Think of the commodities!

Waste_orange

So today, in my endless backpacking through the archives of early Sino-American relations, I ran across this passage in a despatch from the U.S. diplomatic representative to China, the notoriously obstreperous Humphrey Marshall:

When I look upon this noble country and especially upon its magnificent inland water communications, its broad valleys, and the vast productive capacity of its fertile plains, I can but deplore the woeful, criminal mismanagement, by a feeble despotism, of its abundant resources. I am convinced that there never has been in the history of Mankind a worse government than that which for some years past has afflicted China. It is without strength, spirit, or capacity – too vain to learn wisdom – too ignorant to behold its own gross want of intelligence. It sits, an incubus on the spirit and upon the prosperity of the people. But, really I see very little to prefer in those who essay its overthrow. It would be very important to the United States, indeed to the world, could western powers unite in sending their diplomatists to Peking, or to Nanking and so, by a timely interference, put an end to this internal strife which promises nothing half so much as the utter paralysis of trade for years to come. [emph added]

~Humphrey Marshall, U.S. Commissioner to China, to the William L. Marcy, Secretary of State, 21 June 1853

This is a fairly standard-for-the-time diatribe from a Westerner about China, and certainly one that is repeated often in the State Department’s China mission archives. Typical, too, in its callousness. And finally, it reiterates the themes so prominent in that American genre of justification for conquests, a popular series that had recently reached new heights (see: Invasión Estadounidense de México, 1846-1848).

(Oh, and Marshall’s comment about “those who essay its overthrow” is a reference to the recently begun Taiping rebellion, headquartered at Nanking (Nanjing). He feels it necessary to indicate that the rebels are not the lesser evil because many Western missionaries in China – especially Americans – at this point regarded the Christian-influenced mysticism of the Taiping as an indication that Christianity was finally sweeping China, and that their work had not, in fact, been for naught.)

Thus, the passage is in some (okay, many) ways unremarkable. But what I find interesting about it is how Marshall – a Kentucky Whig and staunch supporter of the plantation system in the U.S. – was able to shift the physiocratic “producer” rhetoric ( “broad valleys … and … fertile plains” ) in the service of a very different, if no less exploitative, kind of imperial conquest: one that focused on commerce.

That may not seem all that remarkable (and perhaps it isn’t — one needs markets to export the products of a plantation system, after all), but it nonetheless strikes my ear as profoundly unusual for a politician from anywhere but New York or Boston (and perhaps Philadelphia) to be expressing this kind of focus on cooperative international action in pursuit of commercial empire. Marshall’s other despatches indicate that he was a man profoundly concerned — at least while minister to China — with furthering American commerce all over the world, by force, if necessary.

(He was, in fact, continually asking Washington for a fleet of armed steamboats under his direct command, with which to patrol Chinese waters for pirates, and to threaten Qing officials. Commodore Perry had taken all the good ships to bully Japan with, you see.)

Incidentally, though the “internal strife” Marshall mentions — the Taiping Rebellion – did impede trade somewhat, it also claimed the lives of some 20 to 30 million people over the next ten years, making it by far the deadliest civil war in the nineteenth century, and perhaps ever (ours “only” killed around 620,000 and we’re still talking about it). This in a conflict largely, though not exclusively, fought using small arms. The rest of the world had to wait until the mid-twentieth century (WWII: 40-72 million) to surpass such a ghoulish mark, and then we had lots more toys to play with.

But yes, trade was impacted.

Image cite: Schilling 2, “What a waste, and so sweet,” Flickr, CC License

Archival Follies, The Past is a Foreign...Something

Great Moments in Taking Things Completely Out of Context

daelnorwood

Diplomatic Despatches* Edition

Giraffe

“Feeling excited by the Death of the Duke of Orleans.”

~Edward Everett, U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain, to Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, 18 July 1842, Despatch No. 17.

* Yes, they spelled it “despatches” not “dispatches.” No, I don’t know why.

Image cite: Swiv,”What?,” Flickr, CC License

Archival Follies

Experienced Inconvenience

daelnorwood

What with all the bodies piling up on the dock

LonelyDock

A strange mix of violence, confusion, and settled community reigned for the American residents (and presumably others) of coastal China in the mid-nineteenth century. The bureaucratic requirements of the State Department forced the unstable chaos of events into some odd, strained forms, at times.

See, for example, the following abstract of the resident American minister’s report for February 1850:

Grants of Land at Shang Hae [Shanghai] – Inconvenience experienced for want of a proper burial place for American citizens dying at Whampoa – Murder of two American citizens at the Fugee [Fiji] Islands by the natives – Sends his accounts – Death either of the mother of the Emperor of China, or the Emperor himself – Assault made upon the French Consul.

That’s a busy month, folks, but pretty typical of the time/place.

Image cite: Marcn, “Lonely Swimming Dock,” Flickr, CC License