4 China's Foreign Relations (1644-1839)
Primary Resources
| Document 4.1 |
Stamps issued commemorating Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Verbiest |
| Document 4.2 |
Excerpts from the Treaty of Nerchinsk signed by China and Russia in 1689 |
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Document 4.3
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Excerpts from the letter King George III of England wrote to the Chinese emperor and sent with Lord Macartney, 1792 |
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Document 4.4
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Two edicts from the emperor Qianlong in reply to Lord Macartney's mission to China, September 1793 |
| Document 4.5 |
Requests by English merchants and responses from a Chinese official, 1793 |
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Document 4.6
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A description of various European countries and their people by Xie Qinggao, a Chinese sailor, between 1783 and 1797 |
| Document 4.7a |
Excerpts from a letter by William Trotter of Philadelphia, trading in Guangzhou, 1797 |
| Document 4.7b |
Additional excerpts from a letter by William Trotter, Guangzhou, 1797 |
| Document 4.8 |
Excerpts from a letter Edward King wrote from Guangzhou to his brother, October 31, 1835 |
| Document 4.9a&b |
Examples of chinoiserie (ca. 1800 and ca. 1810) |
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Document 4.10
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Excerpts from a letter of instructions from the owners of the vessel Mentor to Captain John Suter, 1816 |
| Document 4.11 |
“A Voyage with Opium Smugglers” by William Hunter, between 1825 and 1844 |
Supplementary Resources
| Item 4.A |
Opium Trade statistics |
| Item 4.B |
Qianlong Meets Macartney: Collision of Two World Views, a play by John Watt |
Activity Websites
Activity 1 Jesuits
Biography of Jesuit Adam Schall von Bell
Biography ofJesuit Ferdinand Verbiest
Portuguese explorers’ influence on the Chinese
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery exhibit on Portuguese exploration and the explorers’ contact with and influence on the Chinese.
A lecture given at the University of San Francisco Ricci Institute.
Activity 1 Extended Activity Verbiest’s Map
Shows five contients and four oceans.
Biography of Verbiest in the Catholic Encyclopedia
Includes a description of competition between Eastern and Western science.
High-resolution image of Matteo Ricci’s world map
Sections can be enlarged for close examination and detail.
Activity 5 Spode Willow Pattern
The Willow Pattern Wave Essay, by Mary L. Stollard
Activity 5 Asian Export Art/Chinoiserie
Asian export art, Peabody Essex Museum
(Search for 25.407 and look in “collections.”) Image of plate with scene of two Europeans fishing, but scenery is of Chinese design.
Chinese export art, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Search for “Chinese export art” from the homepage of the museum website. Room 47f of the collection includes objects made in China and brought to the West by merchants.
Brook, Timothy and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi. Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Ghosh, Amitav. Sea of Poppies. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
A novel set in the nineteenth-century during the Opium Wars.
Kerr, Phyllis Forbes. Letters from China: The Canton-Boston Correspondence of Robert Bennet Forbes, 1838–1840. Mystic, Conn.: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1996.
Spence, Jonathan D. The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. New York: Viking, 1984.
Asian Export Art, Peabody Essex Museum
The Peabody Essex Museum holds one of North America’s premier collections of Asian export art with many images available online.
Chinese Export Art, Victoria and Albert Museum
Search for “Chinese export art” from the homepage of the museum website. Room 47f of the collection includes objects made in China and brought to the West by merchants.
The Chinese Rites Controversy, 1715, Internet Modern History Sourcebook
Decrees from the Kangxi Emperor and Pope Clement XI.
Great Universal Geographic Map, World Digital Library
A map created by Matteo Ricci in 1602 showing five continents. It is the oldest surviving map in Chinese to the show the Americas.
Essays and images about the Canton Trade System from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in partnership with the Peabody Essex Museum.
Salem’s International Trade, Salem Maritime National Historic Site
The National Park Service site about Salem, Massachusetts, and trade with China.
