The Dragon and the Eagle

[pynchondroid]

Thanks, Dave.  I've assumed that  the Chinese threads
in the M&D tapestry may have come in by way of Europe
and the Chinoiserie craze there, judging from the
description below (and the table of contents at the
Web site) this book would be a good place to find out
more about that.

The trade which began later referred to in the blurb
below (between Canton and the East Coast) has deep
Pynchonian reverberations: the coffee and tea in M&D,
besides providing the pretext for some odd couple
exchanges between the eponymous pair, leads into
darker territory. Some New England clipper ships would
ply the opium trade from  China to India (which was
dominated by the British), bring tea, blue willow
china and other goods for the American (sometime with
stops on the California coast, I read a book, _The
Voyage of the `Frolic'_  a few years about one such
ship that wrecked further up the coast from here, in
Vineland country) and sometimes European market. Some
historians have claimed that the opium trade was a
source of the Roosevelt family fortune, too, although
I don't know enough about it to evaluate that claim.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0804738491/104-5560186-8141559
The Voyage of the `Frolic': New England Merchants and
the Opium Trade
by Thomas N. Layton
"While on an archaeological dig in northern
California, Layton, a professor of archaeology at San
Jose State University, uncovers remnants of Chinese
porcelain that are more than 100 years old. Just off
the coast a few miles away, he finds the wreck of the
Frolic, a clipper ship from the mid-1800s. His
curiosity aroused, Layton sifts through old maritime
records and newspaper accounts, discovering that the
Frolic was employed in the Asian opium trade from 1845
to 1850. The ship's crew ferried Indian opium to China
and sold it for silver, which they then used to
purchase Chinese tea. And business boomed for the New
England traders involved. A ship like the Frolic could
earn $30,000 a year in cargo fees alone, plus the side
profits from investing in partial cargoes of opium. A
fascinating look at a little known slice of American
history, filled with dozens of colorful anecdotes,
often in the participants' own words."




http://www.history1700s.com/article1071.shtml


http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/sgml/moa-idx?notisid=ABL5306-0011-187
*	An Essay on the Opium Trade. Nathan Allen: pp.
666-667 
  in: 
Title:	The American Whig review. / Volume 11, Issue 30
Publisher:	Wiley and Putnam, etc.	Publication Date:
June 1850
City:	New York	


pix here:
http://www.hygra.com/teaand.htm


stats:
http://history.binghamton.edu/hist130/docs/teaopium.htm


http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/browse.author/e.160.html


http://www.selectbooks.com.sg/titles/29431.htm
Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy: A
Study of the Asian Opium Trade, 1750-1950
by Trocki, Carl A.


http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/om/om15.htm


http://www.schoonerman.com/clipper.htm


http://www.eraoftheclipperships.com/page17web3.html


http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8933/dragon.htm


http://www.maritimeheritage.org/newtale/opium.html








--- Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Aldridge, A. Owen.  The Dragon and the Eagle:
>    The Presence of China in the American
>    Enlightenment.  Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1993.
> 
> Previous scholarship held that the image of China
> did
> not penetrate North America until after trade was
> established between Canton and the East Coast in
> 1784.
> In The Dragon and the Eagle, A. Owen Aldridge
> reveals
> that a lively curiosity about oriental culture
> existed
> before the middle of the 18th century, and that a
> good
> deal of information about it was available even
> during
> the War for Independence.
> 
> Aldridge surveys attitudes and opinions about all
> aspects of Chinese life and culture expressed in
> American fiction, history, travel accounts, sermons,
> poetry, essays, correspondence, memoirs, and
> references in periodicals. He indicates that between
> 1760 and 1825 several entire books about China were
> published in America, together with a host of short
> pieces in newspapers and magazines.
> 
>
http://wsupress.wayne.edu/literature/littheory/aldridgede.htm



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