New England and the China Trade.(Chinese Export Art at Historic Deerfield)(Book review)

In 1793 the Qianlong emperor of China wrote to George III of England: "We possess all things. I set no value on objects strange and ingenious, and have no use for your country's manufactures." Pride aside, everyone needs something, and the Chinese welcomed silver coins to melt up and refashion, and they could not live without ginseng, the forked root they felt fixed everything.

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Ginseng grows in eastern Asia and in the woods of the eastern United States and Canada. So when the prosperous residents of the Connecticut River valley were casting about for an entree into the China Trade, they started digging up ginseng. The Empress of China, which launched the American trade with China, sailed from New York City in February 1784 with thirty tons of ginseng, among other enticements for trade.

The Connecticut River is more than four hundred miles long from its source at the Canadian border to its mouth in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. However, it was hardly ideal for deepwater trading. Seagoing vessels could only sail upriver as far as Hartford, its lower channels were shallow, and the river was closed by ice for three months a year. Thus the rich and famous along the river, known as the Mansion People or River Gods, did not themselves own trading ships but profited from the China Trade in other ways. These thirteen intermarried families held most of the best posts in their communities and made sure everyone else realized it. They invested in cargoes outbound to Canton and then sold the imports, amassing Chinese porcelain and other exotica for themselves along the way.

Some of these objects have found their way into the collection of Historic Deerfield in the Massachusetts town of the same name on the Connecticut River. Many more fruits of the China Trade have been added to that collection over time, and the whole lot has now been informatively catalogued in Chinese Export Art at Historic Deerfield by Amanda E. Lange, the museum's curator of historic interiors.

Preceding the detailed object entries, three essays offer a useful bird's-eye view of the trade. The four to six month trip to Canton was timed so ships arrived during the autumn monsoon season when the teas were ready to ship. The arriving ship was first measured in length and breadth by a customs man, who was quick to pocket the obligatory tip. This was in addition to the port charges of from three to seven thousand dollars per ship to enter and leave China, which were among the highest in the world.

The main export was tea, one or more of the many kinds grown in China, which warranted a twenty-four-page album of paintings on silk ...