Table Of ContentThe Troublesome Legacy of Commissioner Lin
The Opium Trade and Opium Suppression
in Fujian Province, 182os to 1920s
Harvard East Asian Monographs 227
The Troublesome Legacy of Commissioner Lin
The Opium Trade and Opium Suppression
in Fujian Province, 182os to 1920s
Joyce A. Madancy
Published by the Harvard University Asia Center
and distributed by Harvard University Press
Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London 2003
© 2003 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
Printed in the United States of America
The Harvard University Asia Center publishes a monograph series and, in coordination with the Fair
bank Center for East Asian Research, the Korea Institute, the Reischauer Institute ofJ apanese Studies,
and other faculties and institutes, administers research projects designed to further scholarly understand
ing of China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, and other Asian countries. The Center also sponsors projects ad
dressing multidisciplinary and regional issues in Asia.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Madancy, Joyce A.
The troublesome legacy of Commissioner Lin: the opium trade and opium
suppression in Fujian Province, 182os to 1920s I Joyce A. Madancy.
p. em. -- (Harvard East Asian monographs ; 227)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o-674·01215-1 (cloth: alk. paper)
1, Opium trade--China--Fujian Sheng--History. 2, Opium
habit--China--Fujian Sheng--Prevention--History. 3· Narcotics, Control
of--China--Fujian Sheng--History. 4· Lin, Zexu, 1785-1850. I. Title.
II. Series.
HV5840.c62M33 2003
362,29'3'095124509033--dc22
2003019710
Index by the author
@ Printed on acid-free paper
Last figure below indicates year of this printing
13 12 n 10 09 o8 07 o6 05 04 03
To Jack, Kevin, and Maya,
who endured the good days and the bad
with more patience and love than
I know how to repay
Acknowledgments
This project has been so long in the making and the help that has been ren~
dered so extensive that I hesitate to acknowledge particular individuals for
fear of neglecting others. Among the many scholars who have aided my
work immeasurably are fellow devotees of the opium question such as Alan
Baumler, Carol Benedict, Lucien Bianco, Timothy Brook, Paul Howard,
Lin Man~houng, and Bob Wakabayashi. All of them have been extraordi~
narily generous with time, sources, and advice. Others, such as Steve Averill,
Mary Rankin, Vera Schwarz, and Tim Brook, cheerfully read and lent their
advice on pieces of the manuscript. My incomparable colleagues and friends
at Union College, particularly Ted Gilman, Hyungji Park, Andy Foroughi,
Lori Marso, Teresa Meade, Bruce Reynolds, Megan Ferry, Feng Jianping,
Bob Wells, Steve Sargent, and Jane Earley, also lent their counsel and en~
couragement. Paul Halliday, Sarah Henry, and Mark Walker actually read
parts of the draft and made valuable suggestions. Jon Sterngass contributed
a never~ending stream of valuable references on opium use in the United
States and Europe. I found a treasure one summer in Union student Xie
Jiandong, whose meticulous translations.helped me skim a number of Chi
nese documents. The librarians at Union's Schaffer Library, especially Mary
Cahill, cheerfully and rapidly complied with my many interlibrary loan re
quests. The Union Humanities Fund for Faculty Development graciously
awarded me a grant to cover the cost of reproducing many of the illustra
tions, and the Union administration and History department allowed me to
take a junior sabbatical to travel to China. Deans Christie Sorum and Char
lotte Borst have been unfailingly supportive. A grant from the ACLS and
the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation funded dissertation research in Taiwan,
France, and England, and a Center for Chinese Studies grant from the Uni~
Vlll Acknowledgments
versity of Michigan enabled a quick trip to Beijing. A post~doctoral research
grant funded by the Committee on Scholarly Communication with China
and administered by the ACLS supported my research in Fuzhou.
An earlier version of Chapter 8 appeared in an article entitled "Revolu~
tion, Religion and the Poppy: Opium and th,e Rebellion of the 'Sixteenth
Emperor' in Early Republican China," published in Republican China [now
Twentieth-Century China], 2I, no. I (Nov. I995): I-4I. Portions of Chapters I,
2, and 8 appeared in an article entitled "Unearthing Popular Attitudes To~
ward the Opium Trade and Opium Suppression in Late Qing and Early
Republican Fujian," published in Modern China, 27, no. 4 (Oct. 2001): 436-
83. My thanks to those publications and their editors for permission to use
that material here.
None of this would have been possible without the guidance and moral
support of Ernest P. Young and Albert Feuerwerker at the University of
Michigan. The camaraderie and advice of many fellow graduate students
from long ago such as Diane Scherer, Tom Buoye, Li Danke, Anne Gorsuch,
Wang Jianwei, Bruce Dickson, Benita Wong, Terry Bodenhorn, Scott
Wong, Carrie Waara, David Shambaugh, Terre Fisher, David Aiken, and
especially Judy Wyman have made a lengthy process more enlightening and
enjoyable.
Thanks, too, to the many scholars, librarians, and archivists in the
United States, England, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Beijing, and Fuzhou
who helped locate elusive sources. In Fuzhou, invaluable help was given me
by Liu Huiyu and Zhou Yongjun at Fujian Normal University and Lin
Yo ngxiang at the Provincial Library. Grant Alger showed me the ropes at
the Provincial Library and helped me· retain my sanity in the face of Fu~
zhou's sweltering temperatures and a particularly vile archives attendant.
Ryan Dunch's generous photocopying of opium~related documents and his
meticulous notes made my research foray to Fuzhou extremely productive,
and his work remains a model of scholarly achievement for me. Edward
Rhoads generously shared notes that helped clarify some of the finer points
in Chapter 5· Thanks to Milton Gustafson of the National Archives. Dale
Patterson and Mark Shenise proffered invaluable support in locating docu~
ments and photographs at the Methodist Archives. Thanks also to the two
anonymous readers for the Harvard University Asia Center; their comments
have made this a much better book. All errors are my responsibility. My
mother, R. LaVerne Madancy, took me "behind the scenes" at the Smith~
ix Acknowledgments
sonian storage facility, and she and my father provided consistent encour~
agement and incentive for me to finish each time they asked: "Isn't that book
done yet?"
Finally, this volume could not exist without the unfailing support pro~
vided by my long~suffering husband, Jack Kennedy, the only person alive
more anxious to have this project completed than myself, and the pleasant
distractions offered by our wonderful children, Kevin and Maya. It is to
them that all of my work is gratefully dedicated.
J.A.M.
