Carl Trocki, in his seminal book Opium and Empire: Chinese Society in Colonial Singapore, 1800–1910, writes that fluctuating opium prices, trade restrictions from the two opium wars, competition from the new British colony of Hong Kong as well as the opening of free ports in the Dutch East Indies drove local agency houses to turn to the domestic market as a buffer against the vagaries of the regional trade. Not only was opium highly sought after for consumption, it was also used as a form of currency in most transactions during the pioneering years of the settlement.ĭespite the initial optimism held by the traders, the prospects of exploiting the India-China opium traffic failed to materialise due to the volatile nature of the opium trade. Singapore again appears of great consequence as an emporium for the support and encouragement of this important trade”. The letter, addressed to Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, by Captain Archibald Hamilton says: “In this quarter we possess almost exclusively, the cultivation and manufacture of East India opium, in such universal demand amongst the natives of the Eastern islands, as to be the principal article at all times in bartering…. The significance of the regional opium trade is reflected in an 1820 letter held in the National Library’s Rare Materials Collection. Early British traders ventured to this fledging trading outpost in the hope of capitalising on the burgeoning and lucrative India-China opium trade. It therefore comes as little surprise to know that opium wielded a huge influence on the economic and social life of colonial Singapore. From 1814 to 1818, opium constituted about 30 to 50 percent of the total value of Bengal’s exports to the East Indies and China. Singapore was established as a trading post in 1819 by Stamford Raffles to guard British commercial interests along the major sea trade route between India and China. So crucial was the trade in opium to European merchants that two wars over opium were waged against China – first by Britain (the First Opium War, 1839–42) leading to the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, and subsequently by Britain and France (the Second Opium War, 1856–60) – when the Qing government imposed a trade blockade on opium in an attempt to put an end to what it considered a social evil and the source for the large outflows of valuable silver bullion from the country. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). It became the single-most important commodity that was used to offset the trade deficit arising from Britain’s insatiable demand for Chinese tea.Ī coloured zincograph print of a poppy flower and a seed capsule (Papaver somniferum) by M. This highly addictive narcotic, culled from the poppy plant, was one of British India’s most valuable exports to China during the late 18th century and into the 19th century. The supply of opium to China and Southeast Asia came largely from India. His half-open eyes, seized by the drug, shone moist in the shadows of his cadaverous face.” 1ĭutch-born author Henrik De Leeuw’s observation of an opium smoker in Singapore as a sallow-skinned and emaciated Oriental intoxicated and wasted on the opiate is one of the more enduring and negative Western impressions of the Far East in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The glow of the petroleum pit sprayed its faint light upon his ivory scalp. “I turned from that sight and looked upon an elderly Celestial, lying on his back, and in a deep sleep, clutching his bamboo pipe between his thin, powerless fingers. Lim Kheng Chye Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore. Opium-smoking was one of the three social ills – the other two being gambling and prostitution – that plagued the Chinese community in Chinatown in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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