What made trade with China so important to the new United States that one of Americans’ first acts after securing the United States’ independence was to establish a trade with China and other Southeast Asian countries?
Dael Norwood, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Delaware, joins us to explore the lure of trade with China with details from his book, Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America.
This episode is supported by an American Rescue Plan grant to the Omohundro Institute from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
About the Show
Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.
It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Ben Franklin’s World is a production of the Omohundro Institute.
Episode Summary
Dael Norwood, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Delaware, joins us to explore the lure of trade with China with details from his book, Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America.
As we explore early America’s trade with China, Dael reveals China’s place in the world during the early modern period; Why Europeans and later Americans wanted to trade with China; And, details about why Americans set out to establish a trade with China right after they secured the United States’ independence from Great Britain.
What You’ll Discover
- China during the late 18th and early 19th centuries
- Being a superpower in the late 18th century
- Why Europeans wanted to trade with China
- English/British North America’s trade with China
- Smuggling and piracy
- England’s early trade with China
- Chinese Cohong/Gonghang Traders
- Chinese restrictions on European and American traders
- Protecting the Chinese trade with a trade monopoly
- English Navigation Acts
- Tea, the American Revolution, and free trade
- The first United States-flagged voyage to China
- Where the Chinese trade fit into the young U.S. economy
- The U.S.-China trade in early American politics
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Time Warp Question
In your opinion, what might have happened if China had refused to trade with the newly independent United States? How might the economic and political trajectory of the United States have been different if it didn’t involve trade with China?
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