Page 36 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

22.

In the 1790's American vessels began carrying Hawaiian sandal­

wood along with furs to Canton� But Americans soon discovered

that Chinese importers especially liked the fine quality sandal­

wood from the East Indian islands of Malabar and Timar. Com­

paratively, Hawaiian sandalwood was very inferior. As a

result it did not sell well at first and so Americans quickly
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ignored it as cargo.

V

As Bostonians despatched their vessels around Cape

Horn to develop the fur trade to Canton, merchants in Salem,

Massachusetts, entered the American China trade. The mer­

chants of Salem did not seek to compete with the Boston fur

trade but looked eastward across the Atlantic and Indian

Oceans to East India. Salem, only twenty miles northeast of

Boston, was the leading American port in the early China trade.

Between the Revolution and the War of 1812 Salem, in fact,

overshadowed Boston as a prosperous community and port. Salem's

commercial development had a major impact on the expansion of

American foreign trade. From the 1790's to 1815 virtually the

entire American trade east of Cape of Good Hope consisted of

traders from Salem. Most important was the pioneering spirit

of Salem's shipmasters in directing this trade to ports never

before visited by American vessels. These captains pursued
trade and commercial profit anywhere.

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t·
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B dl ey, American Fron 1er in Hawa11, pp. 27, 56-65, 117.
Letter, J.P. Sturgis & Co. to J. Hunnewell, May 19, 1830, Harvard
Business School, Baker Library, Hunnewell MSS.