Page 53 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

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stitute their sole means of profit. Also many of these Ameri­

can merchants settled in California. They married into native
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landed families, but they retained their American identity.

By the late 1840's these American merchants were members of

California's elite. Engaged in trade to China and the Pacific,

they envisioned an unlimited expansion in trade between the

United States and China. This trade, in employing Ca]jfornia

ports as entrepots, would increase the economic value of the

entire region. The American China trade to a large extent

was the major cause for the United States developing an in-
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t .
t eres in Ca 1 ornia.
.
1. f
VIII

Besides California and the Northwest Coast, Americans

expanded their China trade after the War of 1812 to include

the Sandwich Islands. In 1815 A.iuerican traders again intro­

duced Hawaiian sandalwood into the Canton market. This second

time they were willing to sell it at lower prices as inferior

sandalwood. Consequently they were much more successful. The

renewed sandalwood trade lasted about ten years. After a peak

around 1820 the trade gradually fell into decline. Like all

other types of commodities in this early period of the China

trade, the supply of sandalwood in the Sandwich Islands dried

up. Hawaiian chiefs had allowed and even had promoted the

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some of these men included: Alpheus B. Thompson, Francis
A. Thompson� John Coffin Jones, jr., John Sutter, Alfred Robinson,
and Stephen Reynolds. See Brown, China Trade Days in California.

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Brown, China Trade Days in California, p. 1. Ogden,
California Sea Otter Trade, p. 151.