73% of the US President’s ancestors drug trafficking to China, professor: most of the capital accumulation in the US comes from opium 73%的美国总统祖上对华贩毒，教授：美国资本积累大部分来自鸦片

复旦大学中国研究院副院长范勇鹏最近在一档节目中说了这样一段话：”我在美国斯坦福大学上一门课的时候，一位历史学教授跟我讲了一个事儿，他说Doctor Fan，你知不知道，我们美国早期的工业化的资本积累，绝大多数来自于你们中国的鸦片贸易，我当时都不相信！”

说句实在话，国师听到这样的观点之后也是惊讶颇多，所以我跟范勇鹏先生做了一样的举动：阅读大量的资料。经过一段时间的研读，我深以为然。

尽管在许多人的印象中，鸦片贸易可能一直是”英国人”的专利，但身为大英帝国长子的美利坚合众国实际上也是深深的参与其中，其贸易份额一度达到了42%之多。而这些鸦片贸易产生的新权贵，则是美国此后政治、经济生活的主力军，美国45任总统中，33任总统在血缘上和鸦片贩子有直接关系。

Fan Yongpeng, vice president of the China Research Institute of Fudan University, recently said in a program: “when I was taking a course at Stanford University in the United States, a history professor told me something. He said Doctor Fan, do you know that the vast majority of the capital accumulation of our early industrialization in the United States came from your opium trade in China, and I didn’t believe it at that time?”

To be honest, the teacher was surprised to hear such a point of view, so I did the same thing as Mr. Fan Yongpeng: read a lot of material. After a period of study, I was impressed by it.​。

Although the opium trade may have been the patent of the “British” in the impression of many, the United States of America, the eldest son of the British Empire, was in fact deeply involved, with a trade share of as much as 42 per cent. The new dignitaries produced by these opium trade are the main forces in the political and economic life of the United States since then. Of the 45 presidents of the United States, 33 have a direct relationship with opium traffickers in blood.

In 1805, the first American drug-trafficking ship was loaded with 124 bales and 51 cartons of tobacco from Smyrna, Türkiye, to the United States and then to China. The three brigs are generally believed to have been the start of the American opium trade with China, but there is no evidence that previous Americans were not involved in this evil act.

Until then, the United States could only export fur and precious metals to China and suffered from the huge trade deficit caused by tea and silk. British control of opium plantations such as India and Myanmar makes them seem to have monopolized the trade. But the ingenuity of the Americans opened the door to the opium trade with China.

They found another opium-growing site, Turkey, and developed a new trade route. Despite the long journey, the price is almost three times the cost, and it is a well-worth “business”.

​Fan Yongpeng, vice president of the China Research Institute of Fudan University, recently said in a program: “when I was taking a course at Stanford University in the United States, a history professor told me something. He said Doctor Fan, do you know that the vast majority of the capital accumulation of our early industrialization in the United States came from your opium trade in China, and I didn’t believe it at that time?”

The poor quality of opium produced in the Middle East, but its low price, suddenly opened up the “sinking market” in China.Received a “warm welcome” from the ordinary people, so that opium no longer become the “exclusive” of the rich class “Fushou ointment.” The Chinese have also made this distinction, calling Turkish opium a small soil and Indian opium a big soil, which, of course, has led to many Chinese “adulterers” mixing small soil into the big soil for the second time.

After developing raw material sources in the Persian Gulf, its profit margin has increased by 25%. Because the opium smuggling trade only required money for corrupt Chinese officials and did not need to pay taxes, it was easier to do than the original “legal” fur trade and attracted a large number of American businessmen.

Between 1805 and 1834, the United States imported 16,305 chests of opium to China (estimated), accounting for 42% of the total opium shipped to China in the two years 1817-18.

Many merchants also took advantage of it, such as John Jacob Astor, the first millionaire in American history, who started trading furs with China and had to find another way after losing his share of the trade to the British during the War of 1812.

In 1816, he began to engage in opium smuggling trade. John first went to Turkey to buy 10 tons of opium and resell it to China. It is generally believed that between 1816 and 1825, John delivered hundreds of thousands of pounds of opium to China, becoming his most profitable “sideline”.

Britain and America compete and collude with each other in the opium trade. The Americans used cheap Turkish tobacco to open the market, the British are under the cruel direct large-scale expansion of production, suddenly pulled down the price of opium in India, the profits of the Americans greatly damaged. Later, however, the British allowed the Americans free passage on the route between Calcutta and Canton.

Since the United States began importing opium to China, the United States has imported much less silver to China. In 1836 there was only less than one million yuan per year, compared with about 4 million yuan two or three decades earlier, which made the Qing silver famine even more serious.

Before the Opium War, the opium trade between China, Britain and the United States was in fact “a small fight”, and the scale after the Opium War was even more terrible.

The antismoking campaign of 1839 uncovered a huge amount of smuggled opium, the third largest in the United States​This, of course, poked a sore point between Britain and the United States. Without the opium trade, their trade advantages and most “viable” commercial activities would be terminated, which is obviously not what they want to see.

So the next story is familiar to you. Britain brazenly launched the war against China and encountered little decent resistance in the next two years, with only a few examples of anti-British warfare, such as veteran Guan Tianpei’s defense of Guangzhou and Zhenjiang’s 2400 martyrs.

On August 29, 1842, the Qing Dynasty and the British government signed the humiliating “Nanjing Treaty”, in which there was no serious negotiation during which there was no serious negotiation. However, the ministers of the Qing Dynasty felt that the most humiliating thing was that the name of the emperor of the Qing Dynasty was written side by side with the name of the Huang Mao Yi woman (Queen Victoria), rather than cutting the land indemnity to open the trade or so on.

In 1844, the Americans followed and signed the “Treaty of Wangxia” with China, which was similar to the conditions of the British.

In fact, the Qing government felt that these treaties were generally considered expedient, and that foreigners could be fooled and deceived at will.The text of the Treaty of Nanking was not promulgated at all, and was kept in the yamen of the viceroys of Guangdong and Guangxi.The treaty stipulates that the British can go to Guangzhou to live in the future, but local officials do not perform, all kinds of Taiji, the Chinese do not regard the British as human beings, or as “not human”barbarians”, which is angry with the Angelsaxon nation.

Of course, their best means of “revenge” during this period of time is to import opium into China frantically, corrupting the whole society of China. In the five trade period, the whole southeast coast “a piece of erosion”, Anglo-American opium all over the place.

In 1847, Shanghai imported 16400 cartons of opium. By 1859, Shanghai had imported 33786 cases of opium, a figure that was the sum of the whole country 20 years ago. Opium trade accounted for the first place in many trade ports in China, while the United States accounted for 1/3 of the opium trade, ranking second. Huge opium sales have also directly offset the trade deficit between China and the United States.

Such a large-scale smuggling trade naturally has the acquiescence of Qing government officials.Coastal officials, in particular, often charged opium peddlers three percent of their gross sales and colluded with Britain and the United States to exploit the people and sell drugs that could roam the streets as long as they were not in the presence of high-ranking officials.

But despite this, Britain and the United States still feel that the income is not enough to make a profit, and they want to compete for the next commanding heights: the legalization of the opium trade.​The Treaty of Wangxia stipulated that the treaty could be amended 12 years after it was signed, but the Qing government did not intend to renew the contract. Britain and France started the war in October 1856 under the pretext of the Arrow incident and the Ma Abb incident, and the United States and Russia sat in the rear to reap the benefits of the fishermen.

The British and French allied forces broke into Beijing and set fire to the Old Summer Palace, which became the eternal pain of the Chinese nation. After the Second Opium War, the four countries forced the Qing government to sign the “Tianjin Treaty” and “Beijing Treaty,” which further expanded the invasion of trade with China, and finally put the opium trade on the “legalization” coat, and even some Chinese provinces began to cultivate opium sales.

​Since then, opium began to run amok in Chinese society, drugs in the spirit and material erosion of this ancient nation.The United States also made huge profits from the opium trade in these decades, which greatly promoted the second industrial revolution.

Because of the evil opium trade, the American society produced a new group of powerful elites. The birth of these new powerful elites marked that the United States had completed the initial primitive accumulation of capital before the Second Industrial Revolution, and played a great role in promoting the industrialization process of the United States.There are three main ways to promote American industrialization:

I,Of large numberInvestment in infrastructure, such as investing in philanthropy, building hospitals, railroads, and schools, created a number of early American cities.

II.Use this moneyOpening a factoryThe creation of more wealth greatly promoted the early industrialization of the United States.

III.These wealthy Americans control American politics through “individual alliances.”​The United States government is fully prepared for industrialization.

The Perkins family from Boston best exemplifies the “rise” of America’s new elite. The Perkins family was one of the first American families to set up a trade office in Canton for the purpose of selling opium.

The family owned only seven ships, but in 1826 it became the first millionaires in American history. After getting this money, the Perkins family and other new Boston dignitaries immediately “repay the villagers” and actively participate in the construction of their hometown of Boston.

​Salem State University historian Dane Morrison said: ” The money changed the face of Boston and made it possible for Boston to become one of the world’s true civic cities. “（That money changes the face of Boston and makes it possible for Boston to develop a reputation as one of the world’s true civic cities）

This “ill-gotten gains” (opium trafficking was legal in the United States at the time) were transformed into “charity money” in the United States.​

Thomas Perkins (Thomas Perkins) first invested in the railway between Quincy quarry and BostonSome historians call it the first true railroad in American history.The Perkins family also invested extensively in steamships, mines, and railroads.

Massachusetts, where Boston is located, is in thePublic expenditure is heavily dependent on the opium trade, they used the money to build a lot of roads and bridges and maintain the courts and fire departments and schools and hospitals. On the other hand, the opium trade promoted philanthropy in Boston.​The Perkins family financed the Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, and the Boston Athenaeum Hospital, libraries, colleges, secondary schools, orphanages, and schools for the blind, all bearing the names of opium magnates.

The contributions of these opium tycoons to their hometown made Boston the “most human looking” city in the early history of the United States, but this “human feeling” was based on the suffering of countless Chinese people across the ocean.

​The American historian Haddad had to admit: ” Opium was indeed a way for the United States to be able to shift China’s economic power to the American industrial revolution. “（Opium was really a way that America was able to transfer China’s economic power to America’s industrial revolution. ）

Phyllis Forbes Kerr compiled a book about her great-grandfather, Robert Bennett Forbes, who was an opium baron

These histories were not widely shared in America, and the descendants of opium barons in Boston almost never discussed the origins of their family’s wealth, but there were American intellectuals who knew and were ashamed of it.

​Boston Athenaeum Hospital, for example, issued a statement saying: ” Our own heritage, like that of many historic institutions, reveals its inherent contradictions. We acknowledge that the Perkins brothers have built their fortune at the expense of the lives of others… while supporting numerous educational, medical and cultural causes through generous philanthropy. “（Our own legacy, like that of many historic institutions, reveals inherent contradictions. We acknowledge that the Perkins brothers built their fortune at the expense of the lives of others … While supporting a great number of educational, medical, and cultural causes through their generous philanthropy.) Boston Athena Hospital also encourages people to dig into this history to alert the world.

Phyllis Forbes Kerr, a descendant of an opium baron, once wrote a book about his great-grandfather, Robert Bennett Forbes, which exposed such evil practices. She also revealed that when relatives and grandmother had dinner together, they once satirized her great-grandfather as a drug dealer.​The old lady was very unhappy.

There are many similar cases, these magnates became the vanguard of the early industrialization of the United States, greatly promoting the development of the second industrial revolution. As Fan Yongpeng, vice president of Fudan University’s Institute of China Studies, relayed: The vast majority of the capital accumulation of America’s early industrialization came from the opium trade with China.​

Since then, 33 of the 45 presidents of the United States have been tied to the opium trade (less than five uniforms), accounting for 73 per cent of the total. Among them, President Roosevelt’s grandfather, Warren Dillano (Warren Delano Jr.), was one of the partners of Qichang Foreign Company. Eleonora Randolph, the grandson of Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, also married the opium dealer leader, Sir Joseph Curry (Joseph Coolidge IV).

Although the opium trade was fruitful, with the development of the Second Industrial Revolution and the development of the West, This trade eventually died out and was formally abolished in the 1880 treaty between China and the United States, with China becoming a supplier of raw materials and a dumping ground for American industrial products (opium smuggling continued, albeit on a smaller scale).