| The Opium War of 1839-1842 and the diplomatic mission of Caleb Cushing which followed thrust China to the forefront of American consciousness just as Americans were beginning their great decade of expansion. This study broadly surveys the published literature of the time--newspapers, magazines, travel narratives, textbooks, poetry, and letters--to determine how Americans viewed China and the Chinese. Its premise is that perceptions tell us as much about the perceiver as they do about the object of perception. Americans in the early nineteenth century were still in the process of defining their national experiment, and as they encountered people who were clearly different from themselves, their perceptions helped them better define who they were by showing them who they were not.; The principal findings are: (1) Americans viewed China mainly as an area of commerce and trade, a field for missionary work, a source of curiosities, and a source of cheap labor. (2) The new awareness of China played a role in many of the major issues and events of the 1840's: economic and national expansion, Anglo-American relations, the crisis over Oregon, the Mexican War, and the first proposal for a railroad to the Pacific. (3) Published perceptions were based on limited understanding and opinions were usually extreme. It was not uncommon for an author to promote contradictory images in the same work. Writers perceived and portrayed two Chinas, one a land of romantic beauty peopled with ingenious and industrious citizens, the other a land of squalor and moral degradation. This inconsistency has characterized American perceptions ever since.; Perceptions do not exist in a vacuum. They determine attitudes and together perceptions and attitudes determine actions. Such perceptions, popularized by the explosion of literature on China beginning around 1840, laid the foundation for later American policy toward China (the "Open Door") and toward the Chinese in America (the Exclusion Act of 1882 and those which followed). |
