Whampoa anchorage

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File:Whampoa Anchorage.jpg
The Whampoa Anchorage, c. 1810

Whampoa anchorage was the old English name for the anchorage that was an intermediate way station between Macau and the city of Canton, now known as Guangzhou, situated in the Whampoa Roads. Images of the anchorage are common in 18th-century western art.[1][2]

Ships from European trading companies, during the East India trade in the 17th, 18th and 19th century, used the anchorage for their trade in Canton. The traders rented storage for ships supplies and repair shops on Whampoa island.

Name

Now lying within Guangzhou's Huangpu District, the name Whampoa anchorage was used by the British, French and Danish for the anchorage at Whampoa island in the Pearl River approximately 12 miles (19 km) east of the city of Canton. The island and the anchorage are usually referred to as just "Whampoa" in historical documents.[1] The Swedes spelled the name Wampoa.[3]

Geography

File:The Macao - Bocca Tigris - Canton approach.jpg
Map of the Macao – Bocca Tigris – Canton approach

In the 18th and 19th centuries, under the Canton System, ships reached Whampoa by entering the Pearl River at Macau. After approximately 37 miles (60 km), the channel narrowed into a strait lined by red rocks, known as the Bocca Tigris (the Tiger Mouth), a strategic and fortified part of the river.[4] Whampoa was another 25 miles (40 km) north of the strait and Canton with the European Thirteen Factories' landing stage at Jack-ass Point,[5] some 10 to 16 miles (16 to 26 km) farther up the river.[6]

Silt carried by the river into the Pearl River Delta, made the water shallow and unpredictable as far south as Macau. There were shifting banks of sand just before the Bocca Tigris and all the way up to Canton, combined with swift currents which made the river difficult to navigate for large ships.[3] East Indiamen had too great a draft to go further up the river than the Whampoa anchorage, which therefore became Canton's deep water port in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.[6]

The main anchorage was along the southeast part of Whampoa Island, between the island and the mainland. Southeast of the anchorage was Dane's Island (now known as Changzhou Island), used by the Danish East India Company and south of Whampoa was French Island (also known as Frans Eijland) used and maintained by the French East India Company. Southwest of Whampoa Island was the larger Honam Island (now part of the Haizhu District).[7] In time, fixed berths for different nations were established at the anchorage. Innermost, and closest to Canton, were the Americans and after them came the Dutch and the Swedes. Next came the Danes and the French, close to their respective islands, leaving the British last and outermost.[5]

Settlements

File:Whampoa from Danes Island.jpg
Whampoa from Dane's Island

The land surrounding Bocca Tigris and Whampoa was described as green undulating hills intersected by rice paddies and crowned by groves.[3] The area was barely above sea level, and a bank was built around the living areas to keep the tide out. Locals also grew sugarcane, and other vegetables.[8] Scattered about were villages, fortifications with crenellated walls, mosques, villas with curved roofs and high towers. The towers were nine stories high with openings at each floor and devices for signal fires at the top. This signalling system proved very effective—it was estimated that a message could be sent from Canton to Peking, a distance of approximately 1,200 miles (1,900 km), in less than 24 hours.[3] Five such towers could be seen from Whampoa, the first and largest being the Lion's tower, on an island halfway between Bocca Tigris and Whampoa.[9] The Swedish sailors on the arriving ships played a game when they approached the tower: If the ship passed the tower in such a way that the people on board could see straight through the tower via its openings, they were entitled to a drink of brännvin. Consequently, the tower was called the Brännvin Tower by the Swedes.[6]

Edmund Roberts visited Whampoa in 1832. He noted that passing through the anchorage, paper was being burned at homes and on boats, representing ancestral veneration. Roberts described the island as being an unsafe place for outsiders in many areas, noting that foreigners being beaten for entering certain areas.[8] The only island where the foreigners could move about relatively free, was the French island.[10] This island also served as burial ground for the French, English, Swedes and some Dutch. The Dutch along with the Danish also used Dane's island for burials.[11] Both islands were also used for Chinese graves.[12]

Arrival in Whampoa

File:Canton to Bocca Tigris.jpg
Canton to Bocca Tigris

Once the Europeans passed Macau, they could not behave in the way they were used to during other trade expeditions such as the ones to Africa, where their manner was described as arrogant and profit driven "with little regard for the native communities",[13] and had to abide by the strict rules and regulations of Chinese officials. At Macau, the first pilot came aboard, guiding the ship up to Bocca Tigris where he was relieved by another pilot who then guided the ship the last part of the journey up to Whampoa.[14]

At Bocca Tigris the mandarins came aboard. They measured the ship's hold to calculate the port and customs fee for the ship. These fees were a source of income for the Emperor, but part of it also went to the customs mandarins. The foremost of these mandarins was the Guangdong Customs Supervisor (粵海关部监督; Yuehai Guanbu Jian du), informally known as the "Hoppo". He arrived in a large, red sampan from which music could be heard,[15] together with a significant entourage and was greeted by a sixteen shot gun salute[lower-alpha 1] from the ship's cannons. He also received expensive gifts, also called "cumshaw",[17] such as objets d'art or exclusive clocks. After the ship had been measured, the Hoppo left the ship, and while doing so he would give gifts to the crew and officers, such as a couple of oxen, some kegs of samsu and sacks of flour. The exchange of gifts enabled things to run more smoothly during the foreigners' stay in Canton.[18] The Hoppo was saluted with another sixteen shots when he left the ship.[9] Benedictus Montan, a ship's chaplain on the Swedish ship Fredericus Rex in 1735, noted that the entourage of the Hoppo always included some "executioners" and "foot soldiers". They were dressed like everybody else, but were recognized by their "high, round, black or brownish caps with lined with blue ribbons. From the top and back hung two long, black-grey feathers."[15]

The mandarins made lists of every item in the cargo and for the things that each individual on board had brought to China. Everyone on the ship was entitled to bring goods to trade with. The quantity of tradable items depended on the person's position and personal wealth. If something that was not on the lists was later discovered, it was confiscated by the Chinese officials.[19] The port and customs fees for the ships varied considerable. In 1747, the Swedish ship Freeden was measured at 260 lästs (c. 2.5 tonnes),[lower-alpha 2] and charged 18,657 daler,[lower-alpha 3] while the "Cronprisessan Lovisa Ulrica" was measured at 320 lästs and charged 15,984 daler.[lower-alpha 4] The reason why the larger ship paid less that the smaller, was probably that the ship's supercargo gave the Hoppo a more generous gift.[17]

File:THE HABITATION OF A MANDARIN.jpg
Sampans outside the house of a mandarine, circa 1800

After the mandarins had left the ship, it was made ready for Whampoa. According to Chinese regulations, the gunwale was decked out in a brightly colored cloth with yellow ribbons, a so called "paunk suite". The crew were outfitted with special clothes: black velvet caps, tassels , black cotton stockings, knee-garters with buckles, shoe buckles and beautiful buttons.[10] The supercargos of the ship went ahead to Canton in one of the ship's sloop or a hired sampan and an eight shot salute was fired to mark the occasion.[22] Getting the ship from Bocca Tigris to the Whampoa anchorage was difficult because of the swift current and the lack of wind. Most ships had to be towed, mostly by their own crew in the boats from the ship, but boats from other ships and nations sometimes helped as well. If this manpower proved inadequate, there were always a small fleet of sampans ready to sell their assistance to the foreigners. In 1765, the Swedish ship Prins Carl hired a pilot and 30 sampans, for which they paid 26 taels of silver.[22]

Being assisted by the Chinese officials was crucial for travelling on the river. The river could not be navigated safely during the night, so ships that came to Bocca Tigris in the evening had to anchor for the night and continue in the morning with the pilot on board.[22] The Chinese also had patrol boats that helped defend the trading ships since the Pearl River Delta attracted many pirates.[1]

Whampoa Island

It was always necessary to give the ships an overhaul once they had anchored at Whampoa. The ships were cleaned, repaired, painted, the rigging and sails mended. All the yards and sprits were removed to facilitate the loading of the cargo. These were stored in a rented "bankeshall", which also served as a workshop for repairs that could not be done on board the ship. The bankeshalls, made from bamboo poles and woven mats, were rented from the Whampoa mandarins.[23] The French had early on in the trade got permission to build their own bankeshalls at the French island. In 1761, with the Swedish ship Riksens Stränder arriving in Canton, the Swedes got permission from the Chinese and French to build a bankeshall of their own on the French island.[10]

File:H5189 Götheborgin miehistötila C.jpg
Recreated interior of the 18th century ship Götheborg III

There was room for the supercargo or assistant and the guards at the bankeshall, although most of the prominent persons on the ships preferred to stay in Canton or Macau,[10] but the crew had to stay on board the whole time unless they had some task to perform on land. To avoid mutiny, the captains usually rotated the work so that everyone on the ship had the opportunity to set foot on Chinese land at some time.[24] Sometimes the foreigners, also called fan kwaes (foreign devils), accompanied by a Chinese interpreter, were allowed to visit Honam island and see its gardens and many temples.[25]

Life at the anchorage was hard and dismal for the ordinary sailor, drunkenness and brawls were common. The heat and the humidity was something that the foreigners were not accustomed to and fevers constantly decimated the crews.[1] The Swedes mistranslated the word "bankshall" (as in hall on the banks) to bängsal meaning "devils hall" or "stupid brawl hall".[10] The Danes used a similar word bankesal meaning "pounding/beating hall" in Danish.[5] In addition to having bankeshalls and burial grounds, the French island was also turned into an improvised fairground from time to time. In 1761, the captain on one of the Swedish ships was having a hard time keeping his crew away from a punsch tent set up by the Dutch. Finally, he had to send a note to the supercargo in Canton, who in turn had to ask the mandarin Puankhequa, fiador (confidant)[lower-alpha 5] for the Swedish East India Company at that time, for help. Puankhequa sent word to the mandarins in Whampoa who shut down the impromptu tavern.[26]

Messages between all points on the Pearl River between Canton and Macau were sent by hired messengers on sampans or other Chinese boats. They could move freely on the river in a way that was forbidden to foreigners, who had to buy permits at the different "chophouses" (customs houses where "chops" were put on documents) along the way. In 1765, counting from Canton, there were two chophouses in Canton, and one each at "Sinay, Siongchapp, Hongshan, Hachapp. Sinchang, Quanchapp" [sic] and Macau.[27]

With the ship at berth in Whampoa, the cargo from and to the ship had to be transported to Canton by sampans with hired hands. This usually took months and cost a lot of money. A Swedish account from 1767 to 1768, states that unloading and loading two ships, the Lovisa Ulrica and the Adolph Frederic required a total of 27 coolies, 2 sampans, 3 cooks, 3 washermen and 1 barber, during 89 days, at a cost of 2,676 taels of silver.[27]

Notes

  1. ↑ It was customary for a ship to salute each time something significant happened. The ordinary salute was eight blank shots. It was fired when some prominent person, supercargo, captain or director, left or came aboard the ship. A salute was also given when a ship left or entered a harbor, met another ship at sea, passed certain land marks or for a number of similar reasons. When a salute was given for a ship, the other ship had to respond in kind, which made for a lot of noise when a ship entered a anchorage such as Whampoa, where about twenty ships could be anchored at the same time.[16]
  2. ↑ A "läst" was a unit to describe a ships tonnage. In 1723, this was calculated by using the formula: 5/6 of the (ships) length X width X height. This computation later proved unsatisfactory and was replaced by measuring the ship from certain points, multiply these as before and divide by 112.[20]
  3. ↑ Approximately equal to US$ 925,000 in 2014. This calculation is based on the consumer price index.[21]
  4. ↑ Approximately equal to US$ 792,000 in 2014.[21]
  5. ↑ The fiador was a trustee employed by the trading company to negotiate with the Cohong, see to the unloading and loading of the cargo, manage transports and payment of different fees. The fiador was often a member of the Cohong.[17]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lampe 2010, pp. 15-40.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Kjellberg 1975, p. 95.
  4. ↑ Kjellberg 1975, pp. 95–99.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Kjellberg 1975, p. 101.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Kjellberg 1975, p. 98.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 Kjellberg 1975, p. 105.
  11. ↑ Bridgman & Williams 1833, p. 222.
  12. ↑ Lampe 2013, p. 147.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Frängsmyr 1990, pp. 70–71.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Kjellberg 1975, p. 59.
  16. ↑ Lindqvist 2002, p. 53.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Kjellberg 1975, p. 106.
  18. ↑ Lindqvist 2002, p. 91.
  19. ↑ Frängsmyr 1990, pp. 73–74.
  20. ↑ Kjellberg 1975, p. 300.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 Kjellberg 1975, pp. 95–98.
  23. ↑ Kjellberg 1975, p. 108.
  24. ↑ Lindqvist 2002, p. 95.
  25. ↑ Kjellberg 1975, p. 103.
  26. ↑ Kjellberg 1975, pp. 105–108.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Kjellberg 1975, p. 104.

Bibliography

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External links

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