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Jan. 8, 2005 Arab traders introduced opium into China as a medicament during the Tang Dynasty (619-907) or Song Dynasty (960-1279) , During the Qing, or Manchu, Dynasty (1644-1912), imperial edicts, aimed at the British and Portuguese and outlawing opium and tobacco, issued in 1729, 1780, 1796 and 1800. In the 1820's, the British East India Company began exporting Indian-grown opium to China in quantity, but soon afterwards withdrew, franchising Jardine, Matheson and Co., founded in 1832 by two Scots, to handle the opium trade. During the first decades of the 19th century, the Baghdadi Jews began arriving in India. The families that would attain prominence in Bombay and Calcutta included the Kadoories, Cohens, Ezra, Solomons, Gubbays, Eliases, and most notably, the Sassoons. David Sassoon (1792-1864), fleeing the oppression of Daud Pasha, the governor of Baghdad, arrived in Bombay in 1832, where, borrowing 10,000 rupees, he went into business manufacturing textiles, and growing and transporting cotton, indigo and opium. This brought David Sassoon and Co. into competition with Jardine, Matheson and Co. Incidentally, another company involved in opium, Russell and Co., included as partners Franklin Delano Roosevelt's grandfather as well as benefactors of Princeton and Columbia Universities. In 1835, 2100 tons of opium were supplied to China's 13,000,000 addicts. By 1838, the figure had climbed to 2800 tons, and by 1853 to 3710 tons. On today's market, these tonnages would fetch billions, not millions, of dollars. In the 1830's, Emperor Daoguang's opium commissioner, Lin Zexu, introduced measures to curtail traffic, punish smugglers and rehabilitate users. British and Jewish entrepreneurs, dismissing Lin's measures as sham piety and relying on the sophistry that selling opium from ships standing offshore did not constitute smuggling, continued their commerce. This led to the First Opium War (1839-1842) and the Treaty of Nanjing, forced on China by the victorious British. By the terms of the treaty, war reparations were paid to the British and Hong Kong was ceded to them, but opium remained illegal. By 1850, David Sassoon and Co. was on an equal footing with Jardine, Matheson and Co. In 1851, the Taiping Rebellion, led by Hong Xiuquan, who was inspired by Christian teachings, broke out in Guizhou and spread to the East China Sea. Though the rebellion aimed primarily at the overthrow of the non-Chinese Manchu rulers of China, one of the goals espoused by the rebels was ridding China of opium. On one front the British. perhaps at the insistence of the Jews, helped quell the rebellion, fearing the loss of their opium commerce. On another front, they actually waged war. The Second Opium War (1858- 1860) produced the Treaty of Tianjin of 1858. Enforcing the treaty prolonged the war till 1860. This treaty 'legalized' opium, that is, it did not specifically outlaw opium. In 1864, the Taiping Rebellion, one of the bloodiest civil wars in human history, claiming as many as 30,000,000 lives, ended. It would be a misrepresentation to blame the rebellion on the British or the Jews, but it doesn't exactly redound to their credit that, during the internecine conflict, they were there profiteering in opium. Though opium began growing on Chinese soil also at this time, the British and the Jews shipped 4800 rons in 1859. By 1880, this figure had skyrocketed to 6700 tons. David Sassoon and Co., now in the hands of his heirs and assigns, had taken over 70% of the opium trade, and a number of other Jewish companies had formed. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Jardine, Matheson and Co. and the other British companies were forced out of the opium business by Jewish competition, and had to diversify or go belly up. By 1900, opium in China was a virtual Jewish monopoly. Also, from 1858 on, Sassoon began to sell opium in Japan, in Nagasaki and Yokohama, where they a branch office was set up. By 1900, there were probably at least 25,000,000 opium addicts in China. In 1907, Bengal and the United Provinces alone grew 3600 tons of opium on 1000 square miles of poppy fields for shipment to China. The Shanghai Opium Commission, convened by Teddy Roosevelt in 1908 to address the problem, which had gained worldwide notoriety, led to the Hague International Opium Convention of 1912, but it wasn't till 1919 that the last of the chests of opium was destroyed, and the Baghdadi Jews were forced to go legitimate, having accumulated fabulous wealth. Incidentally, for the record, Vidal Sassoon is in no way related to David Sassoon and his descendants, who were considered the Rothschilds of the East. Most Jewish sources today pass over all these machinations in silence. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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