‘Money, Credit, and Strong Friends’

Abstract

Warren Delano represents a typical trader who needed more than moral integrity to keep him away from the opium trade. Arriving in Canton for the first time in 1834, Delano was lured to China by a commercial culture that unofficially tolerated opium smuggling. The openness of Canton in carrying out trade also proved to be its weakness, because before 1836, it was relatively easy to become involved in contraband. With substantial profits to be made and little risk of getting caught, employees of Russell and Company, as well as numerous others, had no reservations about participating in the trade. The change in Chinese and American attitudes toward the opium trade during the First Opium War forced Delano both to transform the ways in which he did business and to relocate his enterprises to Macao in the early 1840s. He also learned over time to pursue a career that combined ambition with personal connections and the ability to navigate amongst informal kinship- and friendship-based networks. Delano returned to the United States to live in 1846, but after years of financial success, was ruined by the Panic of 1857. He returned to China in 1860 and amassed a new fortune through trading tea, porcelain, and, at times, opium. In 1866, having made a second fortune, he returned permanently to the United States.