Opium Receiving Ships System and Formosa, 1824-1863

Date(s)： 2025/11/13

Time： 10:00~12:00

Venue： Archives 2nd Conference Hall

Host： Prof. Xie Xin-Zhe（Assistant research fellow, IMH, AS）

Speaker：Prof. Zhu Marlon (Associate research fellow, IMH, AS)

Disscussant： Prof. Hui-Wen Koo (臺灣大學經濟學系退休特聘教授)

Organizer： IMH

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視訊連結：2025/11/12 17:00 截止報名，並寄送 Google Meet 視訊連結。

Abstract,
This paper explores an offshore economy in nineteenth-century Taiwan, focusing on the opium trafficking by two British traders: Jardine, Matheson & Co. and Dent & Co., which employed the ‘receiving ships’ to serve as opium warehouses and shops along the coast, and deliberately maintained at minor anchorages than major populous harbours, in order to keep a distance to the opium-disliking political authorities. This paper traces the rise and fall of this offshore operation, including its beginning on the China coast in the 1820s and its relocation to Formosa by the 1850s. It further argues that the Island had been the last holdout of these receiving ships. Letters in the Jardine Matheson Archives, especially those from Chinchew (Quanzhou), Amoy (Xiamen), Takow (Kaohsiung), Tamsui, and the response from the company’s headquarters in Hong Kong, provided evidence, on the details, of the fading out of this offshore system.