Printing for Religion, Trade, and Propaganda in Colonial Asia: 1805-1900

(This is the second part of the article: The Printer’s Galaxy: Colonial Asia (1511 – 1738)

In 1805 the first attempt to restart printing in Asia was made by the London Missionary Society in a petition to the East India Company in Macau for aid to Robert Morrison, an Anglican missionary who proposed operating a printing press in Canton.^[i] Following the EIC’s initial denial, Morrison traveled to Massachusetts in the United States to obtain passage aboard an American trading vessel, which arrived in Macau and moved on to Canton in 1807.^[ii] Members of EIC’s Select Committee eventually approved Morrison’s plan in 1809 and granted him an annual stipend and living quarters for his family. By 1812 a new printing press was sent by the Company from London, with an agreement to hire Peter Perring Thomas, a professional printer, to work as Morrison’s assistant.^[iii] 

Up to that point the Morrison’s press in Canton was operated by Chinese workers from neighboring provinces. Printing was still technically prohibited in Macau, which followed restrictions imposed by the Lisbon government. In 1812 the Viceroy of Canton objected to the Europeans employing Chinese pressmen. As Braga wrote, Morrison’s use of local craftsmen had risked compromising the Company’s tenuous relations with the Imperial Court in Beijing by taking advantage of the Canton mandarins’ lax enforcement of Chinese laws. ^[iv] Morrison’s oversight also could have compromised Macau’s relations with Lisbon. He had been the beneficiary of both EIC’s patronage and the lack of press censorship in Macau after the company’s move to the Portuguese territory in contravention of Lisbon’s printing ban. Wishing to remain on good terms with both countries, the EIC replaced the Chinese with Macanese workers who lived in the region, and imported a few Bengalis as insurance.

The next major event was initiated by Alexander Matheson, a brother of James Matheson, a leading private trader and future taipan of Jardine, Matheson & Co. In 1827 with the financial and editorial support of James, the younger Matheson began printing the Canton Register in Macau on a second press James imported from London, and began producing the first commercial newspaper focusing on the “China Trade”.^[v] The popularity of the Register among foreign traders, which relied on Macanese compositors, established the precedent of listing ship arrivals and departures from both Canton and Macau, and disseminated news to British and European merchants. Both religious and commercial printing soon created what one scholar has called “a web of printing, publishing, and journalism” that was well established by the 1820’s.^[vi] This network would tie Canton and Macau together as gateways to commercial trade in China.^[vii] 

The Register also served as a primary source of British information and propaganda as conflicts with the Chinese government increased over the opium trade. The newspaper’s increasingly strident articles and James Matheson’s editorials reflected the sentiments of foreign traders in China, suggesting to the English Parliament a united front during debates over military actions prior to the outbreak of war at Canton in 1838. ^[viii]  In the process, the Register’s regular production of “news” provided training for many Macanese, and became a catalyst for Macau’s own printing industry.

Printing in Macau and Early Operations in Hong Kong

Lisbon’s ban against printing was finally lifted in 1820 and was extended to overseas possessions. Among the first to begin operations in Macau were Robert Morrison, who moved operations from Canton, together with his close friend, Elijah Coleman Bridgman, an American missionary who arrived in 1830. Working on one of the EIC presses, both missionaries trained and employed Macanese compositors after many English editors and assistants left China by the end of the 1830s.^[ix] The difference was that Morrison’s sponsor was the British East India Company, the largest distributor of opium in Asia. Bridgeman’s benefactor was David Washington Cincinnatus Olyphant, an American trader and a staunch opponent of the drug.^[x]

Macau’s government also printed a newspaper called A Abelha da China (The Bee of China) on a press imported from Lisbon in 1823 by the conservative Dominican Prior Fr. Antonio de S. Gonzaga Amarante.^[xi] After the Absolutist Prior was expelled by local Conservatives, the Legislative Assembly took over production to publish the less inflammatory Gazetta de Macau.^[xii] Beginning with the first issue on March 20, 1824, news items included the arrival and departure of ships, with the names of captains and passengers, detailed information about the goods carried in and out of the port city, and price lists of merchandise on sale at Canton.^[xiii] The newspaper also printed governmental orders, news from Portugal, translations of correspondence exchanged with Chinese officials, and the anchoring of foreign ships at Lintin (Nei Lingding) Island, a major transit point for opium.^[xiv]

When readership and financial support waned, the Gazetta de Macau ceased operations in 1825, and the Assembly permanently loaned its press to the Seminary of St. Joseph. The masters of the College put the press to good use by publishing several books and used it as the principal tool for training a new generation of Macanese. Due to the high demand in Canton and Macau, many former students quickly found employment as compositors, typesetters, writers, and printers in the region.^[xv]  Two Macanese compositors, Gabriel Jose’ Steyn and a younger brother, had already taken over for Peter Perring Thomas when he left Morrison’s employment in 1825. Antonio Jose’ Homem de Carvalho and Felix Feliciano de Cruz also worked for the Canton Press newspaper in 1835, and at least seven others worked for the Canton Register, the Canton Press, and the Chinese Repository. Many were trained at the Seminary of St. Joseph in Macau.^[xvi]

The lifting of press restrictions, the availability of training, and the growing demand for new print workers sparked a renaissance in Canton’s and Macau’s publishing industries. At least ten (10) Portuguese language newspapers were founded between 1821 and 1842.^[xvii] Other research indicates that from1846 through 1911 at least fourteen (14) Portuguese and English language newspapers owned by Macanese were operating in Hong Kong, and four (4) others in Shanghai.^[xviii]

Among those who expanded this “information revolution” after the “Opium Wars” ended were Delfino Joaquim de Noronha (1824-1900) and Lisbello de Jesus Xavier (1862-1909).^[xix] Both men were born in Macau several decades apart and trained on the same printing press at the Seminary of St. Joseph. Noronha began his career at the age of twenty (20) by founding Hong Kong’s first printing company, Noronha & Co. in 1844, and was the publisher of the Hongkong Government Gazette in 1859. He became the largest employer of Macanese in Asia.

Noronha’s protégé, Lisbello de Jesus Xavier, arrived in Hong Kong in 1880 after working for printing houses in Macau. He founded the Hongkong Printing Press in 1888, taking over production of the government gazette with Noronha’s support, and printing tourist guides to Macau and the “Treaty Ports”. Joining other printers, Xavier also contributed to debates by writing editorials in a Portuguese language paper he published in Macau and Hong Kong called “O Porvir” (The Future) before his death in May 1909. Beginning in 1910, Lisbello Xavier’s eldest son Pedro expanded the HKPP into new markets by producing postal and tax stamps, popular novels, consumer packaging, advertising supplements, and a variety of bank currencies.

Conclusion

Like a pebble dropped in a pond, the wide circles of influence created by printing across the Pearl River Delta touched nearly all areas of colonial society. As the industry matured, commercial applications after 1860 began to take precedence over religion, elevating newspapers and journalism as new sources of information. By the early 20th century, entrepreneurs took on other print ventures that served the expanding global economy linking the rest of Asia with Europe and the Americas. As we shall see in next part of this study, some Macanese printers were also aware of cultural influences their work could have, at times employing it in service of community and identity.

The next section, discussing the cultural and commercial influences of Macanese printing, will appear shortly. 

[i] Jose Maria Braga, p.47, “The Beginnings of Printing in Macao”, English translation printed by the University of Hong Kong Library from the original published in Portuguese in Studia (Revista Semestral), No. 12, July 1962: 29-137.

[ii] Braga, op. cit. p.47. See also Robert Morrison (1817). A view of China for philological purposes, containing a sketch of Chinese chronology, geography, government, religion & customs, EIC Press, 1817.

[iii] H. B. Morse, op. cit., Chronicles, Vol. III, pp. 72. See also Morrison letters in a book published after his death by his wife. Mrs. Eliza Morrison, Memoirs of the Life and Labours of Robert Morrison, D.D., London, 1839, Vols. I and II.

[iv] Braga, op. cit., p.63.

[v] Alain Le Pichon, China Trade and Empire, Jardine, Matheson & Co. and the Origins of British Rule in Hong Kong, 1827-1843, British Academy, 2006, p. 68, Letter 9, November 16, 1827.  James Matheson is said to have had the press shipped by his fastest clipper ship to his brother for the new venture.

[vi] Hoi-to Wong, “Interport Printing Enterprise: Macanese Printing Networks in Chinese Trading Ports”, p.141, in Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power, edited by Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson, Routledge, 2016.

[vii] As observed by two of Morrison’s contemporaries, Dr. W. W. Cadbury and Miss M. H. Jones writing at Canton, who stated that printing and the information provided by the EIC allowed Macau to become a bridge into the sealed city of Canton and a “backdoor” to the mainland. Braga, op. cit. p.64.

[viii] See Alain Le Pichon, op. cit., p.553, Appendix IV, Canton Petition, Canton Register, December 24, 1830, which was probably written by Matheson. James Matheson was also a leading advocate for the removal of EIC’s monopoly of the opium trade in 1834, which greatly benefited Matheson and other traders, and had proposed that Britain annex Hong Kong from China as a war reparation. See Peter Ward Fay, The Opium Wars, University of North Carolina Press, 1975: 69, 163-164.

[ix] For example, there was Peter Perring Thomas, originally hired by the EIC as a printer to assist Morrison in 1813 who departed in 1825; William Milne, an English missionary and printer, accompanied by his wife, who was initially hired by the EIC as Morrison’s assistant in 1814. Milne was later expelled by both Canton and Macau in 1817 because he did not have official clearances. He and his wife were eventually posted to Malacca. There was also William W. Wood, hired by the Alexander Matheson to print and edit the Canton Register in 1827, who left China in 1834. See Alain Le Pichon, op. cit., p.68, note 46 on W.W. Wood.

[x] Olyphant, who was deeply religious, was an elected member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). Gregory Adam Scott, Bridgette C. Kamsler, “Missionary Research Library Archives: D.W.C. Olyphant Papers, 1827-1851”, Columbia University Library Archives, May 2014.

[xi] Braga, op. cit. p. 77.

[xii] In another curious blending of government and religious interests, Braga mentions that while the nominal editor of the Gazetta de Macau was a government employee named Antonio Jose da Rocha, the paper was actually produced by Frey Jose da Conceicao, prior of the Augustinian monastery, which also housed the press and the Gazetta’s editorial offices. Braga, op. cit. p. 80.

[xiii] The Prior advocated the divine right of the Portuguese monarchy to maintain Chinese territories, despite Portugal’s weakened state in the 19th century. Braga, op. cit. p. 81.

[xiv] An American diplomat noted several opium ships docked at Lintin when he visited the island in 1832. Edmund Roberts, Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1837: 66-69.

[xv] Hoi-to Wong, op. cit. p. 141.

[xvi] Hoi-to Wong, op. cit. p. 142.

[xvii] Hoi-to Wong, op. cit. p. 142.

[xviii] A Research Guide to China-coast newspapers, 1822-1911, Frank H. H. King (ed.) and Prescott Clarke, Harvard East Asian Monographs, Harvard University Press, 1965:91-92.

[xix] Information on Delfino Noronha and Lisbello Xavier is contained in research collected by the “Portuguese and Macanese Studies Project” at the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues at the University of California, Berkeley under the direction of the author.