Originally posted on May 14th, 2013
Little has been written about the conditions in Hong Kong just after the end of the first Opium War. Life for Macanese workers and their families during this period has been described as “drab”, and outside of work, mostly separate from British, Chinese, and other European residents. Housing was often scarce and inadequate for large families, with illumination only from oil lamps. Outside in the streets, gangs of thieves ruled the night. There was also little entertainment, except for occasional religious holidays.[1] While Macau was considered a livelier and more established port with crowded streets and shops, Hong Kong scarcely had roads, few buildings, and according to an early census, only 4,350 inhabitants.[2]
Added as one of the conditions of China’s surrender under the Treaty of Nanjing in 1841, Hong Kong was to be an alternative to Macau, which served as the headquarters for the East India Company and many other Europeans traders from the 1820s. Other Chinese ports, such as Lantao and Canton-Whampoa, were restricted by the treaty and civil strife. Traders in Macau, however, ridiculed British announcements for the cheap sale of lots, and were reluctant to leave the security of that port for the frontier-like environment that Hong Kong quickly became.[3]
Rocky Island, Fragrant Harbour
Hong Kong, indeed, had little to offer. By 1843 Queen’s Road, built along the northern shore, was only four miles long, around which “there had grown a straggling ribbon of a town”, which contained ship outfitters, twenty-four brothels, and one candy shop.[4] One observer described Victoria, the island’s first settlement, as “the fearfullest hole in the world … inhabited by a den of thieves.” [5] Another wrote about “a bleakness of life and prisoner like sensation … arising in great measure from the difficulty experienced in moving more than a mile or two on either side of … Victoria.”[6]
Natural and man-made disasters seemed to conspire against the early settlers. In July 1841, just after the first brick foundations and stone walls were raised, a typhoon tore off the roofs of every building. After rebuilding a few days later, another unexpected storm appeared, removing the roofs once again. [7] In September the same year, fires broke out among the shops in Victoria. This was followed, after the burned debris was cleared, by severe outbreaks of fever, which temporarily forced British troops to remain on their ships.[8] The effects of the disease were so intense, one historian wrote, three infantry companies were sent back to India.[9]
Besides crime from the influx of sailors and soldiers on leave, Hong Kong and the surrounding islands were susceptible to piracy for several years. The “Hongkong Government Gazette”, printed by Delfino Noronha from 1849, reported frequent attacks on trading vessels to an anxious readership. During the period from 1856 to 1859, for example, the Gazette reported numerous engagements between the British and crews of Chinese and Portuguese brigands over cargos of opium, rifles, tea, and other valuable commodities. Later accounts documented the engagement of the Royal Navy with regular Chinese forces through the end of hostilities in 1860. [10]
On land, conflicts with indigenous Chinese, many fleeing conditions on the mainland brought on by the Taiping Rebellion, and now in competition with Europeans, also increased. Hong Kong’s fifth governor, Sir John Bowring (1854-1859) was so alarmed by the violence that he instituted a pass system among the Chinese, with violations punishable by incarceration, public whipping, and “public exposure in the stocks”.[11] Some of the hysteria may have been amplified by the previous destruction of the European factories (store houses) in Canton, and the poisoning of Hong Kong’s bread supply by a local baker. The effects of the latter incident led to the death of Bowring’s wife some years later.[12]
Once overcome, these disasters were replaced by social barriers set up by Hong Kong’s government. These obstacles were evident to all inhabitants, including members of the British elite. In 1855 a Royal Navy officer described his compatriots as “all more or less rowing the same boat … striving to amass as many dollars as opportunity would admit …” but “absurdly snobbish”, displaying “much nonsensical narrow-mindedness and unsociability.” [13] This attitude stemmed partly from the government’s free trade policy, which in theory was to be impartially administered and protective of all trading nations. In practice the facilitation of trade mainly served the British merchant houses. When many finally moved from Macau to Hong Kong by 1843, the full weight of English national interests focused on opium.[14] Appropriately, the first visible signs of British settlement in Hong Kong were a cemetery and James Matheson’s opium store, representing the agony and the ecstasy of the China Trade.[15]
Within twenty years of the first Macanese settlers, a permanent social and political network had been constructed. In 1861 it appeared in the form of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, which joined its political counterpart, the Hong Kong Legislative Council, established after the territory was declared a “Crown Colony” in 1843. The Chamber was created, with government approval, by Jardine, Matheson & Co., the largest trading house, which provided leadership for the next nineteen years. The chairmanship of the Chamber was then passed on to a steamship company for twelve years, and then to two other merchant houses for another ten years each. [16] These institutions introduced a pattern of control, virtually guaranteeing that British interests would dominate Hong Kong’s trade and civil affairs throughout most of the 20th century.[17]
The effects of this new social order were evident in the lives of those who visited Delfino Noronha, Hong Kong’s most prominent Macanese businessman, and his grandson, Joao Pedro Braga. The 1860s would also mark the emergence of new business ventures outside the direct control of British interests.
[1] J.P. Braga, The Portuguese in Hong Kong and China, Hongkong, 1895, p. 135.
[2] Frank Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, London, 1997, p. 137
[3] Peter Ward Fay, The Opium War: 1840-1842, Chapel Hill, 1975, p. 326.
[4] Fay p. 322
[5] Austin Coates, Macao and The British, 1637-1842: Prelude to Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1996, p. 213.
[6] Welsh p. 215.
[7] Coates p. 214.
[8] Coates p. 219.
[9] Fay p. 323.
[10] The Hongkong Government Gazette on Feb. 23, 1956, March 28, 1857, April 25, 1857, Sept. 6, 1858, and March 17, 1859)
[11] Welsh p. 215.
[12] Welsh p.138 and p. 214.
[13] Welsh p. 216.
[14] Tak-Wing Ngo, “Industrial History and the Artifice of Laissez-faire Colonialism”, p. 128 in Tak-Wing Ngo (ed.), Hong Kong’s History: State and Society under Colonial Rule, London, 1999.
[15] Coates p.214.
[16] Tak-Wing p. 128. HKGCofC Company Chairmanships from 1861: JM&Co. 19 yrs., P & O Steam Navigation 12 years, Butterfield & Swire 10 years, and Turner & Co. 10 years.
[17] British interests were so dominant on the Legislative Council that is was not until 1906 that Kai Ho Kai was appointed as the first Chinese non-voting member. Joao Pedro Braga became the first Macanese non-voting member in 1929.
