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Chinese Documents in the United States National Archives1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Extract
During the last 150 years numerous Chinese documents were sent from Chinese government officials to American ministers and consuls in China; the latter, in turn, shipped many of them to the secretaries of state in Washington. The frequency of shipment varied according to the degree of importance of the documents, i.e., whether they related to political, economic, social, or cultural matters. They were shipped either (1) as enclosures with diplomatic dispatches and consular reports, or (2) sent separately, segregated as to category, and packed in paper boxes or bound separately in volumes.
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References
3 The “Canton consular despatches” date from 1790 and are the earliest between the United States and the Far East in the National Archives. The first United States consul in China was Samuel Shaw, supercargo of an American vessel. He was commissioned by President Washington on February 10, 1790; see “Historical sketch of the Canton Consulate General,” a manuscript in the National Archives.
4 Chinese documents in paper boxes cover the period from 1862 to 1920. Those in bound volumes cover the period from 1851 to 1861 and are copies of original documents. In checking the catalogue Ch'ing-chi ko-kuo chao-hui mu-lu 
(Pe'P'ng 1936), 2:1Google Scholar, we find that three of these original documents are preserved in the Peiping Palace Museum. They are communications sent to Prince Kung from United States Minister Burlingame, dated March 21, 1863, June 19, 1863, and June 24, 1863. [For correct character for ko see Giles, no. 0026 - EDITOR]
5 See First annual report of the archivist of the United States, 1934-1935. Old documents from other government agencies also have been transferred to the National Archives. Contemporary documents are subject to selection and appraisal by the archivists before being transferred. For discussion respecting the selection of documents see Brooks, P. C., “The selection of records for preservation,” American archivists, 3 (Oct., 1940), 221-34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also revision of a paper entitled “What records shall we preserve?” published as National Archives staff information circular no. 9 (1940).
6 For reproduction and description of this credential see Shih-chia, Chu, “Tao-kuang to President Tyler,” Harvard journal of Asiastic studies, 7 (February 1943), 169-73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 In 1946, when the writer was granted a fellowship by the American Library Association to study both the administration of the National Archives and the materials on Chinese-American relations preserved there, with the approval of the chief archivist, he microfilmed a volume of Chinese documents covering the year 1854. It is hoped that with the support and under the direction of one of the cultural institutions his collection may be reproduced in facsimile in the not distant future.
8 Information respecting the last eight credentials is based upon Dr. A. R. Wright's letter to the writer dated March 4, 1949.
9 These consist of communications from Chinese officials to the United States consuls at Shanghai and are dated June 18, 1872; Sept. 3, 1875, April 22, 1892; and August 22, 1892. The communication dated Sept. 3,1875, was reprinted in New horizons, 2 (March 1945), 22 ff., under the title “A selection of Chinese documents on American-Chinese relations,” compiled by Chu Shih-chia. Unpublished documents in English concerning Chinese students can be found in the series “American legation archives at Peking,” vol. 6137 (February-July, 1876), 505-527; vol. 6138 (August-December, 1876), 25; vol. 6037 (1881), 49, 102; vol. 6179 (April-May, 1882), 183-188; vol. 6205 (1884), 1-6; vol. 6207 (1884), 115-124. Other diplomatic and consular dispatches also contain materials on this subject.
10 See “Notes from the Chinese legation in the United States to the Department of State,” dated Oct. 10, 1879; March 9, 1880; Nov. 10, 1880; Jan. 21, 1881; Feb. 25, 1881; June 7, 1895; a considerable number of the above notes have been published in the U.S. foreign relations; also “Notes from the Chinese Foreign Office to the American legation at Peking,” dated August 3, 1886; August 29, 1886; June 17, 1890; Nov. 24, 1892; April 22, 1893; May 25, 1893; Jan. 21, 1894; March 30, 1895; August 21, 1896. Similar information can be found in the Hongkong, Canton, Amoy, and Shanghai consular despatches. An account of the treatment of Chinese laborers in the United States in pictorial form is included in “Shanghai consular despatches,” vol. 53. A copy of a proclamation on Chinese laborers issued in December 1877 by the magistrate of the Nan-hai district, is included in vol. 48 of the “Diplomatic despatches.” In the records of the Justice Department of the National Archives are nearly one thousand cases respecting Chinese immigrants into the United States.
11 For a detailed study of the cohong see Liang Chia-pin's 
Kuang-tung shih-san-hang k'ao 
(A study oft he thirteen factories at Canton) (Shanghai, 1937).
12 There is also a proclamation issued in 1888 by the magistrate of Nan-hai, prohibiting the forgery of an American trade-mark covering canned milk. From these proclamations it would appear that both American cloth and American canned milk were popular among Chinese customers.
13 A list of antiforeign publications in Hunan was enclosed with the annual report of the American consuls in Chinkiang and Foochow, see “American legation archives at Peking,” vol. 6284.
14 Included in the “American legation archives at Peking,” 6238 (June-Sept. 1869), 231-44, is a work printed in English entitled, “A geographical sketch of the island of Hainan,” together with a map of the island.
15 Many of the “Anioy consular despatches” sent to the American ministers at Peking during the years 1872 to 1874 contained descriptions, written in Chinese, of the lives and conditions of the aborigines of Formosa.
16 Other exports to the United States include soybeans, oranges, chrysanthemum, magnolia, persimmon, rheum, and ma-huang; the latter contains ephedrin, of great value in the treatment of throat and nose diseases. Dr. Walter Swingle of the Department of Agriculture has been responsible for introducing many Chinese plants into the United States. Of the American exports to China corn and cotton seeds are believed to have affected most profoundly the lives of the Chinese people.
17 See Latourette, K. S., The history of early relations between the United States and China (New Haven, 1917), 48.Google Scholar
18 Hundreds of photographs in the records of the Department of Agriculture in the National Archives show us various tools used by Chinese farmers and their living conditions in the early decades of the present century. In addition to this type of material, there is a great deal of correspondence between the Department of Agriculture and the American agriculturalist, Frank N. Meyer, who, between the years 1905 and 1908, made numerous trips to Peking and Manchuria. There are also various reports on agricultural conditions in Canton, Swatow, Nanking, Chefoo, Tsinan, and Harbin, compiled from 1918 to 1938 by the different consuls and representatives of the United States Agricultural Foreign Service.
19 An account of this incident is contained in a letter of July 3, 1877, from the Chinese magistrate to the American consul at Shanghai, requesting the discontinuance of an American juggling act in the Wusoong area, in the interests of peace and good order. From the advertisement enclosed with the magistrate's letter, it is evident that the first appearance of the American jugglers occurred on June 27, 1877 and that the price of admission was twenty-eight coins. The magistrate's letter and the advertisement have been reprinted in the author's article in New horizons, 2 (March 1943), 21.Google Scholar
20 Ten works, consisting of 1,049 volumes on Chinese classics, philosophy, mathematics, agriculture, and medicine, published at various times beween 1416 and 1829, were presented to the president. They are preserved in the Division of Orientalia of the Library of Congress.
21 Under the leadership of John Fryer many Western scientific books have been translated into Chinese; see “An account of the department for the translation of foreign books at the Kiangnan Arsenal, Shanghai,” Dec. 31, 1879, which was included in the “Diplomatic despatches (China),” vol. 53, despatch no. 600; also Chou Ch'ang-shou 
“I-k'an k'e hsiieh shu-chi k'ao-liieh” 
(A study of translations and publications of scientific works) in Chang Chü-sheng hsien-sheng chi-shih sheng-jih chi-nien lun-wen chi 
(Shanghai 1937)- 422-25; also, Yung Wing's 
, My life in China and America (New York, 1909), 154-59Google Scholar. This book was translated into Chinese under the title of Hsi-hsueh tung-chien-chi 
.
22 W. A. P. Martin was appointed as the first president of the T'ung-wen College; under him professors of various nationalities were invited to offer Western language and science courses. A calendar of the T'ung-wen College, first issue, published in 1879, is included in the “American legation archives at Peking” vol. 6162. This college changed its name in 1898 to Imperial University and since 1911 has been known as the National Peking University.
23 The following works deal with the introduction of Western ideas and sciences: Chang Hsin-lang 
Ou-hua tung-chien shih 
(A history of the spread of western culture into the East) (Shanghai, 1934), and Peake, C. H., “Some aspects of the introduction of modern science into China,” Isis, 22 (December 1934), no. 63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24 In 1946 the writer discovered a great number of Chinese documents (1855-74), transmitted by the Canton consulate, that had been partially eaten by white ants or other bookworms.
25 Dr. Eldon Griffin gives a useful list of research topics in his work on East Asia entitled Clippers and consuls (Ann Arbor, 1938), 526.
26 Many books and articles have been written relating to the Chinese in the United States, but none of them seems to have stressed the importance of the Chinese contribution to the rapid development which took place in the last half of the nineteenth century, particularly in mining enterprise and railway construction in the west and northwest.
27 There is a great deal of archival material on this subject which has escaped the attention of scholars. In studying this subject, in addition to Latourette's, K. S.A history of Christian missions in China (New York, 1929)Google Scholar, one should consult Chiao-an shih-liao pien-mu 
(A catalogue of the source materials on missionary cases), compiled by Wu Sheng-te and Ch'en Tseng-hui 
(Shanghai, 1942).
28 Professor Earl Swisher of the University of Colorado has translated all the documents in the Ch'ou-pan i-wu shih-mo 
concerning American-Chinese relations, and it is hoped that his translations, in annotated form, will be published in the near future.
29 For instance, the archives contain copies of ten communications between T'ai-p'ing government officials and American naval officers in China, dated in the year 1854. The originals cannot be found either in China or America; nor have they been reprinted in the collection of T'ai-p'ing materials entitled T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo ts'ung-shu 
(First series, 1936), compiled by Hsiao I-shan .
30 One should not neglect the archival materials available in the following places: Peiping Palace Museum, National Peiping University, National Tsinghua University, Academia Sinica, and the archives of London, Paris, and Tokyo. Among the published documents the following are of great importance: Ch'ou-pan i-wu shih-mo (Peiping: Palace Museum, 1929-30)Google Scholar; Wen-hsien ts'ung-pien 
: formerly called Chang-ku ts'ung-pien, 
placee Museum, 1930-37); Ch'ing-chi wai-chiao shih-liao 
(Palace Museum, 1932-35); Shih-liao hsun-k'an 
(Palace Museum, 1930-31); and Chin-tai Chung-kuo wai-chiao-shih tzu-liao chi-yao 
compiied by Chiang T'ing-fu 
(Shanghai, 1932, 1934).
31 The Department of State documents of the National Archives constitute the basic source materials for the study of Sino-American relations, e.g., “Diplomatic and consular instructions,” “Diplomatic and consular despatches,” “Notes to and from the Chinese legation and consulates,” “Records of diplomatic and consular posts.” To use these sources most effectively one should first consult the registers or calendars. At the writer's suggestion, the Far Eastern Institute of the University of Washington, the Social Science Department of the Academia Sinica at Nanking, and the National Peiping Library have either acquired, or are in the process of acquiring, microcopies of the documents listed above. In 1947 Albert H. Leisinger of the National Archives prepared a useful publication entitled, List of file microcopies. Only a very limited number of these materials are published in the U.S. foreign relations series. In the archives there are other important documents on American-Chinese relations, some of which were formerly in the possession of the departments of Justice, Treasury, War, Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce.