Lin Zexu destroys British opium at Humen

Date

3 June 1839

Category

Politics & governance

Region

Qing China (Canton / Pearl River)

Era

Modern

Significance

Beginning on 3 June 1839, Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu oversaw the public destruction of roughly 1,000 long tons (some 20,000 chests) of opium that he had compelled British and other foreign merchants to surrender at Canton (Guangzhou).

Over 23 days, hundreds of labourers dissolved the opium in trenches mixed with lime and salt and flushed it into the sea near Humen Town on the Pearl River. Lin had been appointed in late 1838 by the Daoguang Emperor, who for two decades had failed to halt the British-run trade that drained Chinese silver and spread addiction. Lin's bold enforcement, including the blockade of the foreign factories, was hailed in China as a principled stand against a ruinous commerce. To the British government and the merchant lobby, however, the seizure of private property became a pretext and rallying cry for war. The destruction at Humen is widely regarded as the immediate spark of the First Opium War, marking the moment when China's attempt to defend its sovereignty over its own trade collided directly with British commercial and naval power.

Empires active in 3 June 1839

• Russian Empire
  1721 CE – 1917 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE – 1962 CE
• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE – 1912 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE

Related politics & governance events

• The Slavery Abolition Act ends slavery across the British Empire
  28 August 1833 (in force 1 August 1834)
• The Revolutions of 1848 (the Springtime of Peoples)
  1848–1849
• Commodore Perry forces the opening of Japan
  1853–1854 (Treaty of Kanagawa, 31 March 1854)
• Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the birth of the British Raj
  1857–1858 (rebellion); Government of India Act 2 August 1858
• Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand and the Kingdom of Italy
  May–September 1860; Kingdom of Italy proclaimed 17 March 1861
• Congress of Vienna and the Concert of Europe
  September 1814 – June 1815

Also relevant

• Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi
  6 February 1840
• The People's Charter launches the Chartist movement
  May 1838

Further reading

China's Last Empire: The Great Qing

The wider story

China's Last Empire: The Great Qing

William T. Rowe

Readable synthesis of the Qing (Harvard History of Imperial China).

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