The Pacific World of Caleb Cushing

Following their victory in the First Opium War (1839-42) against China, the British negotiated an unequal treaty opening ports to British commerce, ceding Hong Kong, setting low tariffs, and granting British citizens extraterritorial privileges. A year later, a supplemental treaty granted “most favored nation status,” meaning all foreign nations would receive the same privileges negotiated in treaties with China. By this time, the United States had already set in motion a mission to negotiate a treaty of its own, although it was no longer necessary. American merchants already enjoyed the benefits of the new treaty port system. Caleb Cushing, a Massachusetts representative of the US Congress and the leader of the mission, traveled to China with ambitions to counter the British in the Pacific. Undeterred by that the main goal of his mission had been achieved in his absence, Cushing hoped to expand his mission by visiting Japan, which remained closed to all Western trade except the Dutch. This paper seeks to explore Caleb Cushing’s Pacific ambitions for the United States, which were intertwined with his close ties to the Massachusetts China trade merchant community and a fear of British domination in China and the Pacific.