The First Opium War

The opium is a substance that is obtained from the poppy plant and is considered as one of the most addictive drugs. Nowadays, it is used to produce heroine, nevertheless, the origin of opium goes back to the beginning of civilization. In fact, it is one of the oldest drugs that exist until today. In relation to this, and briefly explained, the Opium Wars were a series of conflicts that occurred in Chinese territories in the 19th century, between China and Great Britain. They are divided into two main periods; the First Opium War, that occurred between 1839 and 1842, and Second Opium War, that happened between 1856 and 1860. The main outbreak of this conflict was that China wanted to abolish the consumption of drugs, in concrete the destructive

On May 13th, 1773, the British Parliament approved a measure known as the Tea Act, that allowed the British Company of the Eastern Indians to sell its tea in the Thirteen Colonies of North America without paying taxes. This law was created to try to relaunch the company, which was in a serious crisis, obtaining a monopolistic situation for the British commerce. As a consequence of this, that same year, on December 16th, 1773, a group of colonist from Boston, dressed as American Indians, managed to sneak into the ships of the East India Company and throw a whole load of tea into the sea water in protest of this Tea Act of 1773. This event, known as the Tea Party, is considered to be the beginning of the American Revolution. However, the main impact of the Tea Party was not only at national level but also globally. The importance of Tea as a symbol of the Revolution is due to the fact that it represented British imperial power. Since 1700, the East India Company had a monopoly on trade with Asia, and the most important resource was tea. Tea became a consumer good worldwide and was highly demanded everywhere. However, at the end of the 18th century tea could only be bought in one country;

Around 1836, Great Britain was able to reestablish a very solid economy, while the Chinese economy plummeted. Already in 1829, the Chinese emperor Daoguang, prohibited the consumption of opium because he realized that his Chinese citizens had a strong dependence to the drug. Besides, curiously a century ago in 1729, another the Chinese emperor, Yongzheng, banned the opium trade, also for the same reason. This prohibition generated controversy because while the Chinese emperor saw the drug as threat, the British saw opium as a way to compensate the commerce with China, since the drug generated them a lot of profit. While the tons of opium exported to China favored the development of West Europe, the dynasty success was coming to an end. This unleashed the hysteria of Emperor Daoguang. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Chinese government had only one port open to trade; the port of Canton, located in the southeast of the country. This meant that European nations only had authorization from the Chinese government to trade through that port. Therefore, emperor Daoguang decided to block all British port activities in Canton and confiscate everything that was there, knowing that there was a lot of opium cargo from the British. Besides, he expelled the British traders from Chinese territory. In order to fight against illegal opium smuggling, Daoguang decided to hire Lin Hse Tsu,