18th century
The flow of peoples and religions between Asia and America is affected by international politics and social trends.
- The presence of Confucius in the minds of the founders of the United States.
Early American romantic views of China and Chinese were influenced by the high estimation of Confucius as the moral philosopher of great social harmony under the rule of a morally exemplary Emperor. In his China and the founding of the United States. The influence of traditional Chinese Civilization (2021), Dave Wong describes how several founders of the United States used Confucian ideas as food for thought about establishing a new nation.
“Benjamin Franklin, disseminated Confucian ideas. Franklin probably read The morals of Confucius as early as his 1724-1726 stay in London. It appears that Confucius’ idea of a path of personal cultivation toward perfection was mixed with Puritan ideas in Franklin’s Autobiography. Franklin brought Confucius to the attention of the most influential evangelist of the Great Awakening, George Whitefield. In a July 6, 1749 letter, Franklin suggested that Confucius’ moral teachings could be added to Whitefield’s preaching on the dangers of damnation so that a reformation of society might be more speedily accomplished and sustained.
“I am glad to hear that you have frequent opportunities of preaching among the great. If you can gain them to a good and exemplary life, wonderful changes will follow in the manners of the lower ranks… On this principle, Confucius, the famous eastern reformer, proceeded. When he saw his country sunk in vice, and wickedness of all kinds triumphant, he applied himself first to the grandees; and having by his doctrine won them to the cause of virtue, the commons followed in multitudes. The mode has a wonderful influence on mankind; and there are numbers that perhaps fear less the being in Hell, than out of the fashion.” Letter reproduced in The Evangelical Magazine, xi (1803), 27–8.
- 1712-1724 China prohibits immigration to the United States with the death penalty.
In the early 18th century, the Qing imperial government took a defensive measure against outside political powers, making emigration from China punishable by the death penalty. This prohibition applied to Chinese who wanted to come to America and becomes a point of contention in the late 19th Century. As Americans gain more experience in dealing with China, their views of the Chinese start to deteriorate.
- 1763 Filipinos in Louisiana
Filipinos established the small rudimentary settlement of Saint Malo in the bayous of Louisiana, after fleeing mistreatment aboard Spanish ships. Since there were no Filipino women with them, the Manilamen, as they were known, married local women. The exact date of the establishment of the village is uncertain. Some researchers place its founding in the 1830s. The village was destroyed in 1915 by a hurricane.
In 1883, Lafcadio Hearn of Harper’s Weekly noted that the inhabitants did not all come as Catholics but assimilated to that faith over time. The occasional visiting priest would hold mass at “Hilario’s house under strings of dried fish.”
They were likely recruited by local pirate Jean Lafitte to join his “Baratarians,” a group of privately-recruited soldiers serving with the American forces under the command of Andrew Jackson, in the defense of New Orleans against the British during the War of 1812.
- 1778 Chinese sailors in Hawaii
Chinese sailors first came to Hawaii the same year that Captain James Cook came upon the island. Many settled and married Hawaiian women.
- 1779 Catholic Filipinos in Monterey, California
Filipinos came with Fr. Junipero Serra in 1779 to help with the establishment of the mission at Monterey. In 1777 when the Spanish established Monterey as the capital of the Province of Californias, a chapel was renamed the Royal Presidio Chapel. The adobe and wood chapel was accidentally burned down and rebuilt between 1791 and 1794.
The chapel eventually became the Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo. It is the oldest continuously operating parish and oldest stone building in California. It is also one of the two oldest cathedrals still serving parishes in the United States.
- 1781 Filipino Catholics were sent to settle in the community that became Los Angeles.
Antonio Miranda Rodriguez Poblador, a “chino,” likely a Filipino born in Manila, along with 44 other individuals was sent by the Spanish government from Mexico to establish what is now known as the city of Los Angeles. However, due to the smallpox sickness of his daughter, he came later and may have stayed for a short time in Los Angeles. He ended up as an armorer at the fort in Santa Barbara and was buried in the chapel.
- 1785 East Indians and Chinese stranded in Baltimore, Maryland.
On August 9, 1785, the ship Pallas, skippered by John O’Donnell, arrived in Baltimore, Maryland. After unloading his cargo, O’Donnell set sail immediately, leaving stranded in the city a crew of thirty-two East Indian lascars (Asians) and three Chinese seamen named Ashing, Achun, and Aceun. It was not known whether these unfortunates ever left these shores and returned to their ancestral land. Their religions are not known.
- 1788 Chinese in Hawaii
Chinese arrived on board the British ship lphiginia under Captain John Meares. This ship was engaged in the lucrative fur trade between the northwest coast of America and China and wintered in Hawai`i until Spring 1789. It is unknown what religions they practiced.
- 1790 “Othering” of Chinese by Americans and of Americans by Chinese.
The legal status of Asians in the United States was uncertain. Chinese imperial government prohibits social relations between Chinese and Americans.
After the United States was established, its government limited citizenship to “free white persons” in the 1790 Naturalization Act. However, at that time, the interpretation of the law in regard to Asians was not established. The racial categories were only “White” and “Black.” The question of whether Asians were White was not answered. Later, Asians applied for citizenship as “free white persons.”
Because America had little interaction with the Chinese in the 18th and early 19th Centuries, the anti-Chinese symbols were slower to develop here. After the Civil War, craven images started to quickly develop.
As the Qing Dynasty confronted more and more rebellions, they sought to keep their subjects from making alliances with foreigners. The founders of Qing were from Manchuria, and so were not seen as natives of China by many Chinese. So, the dynasty made a point of being over-the-top in its racial identification with the Chinese and fanning traditional Chinese imperialist xenophobia. However, its “Othering” of the non-Chinese set a pattern of circulation of mutual recriminations that ended up in the downfall of Chinese imperialism and the soiling of Western democratic countries’ values.
Chinese started to use terms to describe Americans like “barbarians,” “harry apes,” “white devils or ghosts,” crafty savages (jiaozha), “disgusting in the extreme” (kewu yiji), and ”lawless.” Xiao Lingyu brought back the alarming news that in the West “more respect was paid to women than to men.” (Treatise on Britain, 1832)
Qing Dynasty anti-Western slurs developed quite quickly, mainly in response to European intrusions into Chinese society and politics. Christianity’s acceptance by many Chinese posed a threat to imperial domination. Consequently, much of the anti-Western propaganda revolved around criticism and inciting hatred against Christianity.
The development of anti-Western and anti-Chinese iconography culminated in the following century in picturing a dense set of developed stereotypes and hatred. On the other hand, in southern China and in the United States, there was a sort of rage for the Other as seen in the popularity of Chinoiserie and “foreign stuff” (yanghou). These cravings found religious outlets in idealizations of Oriental and Western religions.
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