A Common Denominator: The Materiality of Information in the Pacific China Trade, 1785-1825

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Globalisation of Sino-foreign Maritime Exchange: Ocean Cultures", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This paper argues that information was the crucial ingredient in the organization and economic exploitation of the Pacific Ocean in connection with the China Trade. This claim may appear obvious, but information is often perceived as intangible content rather than a "hidden" commodity in its own right. This paper does not examine the characteristics of material commodities in Sino-Pacific exchange, but rather the emergent "information order" that made those exchanges possible. Common sailors (rather than educated elites) created much of the knowledge that sustained commerce between the Pacific and China. Their emulation of enlightenment-era luminaries prompted them to evaluate, organize, and disseminate information in a manner that enhanced the collective value of that data. The artifacts they fashioned--logbooks, journals, narratives, charts, and maps--demonstrate their ingenuity as documentarians, as well as their role in the integration of disparate shores into a singular "Pacific World."

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Globalisation of Sino-foreign Maritime Exchange: Ocean Cultures   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow