ABSTRACT
The Empress of China embarked for Canton, a commercial capital in southern China. Planning for mercantile ventures to secure access to familiar East Indian products began even before the Revolution ended. During the colonial era, private trade with the “East Indies” was prohibited to British subjects in North America by imperial monopoly. Intercourse between North America and Asia did not begin with the American Revolution. Sailors and well-heeled colonists traveled with East India Companies. The geographic construct of the East Indies was itself a product of this history. Christopher Columbus described his voyages west as the “enterprise of the Indies.” When Americans arrived in China, they adapted into a highly structured system of overseas trade, the “Canton System.” Americans sailed smaller, faster ships than the hulking European East Indiamen, and were thus less beholden to monsoon seasons.
