Destruction of Opium at Humen (1839): Lin Zexu's Stand

The destruction of opium at Humen took place between 3 and 25 June 1839 on the shore of the Pearl River estuary near Canton (Guangzhou), China. On the orders of Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu, workers destroyed more than 20,000 chests of opium surrendered by British and other foreign merchants. The event was a bold assertion of Chinese law against the drug trade, and the crisis it deepened led directly to the First Opium War.

Background

By the 1830s foreign traders, above all British merchants carrying opium from India, were smuggling tens of thousands of chests of the drug into China each year, despite repeated imperial bans. Opium addiction had spread widely, and the outflow of silver to pay for the drug alarmed the Qing government. After a long debate at court, the Daoguang Emperor rejected proposals to legalise and tax opium and chose strict suppression.

At the end of 1838 the emperor appointed Lin Zexu, a provincial governor-general known for his integrity and his success against opium in Hubei and Hunan, as imperial commissioner with special powers. Lin arrived in Canton on 10 March 1839.

The confiscation

Lin moved quickly against Chinese dealers and smokers, arresting hundreds and seizing pipes and stocks. On 18 March he ordered foreign merchants to hand over all their opium and sign bonds pledging never to import it again, on pain of death. When they delayed, he stopped trade and, on 24 March, confined the foreign community, some 350 people, in the Thirteen Factories, the warehouses where they lived and worked. Chinese servants were withdrawn and supplies restricted.

The British Superintendent of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot, broke the deadlock on 27 March. He ordered British merchants to surrender their opium to him, as representative of the British Crown, and promised that the government would compensate them. In this way 20,283 chests were handed over by May, much of it from ships anchored off the coast. The foreigners were then allowed to leave, and most British merchants moved to Macau.

How the opium was destroyed

Lin first considered sending the opium to Beijing but received imperial permission to destroy it on the spot. At Humen, near the forts guarding the river mouth, workers dug three large trenches lined with stone and timber and connected to the sea by channels.

Several hundred labourers broke the balls of raw opium into pieces and soaked them in water in the trenches, then added salt and lime, which turned the mass into a sludge. At low tide the sluices were opened and the mixture washed out into the estuary. Guards watched closely to prevent theft, and workers were searched as they left. The process lasted 23 days.

Before the work began Lin composed a prayer to the spirit of the sea, apologising for the harm the poison might do to sea creatures and advising them to move away for a time. Foreign observers, including the American merchant Charles W. King and the missionary Elijah Coleman Bridgman, visited the site and later described how thoroughly the drug was destroyed.

Aftermath

Lin also wrote an open letter to Queen Victoria, arguing that Britain banned opium at home and should not allow it to be sold in China. The letter was never formally delivered to her, though it was later printed in Britain.

Relations worsened during the summer of 1839 after British sailors killed a Chinese villager at Kowloon and Elliot refused to hand over suspects. In London, merchant lobbying and Elliot’s promise of compensation persuaded the government of Lord Palmerston to send a naval and military expedition, which arrived in 1840. China’s defeat ended with the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, which required China to pay 6 million dollars for the destroyed opium. Lin himself was dismissed in 1840 and exiled to Xinjiang, though he was later recalled to office.

Timeline

• 1838, December: Lin Zexu is appointed imperial commissioner.
• 1839, 10 March: Lin arrives in Canton.
• 1839, 18 March: Lin orders foreign merchants to surrender their opium.
• 1839, 24 March: The foreign community is confined in the Thirteen Factories.
• 1839, 27 March: Charles Elliot orders the British opium handed over.
• 1839, 3 June: Destruction of the opium begins at Humen.
• 1839, 25 June: Destruction is completed.

Legacy

In China, Lin Zexu is remembered as a national hero who stood up to foreign drug traders, and the destruction at Humen is one of the best-known episodes in modern Chinese history. A museum at Humen preserves the site of the trenches. The United Nations’ International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, held each year on 26 June, is widely associated with the anniversary of the completion of the destruction.

Why it matters

The events at Humen marked the moment when the conflict over opium between China and Britain moved from smuggling and negotiation to open confrontation. They led to a war that transformed China’s relations with the West.