Harriett
Low's Canton Thanksgiving, 1830
Thanksgiving has come to be on
In early America, this was not
always possible, especially for the men and women who participated in the
Indies trades, and whose travels took them to India, China, Sumatra, or some
other distant port on the far side of the world. At Thanksgiving “eastward of Good Hope,” a
sailor might himself wilting beneath the scathing heat of the Indian Ocean,
repelling pirates in the Sunda Straits, or battling a typhoon in the South
China Sea.
One of the more curious Thanksgivings
in the records was that of a 20-year old from Salem named Harriett Low, who
spent her holiday in Canton in 1830. Ms.
Low had come to China in the company of her uncle, William Henry Low, newly
appointed director of the trading firm Russell & Company, and her aunt
Abigail. While Uncle Henry traded in teas and opium in Canton, Chinese
regulations required non-Chinese women—fan
quai—to remain sixty mile downriver in Macao. This was a regulation that their British
counterparts traipsed, and the Yankee women were not going to be “behindhand.”
Consequently, on the evening of
November 5, disguising themselves as young tars or midshipmen, Harriett and
Abigail secreted themselves in the hold of a fast boat, which carried them up
to Jackass Point, the quay that opened up to the Western factories. The
often-repeated tale that they were immediately discovered when they
disembarked, as Harriett forgot herself and extended her supple white hands to
accept an escort from the boat, is, of course, a fabrication. Yet, the
mandarins had inserted their spies everywhere, and the ladies’ presence was
reported soon after they landed on the morning of November 6. Later that day
she noted that “the Hong merchants were making a row, and it is doubtful
whether we remain long.” Within the week, the mandarins had “disturbed” the Low
women’s visit by issuing a chop that
warned “that trade would be stopped if one Low did not immediately remove his
family to Macao.” Still, on November 17 they were still in Canton. It appears
that the mandarins, “good-for-nothing creatures that they are,” were in fact
exerting remarkable patience and were waiting for William Henry to announce the
departure. Harriett observed, in the event that she and Aunt Abigail were not
ready to return to Macao, the Chinese officials would be willing to “putty off
a little,” in her mimicking language.[i]
In fact, the Lows’ sojourn lasted three
weeks, long enough for Harriett and Aunt Abigail to incite further commotion.
And, that is how Harriett came to
celebrate her Thanksgiving of 1830, within the walls of the expatriate
factories at Canton. On November 27,
taking advantage of “a delightful moonshiny night,” a party of Americans strolled
through the Hong compound. They drew little attention as they walked in front
of the factories, then up and down the byways from Old China Street on the west
to New China Street on the east. But, the entourage pressed their luck too far,
“were discovered to be Fanquis there; and lights were called for, that the
Chinamen might look at us.” Soon, a large but well-behaved crowd formed,
stoking lanterns to examine the Western women closely. When the Americans
reached the entrances of the factories again, a squad of “gallant tars” on
shore leave from Whampoa who filled the promenade chased away the mob, and the
party returned to William Henry’s domicile.
For Harriett, the escapade had been
a lark, and she described it in the customarily breezy tone that had come to
characterize her thoughts about China. Her depiction of Canton’s populace
revealed the ambivalence that American travelers felt toward the peoples of the
East. One entry in her journal described the onlookers who had formed a gaping
“rabble” around the Americans’ strolling party as a step below the civilized
men and women of her own country. Yet, in a later entry, Low showed a more
philosophical side. The Chinese crowd had been “perfectly civil,” she mused, and
their curiosity was no different from what one would expect from the
pedestrians of Salem. In fact, the wonder that she saw in the eyes of the
Chinese was a trait “of which they have a share in common with their
fellow-creatures of more enlightened parts.”[ii]
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