HerbalEGram: Volume 9, Number 5, May 2012

Though modern political relations between the United States and China can sometimes appear shaky, the 2 power countries have an undeniably strong and deep-rooted trade relationship. According to the US-China Business Council, the United States is China’s number one trade partner, exchanging about $385 billion worth of goods in 2010.¹ Although it is a story that most Americans have never heard, a medicinal plant, wild American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), played an essential role in establishing the roots of this colossal, centuries-old trade alliance.^2,3

In late 1783, the United States of America, which had just won its independence from Great Britain, was in dire economic straits partly because Britain had banned many trade hubs from dealing with the new country.³ In an effort to establish its own trade routes and rescue the country’s financial system, the United States sent a ship named the Empress of China from New York Harbor to Canton, China (now called Guangzhou) on February 22^nd of 1784.² It carried 30 tons of wild American ginseng, mostly gathered from southern Appalachia.

While British and European settlers in North America had been trading with other countries for several years, the Empress cargo was the first shipment under the American flag. According to David Taylor, author of Ginseng, the Divine Root, loading the ship with ginseng was a smart and safe strategic decision.

“We knew they wanted ginseng because there was already a history of demand for it, rather than a range of goods we didn’t know if they would like,” he said (oral communication, April 10, 2012).

David Wang, PhD — manager of Queens Library in Laurelton — said the early Americans saw ginseng “as a valuable opportunity to break their economic blockage by Britain” (e-mail, April 23, 2012). Other sources document the Empress as an attempt to establish a new source of tea, which was becoming dearly missed after the United States was banned from trading with the British West Indies.⁴

Meanwhile, China also had a need for new ginseng sources. Though the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) first sought to protect the region’s ginseng populations by controlling collection, it eventually gave up that mission. According to Taylor’s Divine Root, “Resigned that ginseng would be overharvested no matter what, the imperial court decided to reap the plant’s riches while it could… In the end, China’s last dynasty ebbed and the wild root vanished from its forests.”²

Much of the Empress’s success depended on a French missionary traveling through the New World.² In the early 1700s, a Jesuit cleric who had heard of this mysterious root from Asia discovered the Mohawks’ use of ginseng. He recorded it and published a booklet on ginseng,² which led to the trade of wild ginseng roots throughout North America and eventually China.

“[The Empress] triumphed because it made it there and back, and made a profit, which was never guaranteed at that point in time. Economically, it was important in terms of making contact between the US and China,” said Taylor, noting a Congressional resolution, passed after the Empress’s return, encouraging more such ventures. According to Dr. Wang, American ginseng “was the most important commercial good in the trade between China and the United States during the late 1700s leading into the early 1800s.”

Not only was the Empress’s ginseng cargo an economic success, it also tied the countries together on another — and perhaps equally important — level.

“Ginseng opened the door to the idea that there were natural and cultural resources shared between North America and Asia,” said Taylor.

Instead of becoming competition for Asian ginseng, the American variety was viewed as being complementary, said Dr. Wang. “[The Chinese] discovered that Chinese ginseng is warm and good for people who have recovered from a serious illness and need to regain their strength; on the other hand, American ginseng has cooler properties and is normally used to cool down fevers or summer heat. The Chinese considered it good for people with deficient yin or excessive yang. Therefore, American Ginseng was welcomed all the time.”

But both Taylor and Dr. Wang indicated that the Empress and early ginseng trade influenced America more than it did China.

“[The Empress of China] definitely shifted [China’s] view to realize this new country that had a complement of Asian ginseng,” said Taylor. “On the American side, it probably had more impact because it really set the pattern for foreign trade for more than 3 decades.”

Most Americans, he continued, were driven by a potential for trading and making a living and ginseng was one of the first products that enabled them to find success in these aspirations. Similarly, Dr. Wang noted that ginseng helped “Americanize” the new country. Among famous early Americans, George Washington, Daniel Boone, and John Jacob Astor were reportedly involved with the ginseng trade.⁵

“It also, however, seems pretty clear that lots of ginseng was collected [for trading] by native peoples, especially the Cherokee,” said Dan Moerman, author of Native American Ethnobotany and an anthropology professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. “I think it's likely that ginseng became more interesting to native peoples after they realized how valuable it was in trade. Maybe that Americanized them.”

“The search for ginseng, the most important and lucrative export to China, became an important driving force of the westward expansion,” said Dr. Wang. “From the Eastern coast areas all the way out west… searching for Ginseng became a fever.”

In return for ginseng and other goods aboard the Empress and early trading ships to China, the United States imported much tea, which Dr. Wang said helped popularize the beverage, especially for lower classes of society that previously were unable to afford such a luxury item.

The United States exported hundreds of thousands of pounds of ginseng in the years after the Empress set sail, over-exploiting many of the country’s wild populations.⁵ When the US Fish and Wildlife Services implemented the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, or CITES, in 1977, the agency began controlling wild ginseng harvest and trade.

“There is an unquenchable interest in the plant and how it grows and how people can use it,” said Taylor. “It also points out the boom and bust cycle of natural products from the wild, particularly medicinal products, especially if they’re not regulated.”


—Lindsay Stafford


References

1. US-China Trade Statistics and China's World Trade Statistics. US-China Business Council website. Available at: www.uschina.org/statistics/tradetable.html. Accessed March 19, 2012.
   
   
2. Taylor D. Ginseng, the Divine Root. 2006: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill; New York, NY.
   
   
3. Wang D. Ginseng: the herb that helped the United States to enter international commerce. World Huaren Federation website. Available at: www.huaren.org/members-contribution/ginseng--us-commerce. Accessed April 23, 2012.
   
   
4. Markoe K. Two hundred years of U.S. Trade with China (1784-1984). Asia for Educators, Columbia University. 2009. Available at: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1750_us.htm. Accessed April 23, 2012.
   
   
5. Beyfuss R. Ginseng growing. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation website. Available at: www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7472.html. Accessed April 23, 2012.