Why China Mattered to the American Revolution | AAR S1E3

The East India Company’s trade monopoly angered American colonists by undercutting their smuggling of Chinese goods and keeping prices high. This helped push Americans toward revolution — and it wasn’t just the Boston Tea Party. Patriots held Tea Parties up and down the colonies to challenge British tariffs and control. And it wasn’t only about tea: the consumer revolution had colonists hungry for porcelain, silk, nankeens, fine furniture, and countless other goods from China.

📄 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Interview Transcript

►In this interview, Dr. Dael Norwood explains how America’s demand for Chinese products shaped commerce, politics, and the young nation’s identity — and how global trade fueled the path to revolution.

🚩About My 200th Guest:

⁠Dr. Dael Norwood is a professor in the History Department of the University of Delaware, a historian of nineteenth-century America specializing on the global dimensions of U.S. politics and economics. He is particularly interested in the political economy of commerce: how the ideas and practices of international exchange have affected Americans’ relations with other powers, as well as their dealings with each other.

He has published extensively on these subjects, including the following book, which we discuss in this interview: "Trading in Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America"

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📑 Video Chapters:

3:51 Thinking About China in Colonial America

06:52 Consumer Revolution in American Colonies

09:12 High-Level Consumer Goods

11:44 "Colonists are inveterate smugglers."

13:50 Top American Imports

14:25 “The really nice stuff never really gets to North America.”

15:23 How Colonists Purchased Chinese Goods

21:28 Franklin’s Plans To Develop Chinese Products in America

23:20 Europeans & Americans Imitating China

25:08 China Trade and the American Revolution

28:05 The East India Company and Colonial Grievances

32:08 Corruption & Tyranny

33:21 A New Kind of Slavery

34:16 Beyond Boston: Other Colonial Tea Parties

37:04 The Intolerable Acts

40:22 Treaty of Paris

40:59 Out Competing Britain in China Trade

43:40 What American Shipped to China in the 1780s

44:19 Silver Dollars to China

48:15 Could the U.S. Afford Trade With China?

51:52 How Americans Financed Trade With China

53:29 Cabotage and Mechanics of American Trade China

57:21 Politicians vs. Merchants - American Vision of China Trade

58:26 Drugs & China Trade

59:18 Dr. Norwood's Story of Researching China Trade

1:02:17 "China is always there!"

1:03:21 A BIG DEAL

1:04:22 From China Trade to Constitution

1:05:28 Just One Point

1:07:46 "Yankee Doodle"

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