Harris, Townsend United States & SiamBiblio.com
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185671211Bangkok Siam: printed at the Washington Press by J. H. Chandler 1856. 8vo approx. 8½" x 6¾" pp. 25 1; self-wrappers; Thai and English text on opposite pages; small hole from an old adhesion in the middle of the fourth and fifth leaf sense at least in the English version remains clear; some curling at the edges and small marginal nicks and tears; in all a good clean copy. The first treaty between the US and Siam had been negotiated by Edmund Roberts in 1833. It ensured free trade and most favored nation status for the United States. Sir John Bowring negotiated a new treaty on behalf of Great Britain with the recently enthroned King Mongkut aka Rama IV. When the Americans learned of this mission they sent Townsend Harris who was on his way to Japan to Bangkok to update the original treaty for the U.S. which was signed on May 29 1856. Townsend Harris 1804-1878 was an American merchant and politician who served as the first United States Consul General to Japan. He negotiated the the Treaty of Amity and Commerce or the "Harris Treaty of 1858" between the US and Japan and is credited as the diplomat who first opened Shogunate Japan to foreign trade and culture in the Edo period thereby paving the way for greater Western influence in Japan's economy and politics. Prior to his efforts in Japan however Harris was rerouted from his trip to Japan to make his way to Siam. Re-designated the Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation the amendments granted Americans extraterritorial rights in addition to those in the Roberts Treaty. Two American missionaries played essential roles in the negotiation of the Harris Treaty: Stephen Mattoon worked as a translator for Townsend Harris during the negotiations. He graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1846 and the following year went to Bangkok where he worked as a Presbyterian missionary. He was subsequently appointed the first United States consul to Siam. Shortly after his return to the United States in 1865 he became president of the Biddle Memorial Institute in Charlotte North Carolina where he remained until his death in 1889. This copy of the Harris Treaty was passed down through his family and is accompanied by an 1880 letter to his sister on Biddle Institute letterhead. The Treaty of Friendship and Commerce between the United States and Siam granted American citizens extraterritorial rights and secured important diplomatic and trade privileges for the U.S. in Siam. Included are articles addressing the ownership of land in Siam by Americans; the mutual protection of American and Siamese citizens at sea and on land; parameters of trade between the two countries; free exercise of religion by Americans living in Siam; limitations on travel by American ships of war; and details on trade and import duties and the special exclusion thereof for opium; and other rules and regulations concern smuggling false manifests port clearances etc. Includes a list of 44 articles that are free from taxes rhinoceros hides elephant bones kingfisher's feathers ivory etc. on the recto of the final leaf. Both the American and British treaties with King Mongkut's government were printed by John Hassett Chandler by turns a "U.S. Consul tutor printer and book binder punch-cutter and type founder inventor engineer designer and engraver mechanic artist author missionary translator and interpreter" genealogy.com. He was born in 1813 at Pomfret Connecticut and came to Bangkok in 1843 as a Baptist missionary and set up the first printing press in the kingdom to use Thai characters. Chandler would later assist Mongkut in setting up another press inside the palace. In 1856 Harris chose Chandler and Mattoon to serve as his advisors at the court. Both of them already held positions in the Royal household and Chandler had grown so close to the Mongkut and his family that he was one of two missionaries the king chose to join the procession at the ratification ceremony for Harris's Treaty. Most of the publications of the Washington Press in Bangkok were religious in nature although there are also a number of almanacs grammars dictionaries and newspapers for the period from 1830 to 1860. The Bowring and Harris treaties appear to be the only official documents issued by the press. The Harris Treaty is also one of the earliest primary sources documenting American colonial interests in Asia. It is extremely rare and we can trace only six institutional copies at LC AAS Cornell Colgate University of Hong Kong and Strasbourg the last of which is apparently missing the title page. See also Conroy- Krutz Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations. Cornell University Press Ithaca 2024. And Lord Donald C. Missionaries Thai and Diplomats. Pacific Historical Review 354 1966. printed at the Washington Press by J. H. Chandler unknown