Talk:David Sassoon
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The British East India Company had the Opium Monopoly, but at first it was not very profitable. Prior to the Opium War, the Scottish owned business Jardine, Matheson and Co. dominated the Opium trade not Sassoon. In fact, I could not find Sassoon’s name in the index of the 2005 book, ‘The Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another’ by W. Travis Hanes and Frank Sanello. Only Neo-Nazi websites claim Sassoon as the mastermind of the Opium War.
--- How about try "Opium: Empire and the Global Political Economy (Asia's Transformations)" by Carl Trocki? Also it is mentioned in the Jewish Encyclopedia. If simply telling the facts of the despicable deeds of a particular Jewish family is considered "anti-Semitic", then I think there is a bigger issue. 66.171.76.210 04:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
My objection is over the chronology and the seemingly exaggerated role of Sassoon in the Opium War. It seems unlikely that a non-European in British India would have the political clout to make the British military his private mercenaries. Sassoon did not speak English and from what I read the British East India Company had an Opium monopoly in the 1700s. The Scottish company Jardine, Matheson and Co had more political clout and initiative than a colonial who did not even speak English. Sassoon's company followed the coattails of British Imperialism after the Opium War was over and he did not create it.
- Nice. So are you saying after a soldier kills a man, it is ok to take the dead man's wallet? If you come across a woman who was raped, do you proceed to rape her again because she is already broken? You speak like a businessman. 66.171.76.248 00:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
This version of his biography was on the neo-Nazi stormfront website and attempts to support the Protocols of Zion propaganda by merging the exploits of Jardine, Matheson and Co with David Sassoon. The Jewish Encyclopedia uses a similar biography to make Sassoon seem like a cunning visionary who "opened China". Many people glorify gangsters. They say Bugsy Siegel built Las Vegas in 1941. They fail to mention Las Vegas's growth from the construction of Hoover Dam and legalization of gambling in 1931. This article minimizes the British role in the Opium War and makes it seem that David Sassoon conquered China.
People on the Jardine Matheson page are also questioning the whitewasing of their role in the Opium Wars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jardine_Matheson_Holdings
I agree that the following
"An outraged David Sassoon demanded that China compensate for the seizure or Great Britain retaliate. The Chinese Army, decimated by 10 years of rampant opium addiction, proved no match for the British Army."
logically implies that the British went to war because David Sassoon was angry about the destruction of opium. For example, would Britain have gone to war if, as asserted in the article,
'"silver and gold, silks, gums and spices, opium and cotton, wool and wheat - whatever moves over sea or land feels the hand or bears the mark of Sassoon and Company".'
, the Chinese had destroyed 2000 crates of wool, and David Sassoon was angry about it? Perhaps a fairer statement would suggest that Great Britain went to war because of diverse British financial interests in the opium trade, rather than because of one individual family's holdings? I won't enter this directly into the article, since, while I believe this is the case, I don't have the background to assert this definitively. Felgerkarb 13:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I also removed the following line:
This included provisions especially designed to guarantee the Sassoons the right to provide an entire population with opium.
as, after reading the text of the Treaty of Nanking on the Wikisource site, I find no particular mention of the Sassoon family, or anything that couldn't apply to any British agent involved in the opium trade in China. Can the person who provided the original text also provide a reference or clarification of what parts of the Treaty were 'especially designed to guarantee' special rights to the Sassoons? Felgerkarb 13:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] unreferenced
added an unreferenced tag to the page. It needs sources and citations. --Neon white 01:14, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 17:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] NPOV section
I have rewritten the NPOV section disputed above. There were two main errors. Firstly, Sassoon never had an Asia-wide opium monopoly: that was only held by the British East India Company. The British government did later grant opium monopolies (the 'opium farmer') in Hong Kong, and it's very possible that a Sassoon business may have held it at some stage, but this was not what the sources cited were claiming. It seems that a major error in the Jewish Encyclopedia has been picked up by neo-Nazis. Secondly, the Treaty of Nanking contains no provisions for the special protection of opium dealers (see the Spence reference and check Wikisource for yourself). Matt's talk 17:22, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- No matter what, stormfront is not a reliable source, and if you suspect errors in the Jewish encyclopedia, I'd take it out too. WLU (talk) 15:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- After going through the sources a bit more thoroughly, if academic sources claim that Jardine and Dent were the big opium dealers, I think that thoroughly trumps two sources of dubious merit. I've removed the section, and if better sources can document his role in the opium wars, it can be resurrected from the page history. WLU (talk) 15:45, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
