Finnish Maritime Interaction with China in the 18th Century - Transcript

Intro

This is the Nordic Asia podcast.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:00:14]

Welcome to the Nordic Asia Podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region. I'm your host, Ari-Joonas Pitkänen, a doctoral candidate at the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku in Finland. In this episode, we'll be looking back in time all the way to the 18th century to talk about a fascinating but less known historical topic contacts between Finland and China through the Swedish East India Company's trade voyages. I'm joined by Erja Kettunen-Matilainen, a senior research fellow in economic geography and adjunct professor at the Department of Marketing and International Business at the University of Turku. Dr. Erja Kettunen-Matilainen conducts research on economic relations between Finland and Asia from a variety of perspectives, and one of her research topics has been the participation of Finns in the Swedish East India. Companies trade voyages in the 18th century. Perhaps the most notable result of this historical interaction was the first ever Finnish dissertation on China, which was defended by Israel's right here at the Royal Academy of Turku in 1749. Based on this, we can say that the contacts between Finland and China go back at least two and a half centuries. And it's of course fitting that we're discussing these roots right here in Turku today. So without further ado, Dr. Kettunen-Matilainen, welcome to the podcast.

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:01:29]

Thank you very much.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:01:30]

So as we all know, shipping has always been a key channel of trade between Europe and Asia. And this was obviously the case also in the 18th century. But recently there have been significant challenges in maritime trade due to the COVID pandemic, and especially with China, which is one of the few countries that still sort of holds on to major COVID restrictions, even as Europe and Western countries in general have largely done away with those. So before we dive into this history of the 18th century, could you tell us a bit about the current situation and the impact of COVID on maritime trade relations between Europe and China? And have there been significant disruptions in our maritime relations with China and how our European and perhaps Nordic countries in particularly coping with this situation?

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:02:16]

Yes, there have obviously been big issues here. So actually right in the beginning of the COVID 19, spring 2020 factories were shut down in China also because of other reasons. But this instantly affected the global production networks because so many companies operate internationally and they import components to Europe from China. So this actually caused the global logistics crisis as well. The whole system went into disruption at that time. And after the factories were reopened in China, the exports from China to Europe and also elsewhere, they recovered. But then the containers were left empty in Europe and elsewhere in the world because there were no exports back from Europe, for example, to China. And so the whole logistics system disrupted at that time. And the global value chains have been in a big crisis. Then also with the COVID, there was the need for every country actually to bring production back to home country also for the purposes of safeguarding, you know, the the situation in every country. So many countries realized that there were so dependent on the imports from Asia especially. So this caused a problem, especially in the COVID situation at that time. Now, afterwards, the situation has improved a little or quite much also, but also the maritime transportation has not really recovered back to what it was before COVID for. Also because the prices of cargo, the container prices went like five times higher than they had been. They had been really low before the COVID. When it comes to Finland and the Nordic countries. Then the rail transports were opened and grown between the Nordic countries and China. So some of the exports and imports had been transported through railways with the container trains.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:04:23]

Okay. Yeah. Well, it seems like there is sort of, you know, we used to have this maritime Silk Road and then this land Silk Road back in the old days, and these were the two main roads of transportation between Europe and China. And seems like now with the disruption of the maritime trade, we have a sort of new focus on our land road to China and Eurasia. So interesting sort of refocusing of trade and we'll see what the future holds. I guess the situation is still very, very unclear. And with China, we have no idea how long their COVID restrictions will last. But while we live in interesting times. But let's turn now to our main historical topic. As I mentioned there in the introduction, you've conducted research on Finns who traveled to Asia with the Swedish East India Company. And perhaps we should clarify here to our listeners outside the Nordic region. That during this time in the 18th century, Finland was actually part of Sweden. So it makes sense that Finnish people would sail with the Swedish is to India company. But to start with. Could you tell us briefly how did you first discover this topic and what got you interested in these 18th century contacts between Finland and China?

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:05:32]

Yeah, I had actually been connected to Gothenburg, the University of Gothenburg in Sweden since I was a doctoral student in Finland. And then I was also later a visiting researcher in Gothenburg. And as we know, Gothenburg is the hometown of the Swedish East India Company, and the headquarters were there and actually the headquarter building is still there. It is nowadays a museum, a very, very beautiful building. And so I was aware of this history. And actually then when I was going back and forth in Gothenburg, so in the early 2000, I went to the shipyard in Gothenburg to see how a replica of one of the ships, Göteborg was built. And this is a ship that has actually made a journey to China as well, and it has made journeys to other places here in the Nordics and in Europe and so on. And it came to Helsinki in 2008. So I went to see the ship and it's really beautiful. And by the way, it is coming to Finland again and from here it is going onwards to other places in Europe and it will start a two year expedition actually to Asia. So the endpoint will be in Shanghai next year for this ship.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:06:50]

Interesting.

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:06:52]

This is yeah, a nice coincidence here. Yeah. So after I had seen the replica for the first time in Gothenburg, I started wondering whether because it had been the 18th century and that was the time when Finland was part of Sweden, I was thinking whether there were any seafarers from the Finnish side of the Swedish kingdom at that time that would have worked in the ships of this company. And I started to reach and talk with several historians in Finland and also other Nordic countries. And I came to realize that this was a topic that no one had researched before, but everybody that I talked to were very eager with this topic and said that, Yeah, yeah, you should go on. So I went on and because I had the contacts in Gothenburg, I went and I did some research in the archives in the Gothenburg Provincial Museum. And so that was it. How it started.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:07:51]

Okay. Yeah, that's that's a really interesting story. And I had no idea about the ship, this replica ship. This sounded really interesting. And so it's actually fully functional. It sounds like it's a fully functional replica that can go around the globe. Yes. Yeah, that's that's really interesting. I have to try to see that. That's quite interesting. When I went to well, I haven't been to Gothenburg, but I've been to Stockholm and they have this very famous Vasa ship there, which is the actual ship that was very well preserved and it sank before it even was able to set sail. I can't remember which year precisely, but it's also an old sailing ship, really big, a huge ship. And I hadn't really realized how big these old sailing, oceangoing sailing ships were. So that just kind of crystallized to me as well, the suite and used to be a really, really major maritime power back in the days and yeah, really, really interesting. This Gothenburg ship. I have to try to see it myself as well. But you know, what was the overall role of the Swedish East India Company in Asia and China? Many of us are familiar with the big players like the British and the Dutch East India companies, or perhaps also the Portuguese and the Spanish. But Sweden doesn't really appear that often in the narratives about European interaction with Asia during this period. And perhaps Sweden was one of the more minor players. But as I just mentioned, when I when I went to Sweden and saw this huge ship, it seemed much bigger than I had ever thought. So Sweden actually was a major player still in some regard. So where does Sweden fit in this overall game of expanding trade and colonialism in the early modern period? What was the role of the Swedish East India Company in this Asia trade?

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:09:31]

Yes, it's true. The Swedish East India Company, it was much smaller than its European peers in England or Holland and the other great maritime powers. The company in Sweden was established later than the English and the Dutch East India companies. However, by Swedish standards, the East India Company in Sweden, it was the biggest Swedish corporation of its time. So it was significant for the Swedish economy in that sense. Still, it had a smaller number of ships and also fewer journeys to East India. It was more short lived. It was established late. And it went down earlier than some of the other East India companies. But then what has been noted is, as you also mentioned, the Swedish ships were larger than the others. This was thanks to the new ship technology that was developed here in the north at the time. And also what has been noted is that the role of the Swedish East India Company ships and their journeys, it was quite important in international merchandise trade during those times because at the time, for example, English and the French were constantly in war against each other and their ships were engaged in the battles at the sea. So when it comes to the trade, it was the the Swedish ships that were taking taking care of of much of the international merchandise at the time. And also what is quite important is that the Swedish East India Company also had its own office in Canton. So Canton was the place where the European ships could enter. And so the Swedish office was there next to the other European East India companies, each of which had their offices just in a row there in the the designated coastal part of the city.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:11:29]

Okay. Yeah. Really interesting that you mentioned this, that Swedish ships tended to be larger than the others. Well, maybe this explains why I admire the large size of the Swedish ship. When I saw that, that actually they were larger than the others. This was new information for me. You mentioned there just now, Canton and that Sweden had its own office there. And I wanted to ask you about specifically which regions or cities in China or elsewhere in Asia did the Swedish East India company focus on in its voyages? And, well, it seems like Canton was the main port Canton today, better known as Guangzhou in China. But were there other major ports that the Swedish were focused on in China or perhaps elsewhere in the region?

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:12:11]

No, actually, yeah, it was true in China it was only Canton because China did not allow others to enter any other places. So Canton was the place where trade was carried out, and that was the place where the foreign ships could end. And so also for the Swedes, this was the main target of the whole journey. The aim was, of course, to buy the luxurious products that were wanted in Europe, which is tea, silk, porcelain, which were bought from China, of course, before the ships came to Canton. They had to stop at many places, at several locations on the way because the journey was so long. So at many places where they could have a stopover, they would fill in, you know, water and food for the storages in the ships. So there were typical places where the ships stopped after they had left Gothenburg. Always the first stop was in Cadiz, Spain. Then quite often the Canary Islands or Saint Helena Island. Then the next stop was in Cape Town. And then there was the very long sea trip, after which the ships stopped in Mauritius. And then they came to what we know as Southeast Asia nowadays East and Southeast Asia. In Java, they would typically stop in Batavia, which is nowadays Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Many of the Swedish ships also stopped at smaller places close to Java or the islands that we nowadays know as Indonesian islands. Some of those places were very small fishing villages. The ship would stop there and exchange goods for, you know, buying food from from the local people. Then they the ships would reach out towards China. They would typically stop in Macao first and then finally in Canton. That was the place where the ships had their biggest target of going.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:14:16]

Okay. Yeah. You mentioned there some of the products that the trade was focused on, tea and porcelain and these sort of luxury products. I've heard read from the history, obviously with the with the British as well. T was a big thing for the British especially and just luxury products in general. So I guess for the Swedish East India Company as well, it focused on these sort of luxury items.

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:14:38]

Yes, indeed. It has been said that what the Swedes bought from Canton, it was first like half of it was tea and then they bought porcelain and silk. But then because tea was in such a high demand in Europe, and also it was quite light to carry, it had a high price, but it was light to carry. So towards the end of the life of the Swedish East India Company, it was mostly tea that was then bought from China and carried to Sweden. So yeah, towards the end it was like. 80% of the cargo was actually tea that gave the biggest profits.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:15:18]

Okay. Well, yeah, that's interesting. I was just going to say that that's probably from a profit perspective that makes the most sense if it's so light. And yeah, I know from history that he was the big thing, But you've actually written a chapter on this topic in a in a book on maritime migration published in Finnish by the Migration Institute of Finland. In this chapter, you identify two notable Finnish persons who sailed to China in the 18th century. One of them was Israel Arrhenius, whom I mentioned in the introduction already, and the other one was a notable businessman called Peter Youngblood. And well, at least RTÉ News is an especially valuable source because he kept quite a detailed journal from his travels from Finland to China. And as I mentioned earlier, he also wrote a dissertation based on his experiences, which was actually the first ever academic dissertation regarding China that was published in Finland, and it was published right here in Turku in the Royal Academy of Turku, which for those listeners who are not that familiar with academic Nordic history, the Royal Academy of Turku was the precursor of the current University of Helsinki. And so so Arrhenius was quite a notable figure. But what were the experiences of these men like on their travels to China, and do we, for example, from RTÉ News travel writings, do we learn something special about historical China during the 18th century?

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:16:40]

Yes, we do quite a lot. If I just mentioned briefly background. So Israel Arrhenius and also his brother, they worked at the same ship and they came from western Finland and they had first come to study seafaring in Stockholm. And after that they decided to enroll in the Swedish East India Company. And so they started working in the ship, Crown Prince and Adolf Friedrich in Gothenburg. And they started already several months before the ship actually started the journey. And because Israel renews was a cadet, that was his job. So his duty was to keep a logbook of the ship. And we know that the logbook is a detailed diary of the whole journey. And then afterwards, this book, which is written in Old Swedish, obviously it has been later reprinted. And in 2008 it has been published by the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland. So this this was my main source here. And from this logbook diary is Arrhenius then wrote his dissertation, which is much shorter version of the book. But yeah, going to the logbook and the observations that Reynolds made, this was something that he made very detailed notes in the logbook. So he was observing, of course, the weather conditions because he had to the winds and so on. But then he also made careful notes on everything like the vegetation, the habitat that he saw on the way in all the stopover locations. He was observing the nature, flora and fauna, the climate. But then also wherever there were other kinds of life on the islands where the ship stopped, for example. So he also kind of described how the people looked like, what kind of animals there were and so on. But also he wrote about the life on board, how it was on the ship, for example, the kinds of food that were served, any special occasions and festivities. Well, there were not too many on those long journeys. Also about the accidents, many kinds of hardships that the journey had. So then when the ship came to Canton, because Reynolds was an officer, he was able to observe what we know as the historical China. Of course, he could only see Canton because it was very controlled for the foreigners at the time. So these East India companies and their ships and the officers who came to town, it was very restricted. They could only, you know, see a very small part of the town. And Canton was very tightly controlled. But still, Reynolds, because he was able he made observations on the trade, how it was conducted between the Chinese and the European merchants, the long lasting negotiations. So he would register prices and, you know, list the products and so on. And this was part of his job. Then as he was observing the people, he he wrote in this diary and here I quote and I have translated this from the old Swedish to English, but he wrote, The Cantonese are mid-sized people strong to carry. They are fast minded, intelligent. Merchant minded people who are interested even in small profits and who also try to cheat, especially the Europeans. So this was his observation. Further, he perceived the Chinese as lively, happy, mentally stable and controlled, and also as people who do not openly expose their possible setbacks. So these were his observations. Then he was also writing about how he saw the environment, the nature in Canton, its geography. He also wrote something about the religions and the livelihoods of the local people.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:20:53]

Okay. That's that's really interesting. It seems that reinforce this job description basically meant that he had to keep detailed records. So we are lucky to have this record from Rainiest Job. It was interesting his description about the Chinese people. You know, a lot of these old descriptions, at least the image that I have in my head, is that they often might be, especially from modern standards, quite racist, and they might belittle the Chinese or might not have such a positive description of the Chinese and what the Chinese people were like. But it sounds like rain was had a pretty positive appraisal of the Chinese. This is quite interesting to note there, even though he also mentioned something that you hear often in these accounts that the Chinese like to cheat, especially Europeans. That was an interesting point as well. But yeah, really interesting notes from from rain news. What about this? Better you and Blood. Who was this other major Finnish figure that we know of? Has he left any any sort of writings from his travels to China?

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:21:50]

Yeah, in some ways, actually. The legacy of blood better human blood is more manifold because he made several journeys. He had a long career in the Swedish East India Company, whereas revenues only made that one trip he wrote his logbook on. So, yes, truly Blood is the other most well known, perhaps person from Finland related to the Swedish East India Company. He started at a young, young age and he had a long career. He proceeded in his career to a very high position, so he became a super cargo for the company. The super cargo is the person who is responsible for the purchase and the selling of the merchandise and overseeing the whole cargo. And actually, he also then was made the head of the company's office in Canton. So he stayed he lived there for several years. After he finished his career at the company, he actually came back to Finland. And he is considered one of the leading economic thinkers in Finland. He was a major businessman and also was trying new farming methods in his inherited farm in Koskinen, western Finland. And it has been said because he was capable of many languages. So he was capable of reading French newspapers, English, several languages. So he was very well aware of new economic thinking of that time. So and of course, because he he worked for the company later than revenues. So his period of working was towards the very late 18th century and early 19th century. That was the time when the earlier mercantilist economic thinking was being criticized and new waves of thinking came to Europe. So he was following that. And it has been said he's one of the leading economic thinkers in Finland after to DANIELS okay.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:23:58]

That's that's a really interesting history of this individual as well I guess with rain So Rainy was actually only made that one trip there. But because he made such detailed remarks from his trip, we actually learn quite a lot from just that single trip. This actually leads me to the next question about what was the maritime journey between Finland and China like in general? Specifically, I'm interested in the duration. Just how long did it take to sail from Finland to China? I would imagine that's a really long sail. So even if you only make one journey, that's quite a significant period of time. So what was the journey like and how long did it take?

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:24:37]

Yeah, it was a very long journey. Of course, the ships left from Gothenburg in Sweden and from Gothenburg to Canton and back. It always took at least 18 months. All the ships from Europe actually left at the same time because they had to follow the winds. So they left during the winter months from Sweden or from elsewhere in Europe. Then it may happen at some point on the journey that if the winds were not good, the ships sometimes had to stop on the way. For example, in Mauritius, they might have stopped for several months just to wait for a better. Wants to continue the journey. And of course, then if we think of the Finns who came from the Finnish part of Sweden at that time, then we have to add the travel time from Finland to Gothenburg and back. So it would be several weeks or even months for the total time that the journey will take for them with the very slow transportation of the time. And when it comes to how was the journey like and the life on the ship, of course, by our contemporary standards, those ships were small. They were very small compared to the present day ships. There was often a lack of food, a lack of water, even though the ships carried live animals for food, because otherwise the food would just go bad during the, you know, many months. And it happened and sometimes they finished with food. So it was a constantly bad situation, especially for the common deck man. Of course, the officers had very different kind of lifestyle on the ships and these two groups also, they used two different parts of the ships actually. So the common deck men were not able to enter those parts where the officers were living in the ships. The working discipline was very tough. The life on board was very tightly scheduled and and very limited, especially for the common crew. And the work also was dangerous. So these journeys were really dangerous. There were frequent accidents, quite the high death rate, because, you know, men could fall from the sails or drop to the sea. The death rate was it's estimated it was around 10% of the crew. And actually all the time around one fourth of the crew was either ill or injured. And the illnesses were mostly because of the tropical illnesses when the ships entered the present, Southeast Asia as we know it. So these illnesses were something that the ship doctor often could do nothing to help the people.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:27:19]

Okay. Yeah, sounds like quite a rough journey in general. Takes such a long time. And obviously all these calamities that you may face modern day, we might not really even imagine how it must have been like when nowadays we can just get anywhere in a matter of few hours by flying a plane. I forgot to ask you earlier when we were talking about rainbows and blood, were there other notable Finnish figures on these voyages? And is there perhaps more in the archives that should still be examined regarding Finnish interaction with China specifically?

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:27:50]

Yes, definitely. There's a lot to learn about the Nordic interaction with China, especially when when it comes to Finns who worked for the Swedish East India Company. So what I realized during this this research was that there was not that much in Finland in the Finnish archives, at least I have not found too much. But instead it is the Goldenberg provincial Archive that has a database of India which is quite broad, and that that is what I have used for this research. And this is an archive where you can search for the persons who were somehow related to the company. And so I did searches by birthplaces, so entering Finnish towns by the living places of the seafarers. So this is how I got and I reached the Finnish persons who would work for the Swedish East India Company. And actually I would love to continue this research at some point to go back to Gothenburg and look for more information. Also, in addition to these two persons, Arrhenius and Blood. And one thing to study further would be to look at the people from Turku, because Turku was actually the biggest place of origin among the Finns who worked for the Swedish East India Company. And this was of course natural because of Turkey's position in the Swedish kingdom and within Finland at the time, and the close connections across the sea to to Sweden. So this is something that I would like to do in the future as well.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:29:36]

Okay. Yeah, that sounds like there indeed might be more interesting stuff in the archives. And yeah, hopefully you get to do this research and carry out this research further in the future. I would be fascinated in learning more about this. And I've noticed in my own research with the Dutch National Archives that there's just so much there just waiting to be discovered. Really fascinating topics. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have today. So really interesting discussion. Thank you very much, Dr. Marty Linen, for joining us to talk about this fascinating history of Finnish contacts with China in the 18th century. Thank you very much.

Erja Kettunen-Matilainen [00:30:13]

Yeah. Thank you so much indeed.

Ari-Joonas Pitkänen [00:30:15]

And to our listeners, thank you for joining the Nordic Asia podcast showcasing Nordic collaboration and studying Asia.

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