A Global History of Ginseng

Imperialism, Modernity and Orientalism

Heasim Sul

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000604177
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Sul's history of the international ginseng trade reveals the cultural aspects of international capitalism and the impact of this single commodity on relations between the East and the West.

Ginseng emerged as a major international commodity in the seventeenth century, when the East India Company began trading it westward. Europeans were drawn to the plant's efficacy as a medicine, but their attempts to transplant it for mass production were unsuccessful. Also, due to a failure of extracting its active ingredients, Western pharmacology disparaged ginseng in the process of modernization. In the meantime, ginseng was discovered on the American continent and became one of the United States' key exports to Asia and particularly China, but never cultivated a significant domestic market. As such, historicizing the ginseng trade provides a unique perspective on the impact of both culture and economics on international trade.

A compelling interdisciplinary history of over five centuries of East–West trade and cultural exchange, this book will be invaluable to students and scholars of transnational history and a fascinating read for anyone interested in the history of international trade.

PART I
Ginseng Meets the West

1 The Arrival of Korean Ginseng in Europe

DOI: 10.4324/9781003286691-2

Korean Ginseng’s Arrival in London

In 1617, Richard Cocks (1566–1624), the head of the East India Company’s factory in Hirado, Japan, enclosed a letter in a small package sent to the company’s headquarters in London. That very letter became the earliest “official” record of the arrival of Korean ginseng in Europe.

I received a box by the advice with a certain root in it which came from Cape Bona Speranza, but it proveth here worth nothing, it being dried, that no substance remaineth in it. Herewithal I send your Worships some of it, with another piece of that which is good and cometh out of Corea. It is here worth the weight in silver, but very little to be had in any common man’s hands, for that all is taken up for the Emperor by the King of Tushma, who only hath licence to trade with the Coreans; and all the tribute he payeth to the Emperor is of this root. It is held here for the most precious thing for physic that is in the world and is sufficient to put life into any man.¹

The long journey that the package of ginseng embarked on from Korea, to Japan, and on to London was an outcome of Europe’s expansion overseas during the Age of Discovery. Cocks’ letter also revealed the existence of a different plant, similar to ginseng, at the southern tip of Africa, where the package of ginseng stopped by on its way to London. In fact, an East India Company record from 1611 indicates that an employee named Peter was instructed to bring back a root called ningine from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.²

The Peter in that record was referring to the Dutch merchant Peter Floris (Pieter Willemsz). After joining the East India Company in his thirties, Floris came across the good fortune of boarding the Globe, which sailed to as far as the Bay of Bengal, the Strait of Malacca, and the Strait of Singapore. The four-and-a-half-year voyage turned out to be a lucrative success, yielding a three-for-one profit, and Floris would go on to publish an account of the expedition as a book. In the book was the following description about the ship’s arrival at the Cape of Good Hope.

Being by Gods grace here [Table Bay] arrived, we presently fell to the ordering of the ship, and hoping of our cask to fill fresh water, for much refreshing was not here to be had at this time of the year, by the great quantitie of rain, being now in the chiefest of winter so that the mountains lay covered with snow: during which time we used great diligence in seeking of the root Ningimm according to our instruction, the above mentioned 2 Holland ships being expressly come there for the same purpose, being one of Japan that first discovered the secret; but, being winter time, there was for this time no more to be done but to go away as wise as we came, for the old roots being decayed and rotten, the new leaves began only to come forth, so that had it not been by reason of some information which was gotten of one who here shall be nameless for divers considerations sake, we should have bene fayne to have departed without any notice thereof, the right time of gathering the same being in December, January, and February, being called of these inhabitants Canna.³

Another interesting bit of information that can be gleaned from the above description is that a Japanese crewman was aboard a Dutch East India Company ship. There is no way of knowing whether he became a crewman of his own accord, or whether he had been sold to, or was held hostage on, the ship. Yet the description indicates that the Japanese crewman was aware of ginseng and could recognize it. This was probably why ginseng was marked as “Ningimm,” which sounds similar to the Japanese pronunciation of ginseng. As a matter of fact, the terms ninzin (ningine) or ninsi were commonly used to refer to the Japanese ginseng or ginseng in general in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. The use of ninzin is therefore an example of a foreign word introduced to Europe from coming into contact with Japan.

The aforementioned letter and book show that European merchants regarded the plant South African natives called canna (or kanna) as identical or similar to ginseng. Canna is nowadays distinguished from ginseng, but back then Europeans believed that it had “come from China.”⁴ The plant was a valued herb known for its excellent invigorating effect and hence available only to the upper class of native African societies. This is how a source from 1735 described the circumstances at the time.

There is a root also in this country [Cape of Good Hope], which the Hottentots call Kanna, and will give almost any thing to purchase it, a little of it raising the spirits to a very high degree, and is compared to the ginseng of the Chinese.⁵

For a while, this root made the Cape of Good Hope bustle. Whenever a ship arrived, natives swarmed in to sell canna to its crew. East India Company employees offered pieces of copper in exchange for canna or even hiked up mountains to dig it for themselves. However, they would often be disappointed to find that the roots they uncovered were not as large or ripe as the canna made available through the natives. Records of such incidents show that at the time, the East India Company regarded canna as an attractive commodity identical to ginseng and therefore invested considerable efforts to secure the root. The records also suggest that some sort of criteria existed in distinguishing the quality of canna. Then, instead of the relatively inferior canna, Korean ginseng surfaced as the true archetype of premium ginseng, and Cocks was the first to present it to the East India Company’s London headquarters.

Cocks was born in Staffordshire as the son of a farmer. He stepped into the clothing business, and after completing an apprenticeship with a clothmaker in London, he joined the Clothworkers Guild. Yet even while working as a clothmaker the mercenary instinct in Cocks enticed him to engage in trade on the side. Cocks later went to France where he worked as a factor in charge of purchasing goods to be shipped to England on behalf of merchants, which kindled his interest in trading overseas. Armed with experience and confidence, Cocks headed to Japan at the relatively late age of forty-seven to oversee the East India Company factory in Hirado. As the first port where Japan initiated trade with European countries in 1550, Hirado functioned as the primary point of trade in East Asia until the rise of Nagasaki in 1636. Despite banning Christianity in 1614, the Japanese shogun permitted trade with the Dutch and English only because they were interested in trade and had little regard for mission work or religious conversion.

As head of the East India Company factory in Hirado, Cocks exhibited exemplary performance and passionately engaged in trade. While managing a staff of a dozen, Cocks established branches of the factory in Osaka, Kyoto, and Edo. Through branches in those cities, he traveled extensively to meet and grow acquainted with prominent figures in Japan. His marriage to Matinga, the daughter of a Japanese nobleman, is known to have been a great help to his business as well as his acquisition of the Japanese language. In addition to a house and five servants, Cocks showered Matinga with money, rice, and all sorts of expensive gifts. Alas, in 1621, Cocks discovered that his wife was having an affair with seven different men. One of them happened to be a subordinate of his named William Nelson.⁶ Out of despair, Cocks ended his relationship with Matinga and the factory in Hirado was soon forced to shut down due to bankruptcy. Cocks returned to England in a wretched state of mind and died shortly afterward. Nevertheless, the detailed logs he kept during his stay in Japan survived to become an invaluable source revealing various aspects of the early stages of trade between Britain and Japan.⁷

Since his time in France, Cocks had served as an informal spy for the English government. In fact, it was not uncommon for factors of any East India Company to act as a spy for their own government. However, Cocks’ true worth as a spy materialized after his arrival in Japan. He continued to pass on information about the circumstances in East Asia and the movements of European competitors such as Spain or the Netherlands. And to gather information, entertainment was a must. Cocks sent generous gifts to the Japanese wives and children of Europeans staying in Japan and earned a reputation for hosting extravagant, interesting parties.

Cocks’ efforts did not end there. He persistently tried to be aware of the tastes and preferences of his Japanese friends, guests from Europe and other countries, as well as potential clients and patrons. And he used the information he gathered to keep a detailed list of items that seemed to have sales potential, showing that he continued to be dictated by his mercantilist disposition.⁸ This is probably how Cocks learned of ginseng and determined that its commercial value was great enough to bring it to the attention of the company’s London headquarters. It most likely was not a coincidence that he developed the ability to tell the difference between high- and low-quality ginseng. Hence, his dual identity as a merchant and spy may have been what caused Cocks to regard ginseng as an unheard-of commodity that might have been able to contribute to England’s national interests.

However, with the shutdown of the factory in Hirado, ginseng disappeared for a while from English records of overseas trade. It was nevertheless destined to be introduced to Europe through a different channel: the Jesuits.

The Jesuits and East–West Exchange

The Jesuits played a decisive role in making ginseng known to the world. Seaways found during the Age of Discovery furnished the physical conditions for Jesuit missionaries to travel abroad more frequently.⁹ They accompanied merchants on their journeys to Central and East Asia. If the East India Company transported ginseng from the East to the West, Jesuit missionaries contributed to the Western accumulation of knowledge about ginseng and provided key information that led to the discovery of a different kind of ginseng in North America.

Just as the European expansion overseas was carried out at national levels, missionary work also required government support at the time. Missionary work thus turned into an arena of fierce competition. Portugal had been at the forefront of overseas missions, but Spain and France soon joined the race. Pope Paul V rescinded his permission for Portugal to exclusively proselytize in Asia and began to exercise more direct control by founding the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in June 1622. The Jesuits practically dominated evangelization efforts in Asia for a while until other orders such as the Dominicans and Franciscans sought to join them and began to send their own missionaries to China.

From a post-colonialist perspective, the Jesuits’ activities were part of a religious, scholarly “colonialist program” executed with a bible in one hand and a compass in the other, instead of guns and swords. However, apart from the strategy aimed at evangelizing all Chinese, starting with the Chinese emperor, the nature of the Jesuits’ activities early on leaned toward c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsement
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Notes
• Prologue
• PART 1 Ginseng Meets the West
• PART 2 The World-System of Ginseng
• PART 3 Crisis and Response
• PART 4 The Orientalism Surrounding Ginseng
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index