Samuel Wells Willams, Printer: American Printing in Canton and Macau during the First Opium War

Abstract

The son of a New York printer, Samuel Well Williams was one of the most influential representatives of the American Board of Foreign Missionaries (ABCFM). Upon first arriving in Canton in 1833, he was co-editor and printer of The Chinese Repository, a 60-page monthly that stretched twenty years, ending it print run in 1851. This essay consider Willians' printing press both as a specific device and as a practice of writing, composing and disseminating texts in China. By examing Williams' changing relationshio to the process of printing, we can chart the dramatic shifts in commerical and cultural relations between the United States and China as the Canton System came to end in the wake of the First Opium War (1839-42). The 1856 loss of his printing press in a fire at Canton confirmed his move from Canton to Shanghai. In a broader sense, the expanded treaty port system forced him to reevaluate and abandon his Canton-based printing system.