Qing China · 1839-1860

The Opium Wars

Britain wants Chinese tea and pays with opium grown in India. When China tries to stop the drug trade, British warships force it open. Students follow the Opium Wars from Canton to Hong Kong and Shanghai, and see why China calls this the start of a "century of humiliation".

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
13–16
On the map
3 steps, AD 1840 to AD 1842
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

Britain wants Chinese tea and pays with opium grown in India. When China tries to stop the drug trade, British warships force it open. Students follow the Opium Wars from Canton to Hong Kong and Shanghai, and see why China calls this the start of a "century of humiliation".

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Explain how the tea and opium trade linked Britain, India and China.
  • Describe the causes and results of the First (1839-1842) and Second (1856-1860) Opium Wars.
  • Explain what the "unequal treaties" were and why they still matter in China today.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

AD 1840

The tea trade

Open the map in 1840 and turn on Trade Routes. Follow the Cape Route to the Indies from Europe to Asia, then find the Kyakhta Tea Road over land. Which countries bought Chinese tea along each route?

Open this view on the map
b

AD 1840

The Pearl River delta

Zoom in on the Pearl River delta. Find Canton (Guangzhou), Hong Kong and Macau, which Portugal had held since the 1550s. Why did foreign traders gather here?

Open this view on the map
c

AD 1842

Treaty ports

Zoom out along the China coast. Find the five ports opened in 1842: Canton, Amoy (Xiamen), Fuzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai. Why did Britain want ports all along the coast?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Opium was illegal in China. Why did British merchants keep selling it there?
  2. Lin Zexu wrote to Queen Victoria asking how Britain would feel if opium were sold there. What would you have answered?
  3. The treaties gave foreigners their own courts and ports in China. Why were they called "unequal"?
  4. Britain won with steamships and modern guns. Why could the Qing forces not stop them?
  5. In 1860 British and French troops burned the Old Summer Palace near Beijing. Why would an army destroy a palace full of art?
4

Game round

10 min

Play Elizabeth I in Rule History: in 1600 she gave the English East India Company its charter. More than two centuries later the company sold Indian opium to China. Discuss: what happens when a trading company becomes as powerful as a state?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

€19 per month unlocks every worksheet, every live lesson and the class workspace. The free lesson prints without a subscription.