3.2 Destruction of the Opium

Model showing the destruction of Opium

Opium smoking equipment including Lamp, Pipe, and Opium Poppies.

When Commissioner Lin arrived in Guangzhou in 1839, he ordered the foreign merchants to surrender their stock of opium and promise not to import any more of the pernicious drug into China. Altogether 20,283 chests of opium were surrendered from the barges moored off the Bocca Tigris.

On Lin's orders, this opium was destroyed in lime pits over a period of 23 days from 3 June 1839

Credit : History Museum of HK.