In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

-76MERCHANT ACTIVITIES AND BUSINESS PRACTICES AS REVEALED IN SEVERAL MANUSCRIPTS FROM FUKIEN Michael H. Finegan Historians interested in analyzing the economy and society of preaodern China face a difficult task in gathering suitable source¦ateríale, in particular because only small quantities of priTate papers, local government documents, or eren popular printed works hare been collected and Bade available for research. For the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries at least, ve nay suppose that substantial quantities of sons kinds of these materials are still in existence, and this supposition is borne out by the admirable initial results of two projects underway in Taiwan, to collect genealogies and to collect documents in private hands. To the historian interested in private and local records and popular publications, Taiwan assumes a special importance. Many documents have been published in early Japanese studies and recent source collections, and many are preserved by museums, libraries, and individuals. Useful materials may also be acquired directly from used book and curio stores, such items including manuscripts, mostly contracts relating to land rights, and woodblock editions from Fukien of a variety of popular works, for instance, letter writing manuals and religious tracts. Through a discussion of the information on business practices and merchant activities contained in several Ch'ing manuscripts from Fukien recently acquired in Taiwan stores, it is hoped that this note will suggest the value for researoh of such materials and the importance of their collection and preservation. One common type of manuscript document is that of deeds for the division of inheritances. These deeds give details on property allocations, and some also provide information concerning family 2 history. Four such deeds that I have acquired oome from two different merchant families of Ch'uan-chou city. Three dated 1775, 1860, and 1865 come from the Lai ^S family, and other manuscripts acquired concerning the same family consist of a draft of the I860 deed, a genealogy, a list of dates for ancestor worship, and two property lists, one containing copies of sale and rental contracts for the -77pronerties inherited by one son in 1775 and for other properties purchased between 1777 and 1810, and the other one containing for the most part records of purchases and mortgages between 1833 and 1827. Together the eight manuscripts from the Lai family are more than four hundred pages in length and provide material on many subjects, including land tenure, inheritance practices, family organization, business activities, monetary systems, taxation, and urban geography. ? fourth inheritance division deed from Ch'Uan-chou dated 1826 is similar to the 1850 and 1865 deeds but does not form part of a direct series with the other three deeds and probably comes from a completely 3 different family. Unfortunately, no surname is given in the text. I-lien ^jL '-M , author of the 1826 deed, studied accounting at age fourteen (twelve or thirteen by our reckoning), and in 1796 he opened his first business, a shop for exchanging silver money. Several years later he started a sugar business and a pawnshop, and by 1825, through hard work and frugality, he had accumulated monetary assets 4 of 19,820 silver dollars. In addition I-lien was owed a total of 9,520 dollars in long outstanding debts. One of the effects of the deed was to allow the eldest son, who was married, to withdraw his share of the estate in order to set up in business on his own, and an addendum to the deed stated that he opened a sugar business, most likely taking over one of the family sugar firms. After he bad withdrawn his share, the family owned four businesses, which consisted of the exchange shop and probably one sugar firm and two pawnshops. In addition to the businesses I-lien also owned three plots of land and 5 eighteen commercial properties from which he collected rent. Lai Fang-yen %p\ ¦% \'A , author of the 1775 deed, was born in 1699, and at age twelve (ten or eleven by Western reckoning) he began studying with an elder brother in the family school. At age eighteen (sixteen or seventeen) he took with him fifty taels and went to learn business from an uncle...

pdf

Share