Whispers of Opium: The Commodity and Conduits of Trade between the Indian Ocean World and North America

Konpal Kaur, Georgia State University

This presentation traces the transnational/trans-imperial journey of Opium from colonial India to North America in the time period 1900 -1950. It aims to uncover how the drug itself emerges as a historical actor within overlapping systems of control, commerce, and resistance. Positioned at the intersection of Empire, Economy, and Morality, opium operated simultaneously as a colonial commodity as well as conduit for subaltern negotiations. The strategies of the British empire sought to standardize production and also prevent indigenous states from developing rival product. This fostered clandestine trade networks and global smuggling rings. Drawing on case studies of seizures, illicit factories, smuggling cartels, and two figures -Thomas Jefferson Bird and Uttam Singh, the presentation illustrates how opium circuits blurred boundaries and connected the North America with Indian Ocean World.  Whispers of opium foregrounds historical agency of Opium, its adaptive capacity to mutate and move - revealing how this narcotic silently threaded together imperial ambition, capitalism and global trading networks. 

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 58. Indo-Us Maritime Trade, c. 1780-1950: Merchants, Networks, and Commodities