Was the British Empire really built on drugs? The unlikely rise of an imperial superpower

Grown in India and sold into China, opium generated substantial revenues for British rule – and much more

Western and Chinese ships gather off the Chinese coast during the 19th-century Opium Wars.

Published: September 25, 2026 at 2:25 PM

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Lin Zexu was a Chinese official acting on the behalf of the Qing dynasty emperor. In 1839, he set about attempting to suppress an illegal trade, and started to demand that foreign merchants surrender their opium at Canton, now Guangzhou, in southern China. More than 20,000 chests were handed over and destroyed. The British government responded with military escalation, beginning a conflict that would end three years later in 1842 – the First Opium War. The fighting ended with China compelled to open additional ports to British trade and cede Hong Kong Island.

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Why go to war over such a specific issue? Because behind the confrontation was a deeply ingrained (and lucrative) system of British-backed pan-Asian commerce that connected Indian cultivators, Asian merchants and British imperial finances.

This system was so interlinked that, argues historian Benjamin Robert Siegel, “you couldn’t have had the British Empire if you didn't have opium. And this is not just a bold assertion. The numbers back it up.”

An Asian commodity

Britain certainly didn’t introduce opium to Asia. “Opium is an Asian story, first” Siegel explains, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast.

Derived from the opium poppy, it had long been used across the continent for its medicinal and otherwise intoxicating effects. “It’s an important cash crop, a commodity that gets traded in the Mughal Empire and the Ottoman Empire.”

The Mughal Empire had ruled much of the Indian subcontinent. The Ottoman Empire, centred on modern Turkey, connected territories across western Asia, southeastern Europe and north Africa. Opium circulated through established commercial networks within and between these regions.

But British imperial expansion changed the level of opium production, and its political significance.

“It becomes very clear that this is a powerful substance, not just for what it does in the body, but for what it means economically, what it means at a global scale.”

This was due to the substance’s overlapping functions.

“Opium is a medicine, it's a vice, it's an important tax base, it's a diplomatic weapon.”

Chinese men prepare and smoke opium in an opium den while a European man looks on.

Opium became central to Britain’s lucrative trade with Qing China, despite Chinese attempts to suppress the drug, helping trigger the Opium Wars and the expansion of British power in China during the 19th century | Credit: Getty Images

From fields to auctions

The principal institution behind Britain’s expansion in India was initially the East India Company: a commercial corporation that acquired new territory, collected taxes and maintained armies.

As its power spread from Bengal during the later 18th century, it developed a monopoly over opium production and sale in the territories under its control. The purpose of this monopoly was to allow “the expanding British state in India to manage the flow of opium,” Siegel says. British Crown rule, established in 1858, inherited the system.

The crop’s cultivators received advance payments tied to producing the crop and had to deliver it to the government at fixed prices. The opium was processed and sold at auctions in Calcutta, now Kolkata. Private merchants then carried it towards overseas markets.

This was an extensive agricultural operation. Research identifies more than a million farmers under contract annually, involving more people across their households. Siegel describes these cultivators as “often working in very difficult conditions, often against their will,” though he points out that “historians of the 19th century debate this”.

The returns to government were considerable. One research estimate puts opium at roughly 15 per cent of colonial revenues in India at its mid-century peak. This was revenue for the Indian administration, rather than 15 per cent of all British imperial income.

Enter China

China offered a large market for opium, although its government prohibited the trade. Foreign merchants and Chinese intermediaries nevertheless brought opium to consumers through smuggling networks.

For British commerce, the trade also helped address a persistent imbalance. Britain operated at a significant trade deficit with China, importing Chinese tea, silk and porcelain, though Chinese demand for British products remained limited. Opium sales helped finance purchases that would otherwise require substantial exports of silver.

For Chinese officials, consumption and the outflow of silver were pressing concerns. Lin’s intervention in 1839 – his attempt to stem the flow of the banned substance into the country – brought those concerns into direct conflict with foreign commercial interests.

After the conflict was triggered – and resolved – Britain fought again in the Second Opium War, from 1856 to 1860, this time alongside France. The conflict involved wider demands for diplomatic access and commercial privileges, but opium remained central to the relationship. The resulting settlement opened further opportunities for foreign trade, and opium imports became legal under tariff arrangements.

As Siegel puts it, Britain went to war “to keep the Chinese market open”.

British and Qing Chinese officials meet aboard HMS Wellesley during the First Opium War in 1840.

British and Chinese officials meet aboard HMS Wellesley shortly before British forces captured Chusan in July 1840, during the First Opium War – a conflict rooted in disputes over trade, sovereignty and Britain’s lucrative opium trade | Credit: Getty Images

Indian opium merchants

However, British officials weren’t in control of every opium route. In Malwa, a region of central India, Indian rulers, bankers and merchants developed an alternative trade, shipping opium through Bombay, now Mumbai.

“There are princes, merchant families, bankers, and they come up with a system that rivals the British trade that the British really can't control,” Siegel explains. “They get called smugglers.”

Their activity challenged the East India Company’s effort to manage supply and prices. Eventually, British authorities accommodated the trade and collected duties from it.

“They brought those Indian merchants into the system,” Siegel says, “and many of the Asian fortunes of the 19th century start from that trade that Britain eventually had to contend with too.”

Opium therefore supported both colonial revenues and private fortunes. Its economy included Indian commercial initiative as well as the restricted choices of cultivators.

Medicine, vice and contraband

By the late Victorian period, opposition to the trade of opium become organised and vocal.

“There are missionaries, women's activists, reformers who all say, ‘This is a drug trade. We can't be involved anymore,’” Siegel says. But the dispute was complicated by opium’s accepted medical uses. Critics could oppose its non-medical consumption while supporting its availability as a medicine. Where to draw that boundary involved commercial interests and moral judgements as well as medical evidence.

“Is it a medicine? Is it contraband?” Siegel asks. “This is never a scientific line [established].”

A Royal Commission appointed in 1893 reported in 1895. Siegel summarises its practical outcome as: “It's a bad system, but we're going to keep it anyway.”

The commission’s own position rejected central claims about the harm of Indian consumption and supported retaining the existing arrangements. Opponents challenged its evidence and independence in a contentious parliamentary debate.

It wasn’t opium alone that financed the empire. But its vast contribution and interconnectedness do help explain why ending the trade proved so difficult. It connected the Indian government’s accounts to merchants’ investments and Britain’s position in China. By the time reformers demanded its abolition, those connections had become too embedded in the operation of imperial rule.

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Benjamin Robert Siegel was speaking to Isabel King on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.

Authors

James OsborneSenior content producer

James Osborne is a senior content producer at HistoryExtra

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