Anson Burlingame

Anson Burlingame returned to Washington in 1868 as an envoy of Qing China after serving the United States in Beijing. With Zhi Gang and Sun Jiagu, he signed the additional treaty articles negotiated with Secretary of State William H. Seward on July 28. ^{1, 4, 5}

A Massachusetts lawyer and congressman from 1855 to 1861, Burlingame entered diplomacy under Abraham Lincoln. He served as American minister to China from 1861 to 1867. In a December 1867 letter, he described accepting the Qing government’s offer to represent it abroad and recruiting foreign secretaries for the mission. Chinese officials accompanied him to handle correspondence and acquire diplomatic experience. ^{1, 2, 3}

The Washington agreement recognized voluntary migration and provided reciprocal access to public education while expressly withholding automatic naturalization. It also reserved China’s decisions about railways and other internal improvements to its own government. Burlingame continued the mission in Europe and died in St. Petersburg in February 1870. ^{4, 1}