The Rothschilds of the East: How the Sassoon Dynasty Stole Asia

The Sassoon family, known as the “Rothschilds of the East” due to the immense wealth they accumulated in Asia, were a Baghdadi Jewish dynasty whose global mercantile empire spanned three continents. Their rise began in the 18th century, with their origins traced to Baghdad, Iraq, where patriarch David Sassoon’s father served as the chief treasurer to the pashas of Baghdad and Southern Iraq. Fleeing persecution under a new wāli, David Sassoon migrated to the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr in 1828 before settling in Bombay, India, in 1832. There, he established David Sassoon & Co., a trading company that initially dealt in banking, property, and commodities like precious metals, silks, and spices, before specializing in Indian cotton yarn and opium for export to China.

The family’s fortune was significantly built upon the lucrative opium trade, which was central to the British Empire’s efforts to reverse a trade imbalance with China, where vast quantities of tea were being imported. The Sassoons leveraged their international connections and logistical expertise to become the leading suppliers of opium to Chinese smugglers, undercutting competitors by procuring directly from cultivators and shipping via fast “opium clippers”. This dominance in the Sino-Indian opium trade cemented their status as one of the wealthiest families in the world by the close of the 19th century.

The Sassoon empire expanded rapidly, establishing branches in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Paris, and London. In Shanghai, Sassoon House on the Bund became a noted landmark, while in Bombay, the family built the Sassoon Docks, the first wet dock in western India, and funded numerous public institutions including hospitals, libraries, schools, and synagogues. As the family gravitated toward London, they became prominent in British society, with members being knighted, serving in Parliament, and owning major newspapers like The Sunday Times and The Observer. In 1887, the family’s prominence was further solidified when they joined forces with the Rothschild banking empire through marriage, fusing two of the largest Jewish commercial and banking dynasties.

The family’s influence extended into other ventures, including oil exploration, with David Solomon Sassoon playing a role in financing the Berlin–Baghdad railway and later forming a consortium to bring together British and German interests in the region. However, the family’s fortunes began to decline in the 20th century. The prohibition of opium as a legal commodity eliminated a major profit center , and the family’s global business empire fragmented. By the 1930s and 1940s, they had sold off key assets, such as their Shanghai property, and retreated to the Bahamas, marking the end of their era as a dominant force in global commerce.

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