Anson Burlingame

US representative and diplomat, born in New Berlin, New York, USA. He was a member of the US House of Representatives (Free-Soil, Massachusetts, 1855–9; Republican, Massachusetts, 1859–61). He served as ambassador to China (1861–7), where he deeply impressed the Chinese with his integrity and helpfulness. In 1867 China appointed him head of their first diplomatic mission to Europe. He died in St Petersburg, Russia.

Anson Burlingame (November 14, 1820 - February 23, 1870) was an American lawyer, legislator, and diplomat, born in New Berlin, Chenango County, New York.

He practised law in Boston, and won a wide reputation by his speeches for the Free Soil Party in 1848. He was a member of the Massachusetts constitutional convention in 1853, of the state senate from 1853 to 1854, and of the United States House of Representatives from 1855 to 1861, being elected for the first term as a Know Nothing and afterwards as a member of the new Republican Party, which he helped to organize in Massachusetts.

On June 14, 1861 Abraham Lincoln appointed Burlingame as minister to China. a series of articles, supplementary to the Reed Treaty of 1858, and later known as the Burlingame Treaty.

Burlingame's speeches did much to awaken interest in, and engender a more intelligent appreciation of, China's attitude toward the outside world.

Burlingame died suddenly at Saint Petersburg on the February 23, 1870.

Burlingame, California and Burlingame, Kansas are both named after Anson Burlingame.