The Boxer Rebellion

By Scott A. Neal

 
The Boxer Rebellion, which was really a Boxer Uprising, took place in China during 2 November 1899–7 September 1901 when the Chinese "Boxers", who were the people principally of Northern China that practiced certain Martial Arts, mixed with religion, theatrical arts and a surprisingly united anti Western outreach, rebelled violently in an anti-foreign and anti-Christian movement by the "Boxers United in Righteousness," Yihe tuan or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists of China. The Boxers called for the expulsion of the `foreign devils' and their Chinese Christian converts. As a result of the Boxer Uprising, many people both Chinese and foreign were killed.

In response to imperialist expansion, growth of cosmopolitan influences, and missionary arrogance, and against a background of state fiscal crisis and natural disasters, local organizations began to emerge in Shandong in 1898. These local groups attacked Catholic missionaries in Shandong in the summer of 1899 and gained strength on the slogan “Revive the Qing, destroy the foreign.” With the tacit approval of the court, Boxers across North China attacked mission compounds. They killed missionaries and Chinese Christians.

In the early summer of 1900, Boxer fighters, lightly armed and with little leadership, gathered in Beijing to besiege the foreign embassies. On June 21, the conservative faction of the Manchu Court induced the Empress Dowager, who ruled in the emperor’s name, to declare war on the foreign powers that had diplomatic representation in Beijing. Diplomats, foreign civilians, soldiers and some Chinese Christians retreated to the legation quarter where they held out for fifty-five days until the “Allies,” an eight nation coalition, brought 20,000 troops to their rescue.

The Allied troops then conducted a campaign of indiscriminate slaughter, rape, and pillage. The Boxer Protocol of September 7, 1901 ended the uprising and provided for severe punishments, including an indemnity of 67 million pounds. [2] Subsequent reforms led, at least in part, to the end of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Chinese Republic.
  • 1898-1902 China: troops from the US and other nations put down the Boxer Rebellion
  • At the end of the 19th century, bandit groups roamed the Chinese countryside terrorizing villages.
  • China's weak central government was unable (or perhaps unwilling) to act effectively.
  • various martial-arts groups literally took the law into their own hands to beat back the bandits. Because of the indoctrination they received, many in these groups, which became known as Boxers, believed they were invulnerable to swords, spears, and more modern Western weapons.
  • In May 1900, thousands of Boxers poured into Peking (Beijing), causing fear within the foreign communities. On 30 May, responding to a request from the foreign ministers, the local Chinese authorities allowed the Americans, British, French, Italians, Japanese, and Russians to augment their embassy guard forces.
  • The next day, 337 men arrived from foreign naval ships anchored off Taku (Dagu). Included in the contingent were 50 U.S. Marines, led by Captains John Myers and Newt Hall.
The capital of China at that time was called Peking. It is still the capital today, but it is now called Beijing.

Boxer Rebellion Summary
Violent uprising by Chinese nationalists opposed to Western commercial and cultural influence in China in the late 1890s. The Boxers were members of the I-ho Tuan ("righteous, harmonious fists"), a secret society which had vowed to drive all "foreign devils" from China. Encouraged by the Empress Dowager Tz'u Hsi, they besieged the British legation and a Catholic Church in Beijing (then called Peking) on August 14, 1900. Over 900 foreigners had taken refuge in the stronghold, when an international relief force of British, American, French, German, Austrian, Italian, Russian, and Japanese troops drove the Boxers out of the city. The foreign troops then went on a rampage of looting nearby villages and killing many innocent Chinese. In crushing the rebellion, the new western coalition used the incident to strengthen an "Open Door" agreement. This agreement preserved Chinese territorial and administrative unity and guaranteed that all western powers had equal commercial rights to trade with China. The Chinese government was also required to pay an indemnity of $333 million for damages inflicted by the Boxers, including $25 million for damages to U.S. property.

In 1842, near the end of the Opium War, Shanghai's garrison surrendered to the British fleet. From that point until 1949 the city developed largely as an enclave for Western commercial interests in China. Lying off the sea and just upstream from the Yangtse-a river that could be navigated several hundred miles into the interior on oceangoing vessels-Shanghai provided a gateway to a vast internal market. Each of the major foreign powers claimed a section of the city. Residents of these infamous "international concessions were exempt from the laws of China, and Chinese were subjected to the added humiliation of being barred from free access to large portions of their own territory. Shanghai soon surpassed Guangzhou as China's most important foreign trade center. Numerous traders and speculators-French, US, and Japanese-soon joined the British. By 1936, the Western population of Shanghai numbered 60,000.