Boxer Rebellion

The long lineage of the Boxers went back to traditional underground political-religious organizations such as the Eight Trigrams sect and the White Lotus Society. But mobilization of masses of traditional fighters against well-equipped foreign forces was something new—ultimately a consequence of the empress dowager's success in ending the "hundred days' reform" of 1898 by placing its patron, the young Kuang-hs&udie; emperor, under house arrest. By halting this reform, she prevented China from rapidly acquiring the modern institutions and armaments required to deal with foreigners on their own terms. Therefore she and her supporters at court had to turn to traditional means to confront mounting foreign pressure for territorial and other concessions.

The Boxers, who were strongest in the capital region and Shantung, had initially called for overthrow of the Ch'ing, which they considered an alien dynasty, and restoration of the Ming; court patronage, however, which was hastened by reports of the Boxers' immunity to bullets, led the Boxers to support the Ch'ing and concentrate on expulsion of foreigners. Their attacks began in 1899 and included the murders of foreign missionaries, numerous Chinese Christians, the chancellor of the Japanese legation, and the German minister, as well as the destruction of railways, churches, and other "foreign" structures. With support from regular Ch'ing troops, Tientsin was captured and the Legation Quarter in Peking besieged in the summer of 1900. Seven powers dispatched a relief force some 18,000 strong: the largest detachment was Japan's (8,000); the smallest, Italy's (53). They quickly drove the Ch'ing forces from Tientsin; in Peking they relieved the legations, freed the foreigners, and systematically sacked the Chinese capital (from which the court had fled). Russia took the opportunity to occupy Manchuria, which foreshadowed war with Japan four years later (see Russo-Japanese War). Hostilities with China remained limited to the north, however, because of the neutrality and reassurances of the viceroys of the south, as well as the decision of the commander of Chinese besieging troops not to overrun Peking's Legation Quarter, as he could have.

The punitive Boxer Protocol of 1901 required execution of ten high officials and punishment of a hundred others, as well as destruction of Chinese fortifications and demilitarization of railways in the Peking region; it established a system of foreign garrisons, reaffirmed foreign privileges and immunities, and imposed a massive indemnity of 67.5 million pounds sterling, whose payments stretched to 1940. Foreign diplomats considered the Boxer Protocol the capstone of the "Treaty System," which had regulated China's international relations since the mid-nineteenth century. But for Chinese nationalists, this most onerous of the "Unequal Treaties" was as hateful as was the Treaty of Versailles in interwar Germany. The United States' indemnity share was devoted to an educational fund; payment to other powers was suspended in 1917 when China joined the Allies in World War I, and it never resumed.

Arthur Waldron

The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.