Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
6
THE BOXER UPRISING
At the dawn of the twentieth century a xenophobic and superstitious
popular movement was sweeping through northern and central
China. Known in English as the Boxer Rebellion or the Boxer Uprising
and initially in Chinese as yihequan (more or less Righteous and
Harmonious Fists), by the summer of 1900 its followers had surrounded
foreign legations in Peking and were poised for the wholesale slaughter
offoreigndiplomats,businessmen,andmissionaries.TheBoxers,as
they were called by Westerners, were practitioners of traditional
Chinese martial arts who sought to eliminate foreigners and foreign
influence in China. The movement was quelled in August 1900 when
an allied force of almost 20,000 troops from several Western nations
and Japan arrived in Peking and put the Boxers to flight, but not before
231 foreigners in several areas of northern China had been killed by the
insurgents, including two medical missionaries educated at Princeton.
The subsequent Boxer Indemnity, which became an enormous burden
for the Qing dynasty, proved to be one of the factors that led to its
overthrow in 1911.
