Boxer Rebellion

The Boxer Rebellion, or Boxer Uprising, was an anti-foreign and anti-Christian movement in northern China between 1899 and 1901. Its followers, called Boxers by Westerners because of their martial-arts rituals, killed missionaries and thousands of Chinese Christians and in the summer of 1900 besieged the foreign legations in Beijing with the backing of the Qing dynasty court. An international force of eight powers relieved the siege and occupied the capital, and the Boxer Protocol of 1901 imposed a crushing indemnity on China.

After China's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, the foreign powers competed for leases, railway rights and spheres of influence. Germany seized the port of Qingdao in Shandong in 1897 after two German missionaries were killed, and Russia, Britain and France obtained leases elsewhere. Christian missions, protected by the unequal treaties, often intervened in local disputes on behalf of converts, causing resentment among villagers. In 1898 northern China also suffered floods on the Yellow River followed by severe drought, which many blamed on foreigners and Christians.

The movement called itself the Yihequan, the Fists of Righteousness and Harmony, and later the Yihetuan, or militia. It drew on secret societies and popular religion in Shandong, mainly among poor farmers and young men. Members practised rituals they believed made them invulnerable to bullets. Whether the movement was ever hostile to the ruling dynasty is debated by historians, but the Boxers adopted the slogan "Support the Qing, destroy the foreigners". From 1899 they spread across Shandong and Zhili, the province around Beijing, attacking churches, missionaries and converts, and tearing up railways and telegraph lines.

The Qing court was divided over whether to suppress the Boxers or use them against the foreigners. In June 1900 large numbers entered Beijing and Tianjin. An international relief column under the British admiral Edward Seymour was forced back. When foreign forces seized the Dagu forts near Tianjin on 17 June, Empress Dowager Cixi sided with the Boxers, and on 21 June the court issued what amounted to a declaration of war on the foreign powers. The German minister, Clemens von Ketteler, had been killed in the street the day before.

For 55 days, some 900 foreigners and around 3,000 Chinese Christians held out in Beijing's Legation Quarter against Boxers and imperial troops, while a separate group sheltered in the Beitang, the Catholic cathedral. Across northern China, Boxers and some officials killed more than 200 foreign missionaries and family members and many thousands of Chinese Christians; estimates for Chinese Christians killed run to more than 30,000. Several governors in the south and east refused to follow the court and kept their provinces out of the war.

An Eight-Nation Alliance of troops from Japan, Russia, Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary captured Tianjin in July and reached Beijing on 14 August 1900, lifting the siege. Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor fled to Xi'an. Foreign troops looted the capital, and punitive expeditions over the following months killed many Chinese, including civilians suspected of supporting the Boxers. Russia, meanwhile, occupied Manchuria with a large army.

The Boxer Protocol, signed on 7 September 1901, required the execution or punishment of officials who had supported the Boxers, the stationing of foreign troops in Beijing and along the route to the sea, and an indemnity of 450 million taels of silver, payable with interest over 39 years. The United States and other powers later diverted part of their shares to education, including scholarships for Chinese students.

The disaster convinced the Qing court to adopt reforms, including abolishing the traditional civil service examinations in 1905. But its prestige never recovered, and revolutionary movements grew, leading to the 1911 Revolution and the end of the dynasty. Russia's refusal to withdraw from Manchuria contributed to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905.

Our 1900 map shows the Qing empire, with Russian territory to the north, at the time of the uprising.