The Boxer Rebellion: Chinese 'Fists' Against European Imperialism

When a ragtag group of poor Northern Chinese first began an anti-foreigner rebellion by killing isolated Christian missionaries, few people either in or outside of China cared. It was 1900, and China's rulers had their own problems, watching helplessly as European and other foreign imperialists competed for commercial, military, and political concessions in China and Western missionaries--many from America's Midwest--competed for souls. While China boasted a proud history, and a population of 300 million in 1900--more than three times that of the United States and six times that of the largest western European nation (Germany)--centuries of isolationism had weakened her militarily. In the 19th century, European military strength made this dismayingly clear. Britain took over Hong Kong after defeating China in the first Opium War of 1842, in which the Chinese were forced to accept the sale of opium. After winning the second Opium War in 1860, the Western powers imposed a permanent diplomatic presence in Peking (modern Beijing) and Christian missionaries pushed deep within China. In 1895, the Chinese suffered a disastrous defeat by the newly modernized Japan. By the turn of the century the Europeans and Americans were busily divvying up territories and trading rights, while the Chinese rulers could do nothing more than weakly protest the "tiger-like voracity" of the foreign powers. The Western diplomats and evangelicals in China made little effort to try to understand or appreciate their unwilling hosts. Unsurprisingly, they were caught off-guard by the rise of the Boxers, a secret society that appeared in 1900, embracing a strange but powerful combination of religion, magic, martial arts, and strong anti-foreign rhetoric. The "Fists of Righteous Harmony" (nicknamed "Boxers" by Westerners for their physical exercises) were disorganized and lacked a central leader, but they had a simple, violent goal: to rid China of its ever-increasing foreign influence. Strengthened by an unwavering belief in their own invulnerability, they led a deadly movement against the complacent Westerners and the Chinese Christians.