The Boxer Rebellion

Following the Opium Wars and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, China’s ruling Qing Dynasty had been forced to accept broad foreign control by Western powers and Japan, and while China fought to resist these outside colonialists, the country suffered millions of casualties due to its lack of a modern military capable of warding off outside interests.

Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists

In response to foreign oppression, a secret Chinese movement known as the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists began to attack foreigners, as well as local Chinese who had converted to Christianity. The group performed martial arts rituals under the belief that their daily calisthenics could ward off bullets and physical assaults, prompting Westerners to refer to them as shadow boxers, which led to the Boxer’s enduring nickname.

What Was the Boxer Rebellion?

Many Boxers were peasants from famine and flood-ravaged Shandong Province, who blamed the region’s bad luck and poverty on their greedy Western overlords. When the Boxer Rebellion spread to Beijing in 1900, Boxers killed foreign diplomats and Christian missionaries, destroying churches, railroad stations and private property. On June the 20th, the Boxers laid siege to Beijing’s foreign district, prompting Qing Empress Dowager Cixi to declare war on all foreign countries with diplomatic ties to China.

In response, an eight-nation force of some 20,000 troops fought their way across northern China, reaching Beijing on August 14th to formally crush the rebellion. Once the Boxer Rebellion was put down, conservative estimates place the death toll at several hundred foreigners and several thousand Chinese Christians.

The Boxer Rebellion officially ended with the signing of the Boxer Protocol on September 7th, 1901, which called for the destruction of military fortifications surrounding Beijing, as well as formal punishment of government officials who took part in the uprising. Prohibited from importing arms for the next two years, China was forced to pay $330 million in reparations to the foreign powers that ended the rebellion, so weakening the Qing Dynasty that it came to an end in 1912, after a second uprising in 1911.

The United States and several other participating nations returned their portions of the reparations paid to them by China, on the condition that the funds would be used to create a university in Beijing.