The "China Martyrs of 1900" is a term used by some Protestant Christians to refer to American and European missionaries and converts who were murdered during the Boxer Rebellion, when Boxers carried out violent attacks targeting Christians and foreigners in northern China.
At least 189 Protestant missionaries and 500 native Chinese Protestant Christians were murdered in 1900 alone. [1] Though some missionaries considered themselves non-denominationally Protestant, among those killed were Baptists, Evangelical, [2] Anglicans, Lutherans, [3] [ unreliable source? ] Methodists, [4] Presbyterians [5] and Plymouth Brethren.
The murder of eleven Anglican missionaries and their children on August 1, 1895 in Huashan, Fujian Province foreshadowed the devastation. [6] Foreigners, their religion, and spiritual disruptions associated with new railroad and telegraph lines were all blamed for the unusually severe flooding of the Yellow River annually since 1896, as well as the Yangtze River's flooding in 1898, and drought across north China in the spring of 1900—all of which led to famine and ultimately violence. Chinese also vehemently objected to foreign political interference (having lost the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895), the opium trade, and economic manipulations against Chinese interests.
The China Inland Mission, which lost 58 adult missionaries and 21 children in 1900, had the highest losses of any missionary agency that year. Several died in the Taiyuan Massacre; Catholic and Baptist missionaries were also decapitated in the Shanxi Province's capitol on July 9 and 11 after travelling there under the governor's orders and nominal guarantees of protection. In 1901, when the allied nations demanded compensation from the Chinese government, Hudson Taylor, a British Protestant Christian missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM) (later Overseas Missionary Fellowship, now OMF International), refused to accept payment for loss of property or life in order to demonstrate the meekness of Christ to the Chinese. [7] The funds instead went to found the Shansi Imperial University, whose first chancellor was the Baptist missionary Timothy Richard. other reparations founded Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The Christian and Missionary Alliance lost 36 people in its North China missions in 1900, including 21 missionaries, 12 children and three Chinese Christian assistants. [8] [ unreliable source? ]
Seventy American missionaries (including spouses and children) and a large number of British missionaries took refuge in the British legation in Beijing during the Siege of the International Legations. All of them survived the siege, although British missionary, Joseph Stonehouse, was killed in the aftermath of the siege, the last missionary to die in the Boxer Rebellion. [9]
The decapitation of missionary and Yale graduate Horace Tracy Pitkin in Baoding [10] led to the founding of the Yale China Mission, the papers of which remain a significant research source concerning early 20th century Chinese history. [11] Another large collection of missionary papers is in London. [12]
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists. The group was known as "Boxers" in English because many of its members practised Chinese martial arts, which at the time were referred to as "Chinese boxing". It was defeated by the Eight-Nation Alliance of foreign powers.
James Hudson Taylor was a British Baptist Christian missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission. Taylor spent 54 years in China. The society that he began was responsible for bringing over 800 missionaries to the country who started 125 schools and directly resulted in 20,000 Christian conversions, as well as the establishment of more than 300 stations of work with more than 499 local helpers in all 18 provinces.
OMF International is an international and interdenominational Evangelical Christian missionary society with an international centre in Singapore. It was founded in Britain by Hudson Taylor on 25 June 1865.
Marshall B. Broomhall, was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China with the China Inland Mission. He also authored many books on the subject of Chinese missionary work. He was the most famous son of the anti-opium trade activist and General Secretary of the CIM Benjamin Broomhall and Amelia Hudson Taylor. Thus he was also the nephew of the founder of the mission, James Hudson Taylor.
Arthur Henderson Smith was a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions noted for spending 54 years as a missionary in China and writing books which presented China to foreign readers. These books include Chinese Characteristics, Village Life in China and The Uplift of China. In the 1920s, Chinese Characteristics was still the most widely read book on China among foreign residents there.
Chinese Martyrs is the name given to a number of members of the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church who were killed in China during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They are celebrated as martyrs by their respective churches. Most were Chinese laity, but others were missionaries from various other countries; many of them died during the Boxer Rebellion.
In the early 19th century, Western colonial expansion occurred at the same time as an evangelical revival – the Second Great Awakening – throughout the English-speaking world, leading to more overseas missionary activity. The nineteenth century became known as the Great Century of modern religious missions.
The Battle of Peking, or historically the Relief of Peking, was the battle fought on 14–15 August 1900 in Peking, in which the Eight-Nation Alliance relieved the siege of the Peking Legation Quarter during the Boxer Rebellion. From 20 June 1900, Boxers and Imperial Chinese Army troops had besieged foreign diplomats, citizens and soldiers within the legations of Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain and the United States.
The Sheo Yang Mission was a Protestant Christian missionary society that was involved in sending workers to China during the late Qing dynasty. It was founded by the Pigott family in 1892, they had previously been members of the China Inland Mission (CIM). The mission was destroyed and most members murdered in 1900, the work continued through the Baptist Missionary Society.
Archibald Edward Glover (1859–1954) was a British Protestant Christian missionary in China. He served with the China Inland Mission from 1896 to 1900, when he returned to England with his two children after his wife and youngest daughter died during their flight from the Boxer Rebellion.
The Taiyuan massacre took place during the Boxer Rebellion, July 9, 1900, in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, North China. Sources recall that they were killed in the presence of Yuxian, governor of Shanxi. 44 people were killed including children.
The siege of the International Legations occurred in 1900 in Peking, the capital of the Qing Empire, during the Boxer Rebellion and led to the deaths of approximately 2500 Chinese people by western soldiers. Threatened by the Boxers—an anti-Christian, anti-foreign peasant movement—900 soldiers, sailors, marines, and civilians, largely from Europe, Japan, and the United States, and about 2,800 Chinese Christians took refuge in the Peking Legation Quarter. The Qing government took the side of the Boxers after the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Tianjin at the Battle of the Taku Forts (1900), without a formal declaration of war. The foreigners and Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter survived a 55-day siege by the Qing Army and Boxers. The siege was broken by an international military force, which marched from the coast of China, defeated the Qing Army, and occupied Peking.
Francis Dunlap Gamewell was a Methodist missionary in China. He was the chief of the Fortifications Committee in the Siege of the Legations during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and was acclaimed as one of the heroes of the siege.
Francis Huberty James or in Chinese:Xiu Yaochun 秀耀春 was a British Christian Missionary who went to China in 1876 as part of the China Inland Mission (CIM) founded by J. Hudson Taylor (1832–1905).
The Oberlin Band was a group of Christian missionaries in China from Oberlin College in Ohio. Members of the Oberlin Band worked in Shanxi province from 1882 until 1900. During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, the 15 missionary men, women, and children of the Oberlin Band were among the foreign missionaries executed by order of the provincial government or killed by Boxers and soldiers.
Thomas Torrance (1871–1959) was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and Protestant missionary to China. He was first sent there by the China Inland Mission (CIM), and later by The American Bible Society. He married Annie Elizabeth Sharp (1883–1980) of the CIM in 1911. He was the father of the 20th century theologian, Thomas F. Torrance.
Horace Tracy Pitkin (1869–1900) was a missionary in China of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Chinese Boxers killed him during the Boxer Uprising in 1900. Yale China Mission,, was founded in his memory.
The Protestant mission began in the Chinese province of Sichuan in 1877, when premises were rented by the China Inland Mission in Chungking. However, it grew rather slowly, it was not until the late 1980s that Protestantism experienced rapid growth. The two largest denominations in the province before 1949 were Anglicanism and Methodism.
The history of Baptist Christianity in Sichuan began in 1890 when missionaries began arriving from the United States. Baptist missionaries in Sichuan were organized under the American Baptist Missionary Union, later renamed American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Missionary activity in China generated controversy among many native Chinese and faced armed opposition during both the Boxer Rebellion and the later Communist movement in China. Although the former did not affect Sichuan so much as some other parts of China, the province was one of the hotbeds of anti-missionary riots throughout its ecclesiastical history.
Ecumenical Missionary Conference in Carnegie Hall, New York (162 mission boards represented); 189 missionaries and their children killed in Boxer Rebellion in China