Taiyuan massacre | |
---|---|
Part of Boxer Rebellion | |
Location | Taiyuan, Shanxi province, North China |
Date | July 9, 1900 |
Target | Foreigners, Christians |
Attack type | Massacre |
Deaths | 45 Christian men, women and children |
Victims | Christians |
Perpetrators | Disputed |
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.
By the late 19th century, there were long-established Christian communities. Catholic missionaries first came to Shanxi in 1633, and Protestant churches were established in 1865. [1]
Protestant and Catholic missionaries and their Chinese parishioners were massacred throughout northern China, some by Boxers and others by government troops and authorities. After the declaration of war on Western powers in June 1900, Yuxian, who had been named governor in March, implemented a brutal anti-foreign and anti-Christian policy. On 9 July, reports circulated that he had executed forty-four foreigners (including women and children) from missionary families whom he had invited to the provincial capital Taiyuan under the promise to protect them. [2] [3] By the summer's end, more foreigners and as many as 2,000 Chinese Christians had been put to death in the province. Journalist and historical writer Nat Brandt called the massacre of Christians in Shanxi "the greatest single tragedy in the history of Christian evangelicalism." [4]
The two most prominent murdered Catholics were Italian bishops Gregory Grassi (born 1833) and Francis Fogolla (born 1839), both of whom were canonised Saints by Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000. Their companions of martyrdom were three other Franciscan friars, seven Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, 11 Chinese members of the Third Order of St. Francis — of whom six were seminarians — and three Chinese employees of the Franciscan mission of Taiyuan in the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Shansi. [5]
An essay by Roger Thompson suggested that mob violence was responsible for the massacre, rather than Yuxian, on the basis that the most widely circulated accounts were by people who could not have seen the events and that these accounts appeared to follow earlier martyr literature. [6] However, another study found that the various accounts from the time appeared to agree on the otherwise skeletal narrative. [1] In any case, this event became a notorious symbol of Chinese anger. [6]
The Shansi Imperial University at Taiyuan was founded in 1901 with funds from the indemnity levied against Shansi for the massacre of the Christians by the Boxers. [7] During the first decade of the university its chancellor was the Baptist missionary Timothy Richard who also headed the Western College.
The Catholics murdered in the massacre were subsequently canonized by Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000 as part of the 120 Martyrs of China.
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, known as the "Boxers" in English because many of its members had practised Chinese martial arts, which at the time were referred to as "Chinese boxing".
Shanxi University is a public university located in the city of Taiyuan, Shanxi province, China. The university was selected into the Double First Class University Plan in February 2022.
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.
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.
The Martyr Saints of China, or Augustine Zhao Rong and his Companions, are 120 saints of the Catholic Church. The 87 Chinese Catholics and 33 Western missionaries from the mid-17th century to 1930 were martyred because of their ministry and, in some cases, for their refusal to apostatize.
Gregory Mary Grassi, O.F.M., was an Italian Franciscan friar and bishop who is honored as a Catholic martyr and saint.
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.
The Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879 was marked by drought-induced crop failures and subsequent widespread starvation. Between 9.5 and 13 million people in China died, mostly in Shanxi province, but also in Zhili, Henan and Shandong. The population reduction in censuses, which include famine migration, shows a drop of 23 million people, among which Shanxi lost 48%, Shaanxi lost 25%, Henan lost 22%. The drought began in 1875 and was influenced by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
Yuxian (1842–1901) was a Manchu high official of the Qing dynasty who played an important role in the violent anti-foreign and anti-Christian Boxer Rebellion, which unfolded in northern China from the fall of 1899 to 1901. He was a local official who rose quickly from prefect of Caozhou to judicial commissioner and eventually governor of Shandong province. Dismissed from that post because of foreign pressure, he was soon named governor of Shanxi province. At the height of the Boxer crisis, as Allied armies invaded China in July 1900, he invited a group of 45 Christians and American missionaries to the provincial capital, Taiyuan, saying he would protect them from the Boxers. Instead, they were all killed. Foreigners, blaming Yuxian for what they called the Taiyuan Massacre, labeled him the "Butcher of Shan-hsi [Shanxi]".
The Juye Incident refers to the killing of two German Catholic missionaries, Richard Henle and Franz Xaver Nies, of the Society of the Divine Word, in Juye County Shandong Province, China in the night of 1–2 November 1897. A third missionary, Georg Maria Stenz, survived the attack unharmed.
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.
Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association, situated on the campus of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, is an independent non-profit organization whose goal is "to promote understanding and communication between Asians and Americans. This is accomplished through individual and group educational and social programs, educational and cultural exchanges, and community projects." Founded in January 1908, the original purpose was to memorialize the members of the Oberlin Band who were killed in Shansi province, China, during the Boxer Uprising in 1900. Beginning in 1918, the Oberlin student body elected graduating students as Representatives to teach English and support extracurricular activities at the Ming Hsien School in Taigu, Shansi. This tradition was interrupted at the time of the Korean War in 1951 but resumed in 1980. Today the Association, in association with Oberlin College maintains partner sites in Japan, Indonesia, India, and China, as well as hosting scholars and artists from the partner countries to the Oberlin College campus.
Horace Tracy Pitkin (1869–1900) was a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions who was killed in China during the Boxer Uprising in 1900. Yale China Mission,, was founded in his memory.
Anthony Eugene Clark is an American Sinologist, historian, and writer who has authored dozens of books, articles, and other publications in the fields of Sino-Western, Sino-Missionary, and ancient Chinese history. He is the Edward B. Lindaman Endowed Chair and a professor of Chinese history at Whitworth University. He previously taught courses on Chinese history, culture, and literature at the University of Oregon and The University of Alabama. His most widely read books are China's Saints: Catholic Martyrdom during the Qing, Heaven in Conflict: Franciscans and the Boxer Uprising in Shanxi, and China Gothic: The Bishop of Beijing and His Cathedral, which includes a foreword by the architectural historian, Leland M. Roth. Clark's major interest is late-imperial China, especially the final decades of the Qing dynasty, and the intellectual and religious relations between China and the West. Clark resides with his wife, Amanda, in Spokane, Washington.
Marie of Saint Just, born Anne-Françoise Moreau was a French nun in the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. She was one of the 120 Martyrs of China. She died in the province of Shanxi..
Marie of Saint Natalie, born Jeanne-Marie Guerguin was one of the 120 Martyrs of China.
Saint Marie-Hermine of Jesus was a French nun and Mother Superior who died for her faith in China during the Boxer Rebellion and was canonised in 2000. She and six other nuns had gone to China to create a small hospital and to staff an orphanage. She is one of the group known as the Martyr Saints of China who were canonised by Pope John Paul II 1 October 2000.
Saint Maria Chiara Nanetti or Mary Clare was an Italian religious sister who died for her faith in China during the Boxer Rebellion and was canonised in 2000. She is one of the group known as the Martyr Saints of China who were canonised by Pope John Paul II 1 October 2000.
Saint Marie de la Paix Giuliani was an Italian religious sister who died for her faith in China during the Boxer Rebellion and was canonised in 2000. She is one of the group known as the Martyr Saints of China who were canonised by Pope John Paul II 1 October 2000.
Francesco Fogolla, known in Chinese as Fu Zhujiao, was an Italian missionary prelate belonging to the Order of Friars Minor. On 28 June 1898, Fogolla was appointed titular bishop of Bageis and coadjutor bishop of Northern Shanxi, China. Fogolla was killed at the Taiyuan Massacre of 9 July 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion. He is considered a martyr by the Catholic Church and is venerated as a saint.