During the mid 18th century until 1900 the British Empire had subdued China and its monarchy and made half the population addicted to their opium! It was the Black or melanated Chinese that opposed them the most fervently and because of that they were almost all wiped out as the majority of the Boxer rebels were dark skinned Chinese peasants who were also the greatest martial arts masters also their were Africans who came to china as merchants. ambassadors and slaves and it was their ancestors who brought Montu and other fighting systems most notably the animal forms popularized by Shaolin monks to the east and throughout India. In 1902 a book was written about these freedom fighters that vilified them as much for their anti colonialism as their dark black and brown skins here is an excerpt from that book. Author: James Ricalton, wrote these words in 1902 In his 1902 book The Boxer Uprising, American photographer James Ricalton included the photo of several dozen men, who fought against the drug supplying foreigners many of them likely to be executed the next day for their part in the Boxer Rebellion.
Mr. Ricalton described the rebellion of fists and swords against British guns and cannons as a "bloody, anti-foreign and anti-Christian uprising that took place between 1899 and 1901"; the 2006 Jet Li film Fearless was inspired by events that took place in the aftermath of the rebellion. The same is also true of the 1971 Bruce Lee film Fist of Fury.
No actors in the aforementioned films — nor any other martial arts films set in pre-modern China — ever had actors resembling the non-Han Chinese mixed in above. About them, the racist Ricalton wrote: “This is truly a dusky (dark skinned) and unattractive brood. One would scarcely expect to find natives of Borneo or the Fiji Islands (Islands in the pacific with black skinned indigenous peoples) more barbarous in appearance; and it is well known that a great proportion of the Boxer organization is of this sort; indeed, how dark-skinned, how ill-clad, how lacking in intelligence, how dull, morose, miserable and vicious they appear!" Note these were people trying to free their country from foreigners who had set up opium dens in almost every city their crime was trying to stop the continued addiction of their fellow countrymen. It is interesting to note that many of these fighters were100% genetically East Asian but having dark skin. Skin color at that time in China had nothing to do with race.
A Closer Look
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and so-called anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists (Yìhéquán). The rebels were known as the "Boxers" in English because many of its members had practiced Chinese martial arts Wushu being the collective phrase for Chinese martial Arts, which at the time were also referred to as "Chinese boxing" or Kung Fu
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After the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, villagers in North China feared the expansion of foreign spheres of influence and resented the extension of privileges to Christian missionaries, who used them to shield their followers. In 1898 Northern China experienced several natural disasters, including the Yellow River flooding and droughts, which Boxers blamed on foreign and Christian influence. The 1642 Yellow River flood or Kaifeng flood was a man-made disaster in October, 1642, that principally affected Kaifeng and Xuzhou. By the mid-15th century, the Ming had completed restoration of the area's flood-control system and operated it with general success for over a century.
The 1642 flood, however, was not natural, but directed by the Ming governor of the city in the hopes of using the floodwaters to break the six-month siege the city had endured from the peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng. The people saw this flooding in 1898 as another attempt to quell the masses by causing death and destruction.In the past the dikes were burst in an attempt to flood the rebels, but the water destroyed Kaifeng ending a golden age of prosperity and eradicating the Jews of kaifeng who had brought lucrative trade to the region. Beginning in 1899, Boxers fought back and spread violence across Shandong and the North China Plain against the people who had disrespected them and ruined countless lives with their opium, destroying foreign property such as railroads carrying opium and opium parlors and attacking or murdering Christian missionaries and Chinese Christians. People were upset because it was the missionaries who helped open the door to the drug trade and offered the foreigners sanctuary as long as they were receiving compensation, so in effect they were silent partners. ‘Take away your opium, and your missionaries, and you will be welcome’ (Chinese Prince Kung to Sir Rutherford Alcock, British Minister in Beijing).
British demand for tea dwarfed Chinese demand for British goods so a balance-of-payment problem developed. Beijing required that exports be paid in silver; the British tea tab escalated to 3.6 million pounds of silver each year. Looking for a trading alternative to support the expensive demand for Chinese products, the British East India Company the same that had gained riches from Slavery in the Americas found something Chinese consumers wanted: opium. War ensued between two proud kingdoms – the Opium Wars of 1839–42 and 1856–60. Great Britain humiliated China then forced the Qing rulers to sign ‘Unequal Treaties’ that were just that. These treaties unlocked Beijing’s shackles on foreigners, known as the Canton-system. Western missionaries – complicit in the events encompassing these wars, began entering China in unprecedented numbers. The events of 1839–1860 battered the Chinese national psyche, they began to view westerners as poisoners and drug kingpins and they couldn't understand a religion that supported this evil and aided it like Christianity. To understand China and its church today we must explore the mutually beneficial connection between Christian missions and Western imperialism, which is rooted in this turbulent period.
The events came to a head in June 1900 when Boxer fighters, convinced they were invulnerable to foreign weapons, converged on Beijing with the slogan "Support the Qing government and exterminate the foreigners."
Diplomats, missionaries, soldiers and some Chinese Christians took refuge in the diplomatic Legation Quarter. An Eight Nation Alliance of American, Austro-Hungarian, British, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Russian troops moved into China to lift the siege and on 17 June stormed the Dagu Fort, at Tianjin. The Empress Dowager Cixi, who had initially been hesitant because of foreign pressure saw this as her only chance to free her people, now supported the Boxers and on 21 June, issued an Imperial Decree declaring war on the invading powers. Chinese officialdom was split between those supporting the Boxers and those favoring conciliation, led by Prince Qing. The supreme commander of the Chinese forces, the Manchu General Ronglu (Junglu), later claimed he acted to protect the foreigners. Officials in the southern provinces ignored the imperial order to fight against foreigners and their reluctance would doom the uprising.
The Eight-Nation Alliance, after initially being turned back by the Imperial Chinese military and Boxer militia, brought 20,000 armed troops to China. They defeated the Imperial Army in Tianjin and arrived in Beijing on 14 August, relieving the fifty-five day siege of the Legations. Plunder of the capital and the surrounding countryside ensued, along with summary execution of those suspected of being Boxers in retribution. The Boxer Protocol of 7 September 1901 provided for the execution of government officials who had supported the Boxers, provisions for foreign troops to be stationed in Beijing, and 450 million taels of silver— more than the government's annual tax revenue—to be paid as indemnity over the course of the next 39 years to the eight nations involved. The Qing dynasty's handling of the Boxer Rebellion further weakened their control over China, and led the dynasty to attempt major governmental reforms in the aftermath.: by 1905 there were 3,500
Western missionaries in China, up from 100 in 1860. The Unequal Treaties had pried China open. Few missionaries protested their means of access into China: lopsided wars and unfair treaties stemming from an addictive narcotic illegally smuggled into China. Daniel H Bays
notes: ‘It is striking how natural it was for missionaries to enlist themselves in a project that essentially made China a nation of addicts and forcing them eventually to turn to communism as a pathway to freedom.
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