Religion and History in the Boxer Uprising

The Yihetuan, the Militia United in Righteousness, grew out of North China's village martial arts and spirit possession societies, whose members believed ritual trance and boxing exercises could make them invulnerable to bullets. Through 1898 and 1899 these societies turned their anger on Christian missions and Chinese converts across Shandong and Zhili provinces, blaming missionaries' legal privileges and the churches' interference in local disputes for the province's economic hardship. By the summer of 1900 the movement had grown large enough, and gained enough sympathy at the Qing imperial court, that the Empress Dowager Cixi's government joined it in declaring war on the foreign powers.

What followed was the Boxers' most famous episode: a fifty five day siege of the foreign legations in Beijing, where diplomats, missionaries and Chinese Christian refugees held out until an international relief force, the Eight Nation Alliance, fought its way into the city in August 1900. The alliance's occupation was followed by extensive reprisal killing and looting across the countryside. The war ended formally with the Boxer Protocol of September 1901, which fined the Qing government a massive indemnity and permitted foreign troops to remain garrisoned in the capital, terms that shaped Chinese politics for the following decade.