Kucheng Massacre
Encyclopedia
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
of Western Christians that took place at Gutian
Gutian County
Gutian County , also known as Edible Mushroom County, is a county lying in the southwest of Ningde, Fujian province, China. It is also known as "the town of the former worthy", as Zhuxi, a famous Chinese scholar once lived there...
, Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
, China on August 1, 1895. At dawn of that day, a Buddhist group, the Zhaijiao
Zhaijiao
The zhaijiao are informal Buddhist societies that became extremely popular in Taiwan under Japanese rule, albeit prominent throughout the Qing dynasty....
attacked British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
missionaries who were then taking summer holidays at Gutian Huashan, killing eleven people and destroying two houses. Kucheng Massacre is considered one of the worst attacks against foreigners in China prior to the Boxer Movement in 1899-1901, the only comparable event in China's missonary history
Christianity in China
Christianity in China is a growing minority religion that comprises Protestants , Catholics , and a small number of Orthodox Christians. Although its lineage in China is not as ancient as the institutional religions of Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism, and the social system and ideology of...
being the Tianjin Massacre
Tianjin Massacre
The Tianjin Religious Case , more commonly known as the Tientsin Massacre in Western sources, occurred in Tientsin in 1870. It is considered to be one of the most important incidents involving missionaries in the late Qing Dynasty...
in 1871.
Background
Zhaijiao
The zhaijiao are informal Buddhist societies that became extremely popular in Taiwan under Japanese rule, albeit prominent throughout the Qing dynasty....
("vegetarian school", so called because their followers took vows of vegetarianism) began assuming the functions of government due to the decrepit condition of Qing dynasty government in the Gutian region. They resolved disputes between villagers, banned opium, and ended the local practice of selling wives to multiple husbands
Polyandry
Polyandry refers to a form of marriage in which a woman has two or more husbands at the same time. The form of polyandry in which a woman is married to two or more brothers is known as "fraternal polyandry", and it is believed by many anthropologists to be the most frequently encountered...
. Gutian police decided not to intervene in this displacement of the functions of government. Christian missionaries were unhappy with these circumstances and asked the provincial officials to send in their own troops. In response, Zhaijiao leaders decided to defend their rebellion with violence. The last letter from the murdered English missionary Robert Warren Stewart
Robert Warren Stewart
Rev. Robert Warren Stewart was an Irish missionary of the Church Missionary Society, London, stationed in Foochow, China.-Life:Robert Warren Stewart was born in March 1850 in Dublin. He was educated at Marlborough School and at Trinity College, Dublin...
, dated April 8, describes the critical situation of affairs at Gutian:
Events
On August 1, 1895, at the time of the initial outbreak, the family of Robert W. Stewart and the other ladies were still asleep in their hill village at Gutian Huashan (华山). The Vegetarian mob then broke in, speared the victims to death, and burnt down the houses. Only five persons survived the attack, two of whom were Mr. Stewart's children: one had one knee broken, and the other, a baby, had an eye gouged out. Those murdered at Huashan were:| Robert Warren Stewart Robert Warren Stewart Rev. Robert Warren Stewart was an Irish missionary of the Church Missionary Society, London, stationed in Foochow, China.-Life:Robert Warren Stewart was born in March 1850 in Dublin. He was educated at Marlborough School and at Trinity College, Dublin... |
Ireland Ireland Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth... |
Church Missionary Society |
| Louisa Kathleen Stewart | Ireland | Church Missionary Society |
| Herbert Stewart | Ireland | (five years old) |
| Hilda Sylvia Stewart | Ireland | (baby) |
| Helena Yellop | Ireland | (children's nurse) |
| Marry Ann Christina Gordon | Australia Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area... |
Church of England Zenana Missionary Society |
| Elsie Marshall | England England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental... |
Church of England Zenana Missionary Society |
| Hessie Newcombe | Ireland | Church of England Zenana Missionary Society |
| Elizabeth Maud Saunders | Australia | Church Missionary Society |
| Harriette Elinor Sounders | Australia | Church Missionary Society |
| Flora Lucy Stewart | England | Church of England Zenana Missionary Society |
Aftermath
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
on August 4. Western countries strongly condemned China for its connivance with the brutality and indignantly urged the guilty be punished. Under the pressure of foreign military force, the Qing government appointed a Commission of Enquiry consisting of both Chinese officials and British diplomats. All principals were soon executed, and other accessories were either banished or sentenced to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
. The supervisor of Gutian county Wang Rulin (王汝霖) was also dismissed from office.
Stephen Livingston Baldwin, Secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society in China, commented on the massacre in an interview from New York Times:
The newspapers also recommended that "Great Britain and the United States ... combine to teach the Chinese a lesson that will cause foreigners to be respected forever".
The bodies of the victims were buried at the mission cemetery
Foochow Mission Cemetery
Foochow Mission Cemetery was a Protestant cemetery once located on the north and south side of a hill at the west end of Maiyuan Road, Cangshan District, Fuzhou, China...
of Fuzhou
Fuzhou
Fuzhou is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian Province, People's Republic of China. Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute the Mindong linguistic and cultural area....
.
External links
- Robert and Louisa Stewart: In Life and in Death
- The Vegetarian Outrage of 1895
- Nellie, Topsy and Annie - Australian Anglican Martyrs, Fujian Province, China, 1 August 1895
- Kucheng Massacre - Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 10404, 5 September 1895, Page 2
- Graves of the Missionaries Murdered near Foochow