Resistance and Revolution

EXPANSION IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE HIST 1301 | History Resistance and Revolution Everywhere colonists went, resistance movements and outright revolts emerged. African acts of resistance included the Mahdi's army's fight, Ethiopia's struggle with Italy, and the uprising of Egyptians who refused to surrender to European rule. More constrained uprisings occurred elsewhere in Africa; in the south, the Zulu and Matabele (Ndebele) tribes rebelled against British or Dutch rule. Asia and the Pacific region also saw resistance to foreign domination. Chinese people had strong feelings of animosity against foreigners living in their country at the end of the nineteenth century. Many Chinese artists have suffered as a result of the selling of produced items from abroad. Several porters, cart drivers, and ferriers had lost their jobs as a result of the imperialists' construction of railroads and bridges. Chinese law did not apply to foreigners. Among the most hated missionaries in the nation were Protestant and Catholic ones. They disrupted ancestor veneration ceremonies, and occasionally they caused family divisions when some members converted to Christianity while others did not. There were many rumours about the missionaries' orphanages. According to one story—which was undoubtedly influenced by the curiosity of foreigners about photography—missionaries would take in youngsters, murder them, and then use their eyes to create the material that would eventually record images on photographic plates. The club of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists is a secret club that was founded in northern China as a result of antiforeign feelings. The term "Boxers" was used by outsiders who observed the ceremonial drills that the participants thought rendered them bulletproof. By assassinating two German priests in 1899, the Boxers launched their campaign to expel foreigners from China. A wave of violence erupted in northern China as the Boxer Rebellion intensified. In addition to destroying foreign property and killing foreigners and Chinese Christians, boxers occasionally caused railway disruptions by removing steel rails from the ground. The Chinese army initially made an attempt to halt the Boxers. But in January 1900, the dowager empress Cixi said that the Boxers should not be prosecuted as criminals, believing that foreign armies had entered China to put an end to the revolt. Foreigners, terrified and in need of protection, poured into Beijing, but Cixi urged them to leave. They locked themselves inside the embassies in Beijing's foreign district, fearing for their lives. Then, Cixi vowed to support the Boxers and declared war on foreigners living in China. The Eight-Nation Alliance was quickly created by Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, and their forces hurried to Beijing. The immigrants gathered in terror and rationed their meals as they waited for relief. One woman remembered hearing agitated Boxers attempting to break through the wall of the building to get to the occupants. Following a 55-day siege, the international army came, scattering, killing, or capturing the Boxers. The affair came to an official conclusion when the Boxer Protocol was signed in September of 1901. For a period of two years, China was prohibited from importing weapons, while foreign governments were allowed to retain their own armed forces for defence. China also gave the Eight-Nation Alliance's members $330 million. Several Filipino tribes resisted American attempts to impose sovereignty over the Philippines after Spain bought it. Like the Cubans, middle-class Filipinos had also yearned for freedom from Spanish rule. Leaders of the independence movement such as Emilio Aguinaldo had anticipated that the United States would grant them freedom after Spain's defeat. Aguinaldo objected, saying, "My relations with the United States did not bring me... to make war on the Spaniards for their benefit, but for the purpose of our own liberty and independence," when President William McKinley declared in 1898 that the United States intended to rule the islands until the Filipinos were judged capable of ruling themselves. But conflict broke out because the US did not plan to give up sovereignty of the newly acquired region. The Filipinos turned to guerilla warfare when their attempts at conventional combat against the U.S. Army proved unsuccessful. Victims were tormented by both sides. American forces constructed concentration camps to house opposing Filipinos and set fire to communities in an effort to undermine both guerrilla combatants and civilians. Many died from contagious diseases, or starved to death. The United States launched a "policy of attraction" in 1900, offering both economic growth and some degree of selfgovernment. Rich and middle-class Filipinos, as well as those who disapproved of Aguinaldo's methods, supported the strategy. Aguinaldo was taken prisoner in 1901, and in 1903 the United States declared the war to be concluded. The Philippines did not become an independent nation for several decades. India reacted to British imperialism in a unique way. After the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 proved unsuccessful, middle-class Indians—particularly those with an education akin to that of the British—turned to political reform. They were dissatisfied, nevertheless, since a large portion of the British aristocracy believed that Indians were unqualified to rule themselves and that they would lose control of their most important colony. The Indian National Congress (INC) was established in 1885 by moderate nationalists with the goal of implementing political change. In particular, the INC wanted to eliminate all hurdles to Indian industrialization erected by the British and put a stop to discriminatory taxes. Nonetheless, not all Indian nationalists agreed with the moderate stance. Bal Gangadhar Tilak declared in his publication that Indians had the right to slaughter British colonists and demanded that Britain grant them freedom right now. He declared, "Swaraj (self-rule) is my birthright and I shall have it." Acts of anti-British terrorism were carried out when the British divided the province of Bengal in 1905, resulting in Bengali Hindus becoming a minority population inside the new divisions. The INC encouraged a boycott of British-made commodities and government schools. When a new secretary of state for India was named, someone they thought was friendly, INC president Gopal Krishna Gokhale and other moderate members appealed for the boycott to halt, fearing a radical shift would damage their cause. However, the Swadeshi movement—headed by Indian lawyer and political activist Mohandas Gandhi—which urged Indians to exclusively buy things created in India—persisted. As a result of Tilak's support for the Swadeshi movement, the INC split in two in 1907, with radical members siding with Tilak, Lala Lajput Rai, and Bipin Chandra Pal.