Juye Incident
The Juye Incident refers to the events of November 1, 1897, when a band of twenty to thirty armed men broke into a Catholic missionary compound in Juye County (Shandong province, China) and killed Richard Henle and Francis Xavier Nies, two German missionaries of the Society of the Divine Word.[1] A few days later, Germany took these murders as a pretext to seize Jiaozhou Bay on Shandong's southern coast, triggering a "scramble for concessions" during which Russia, Britain, France, and Japan also secured their own sphere of influence in different regions of China.[2] Under threats from Germany, the government of the Qing dynasty was also forced to remove many Shandong officials from their post (including governor Li Bingheng) and to build three Catholic churches in the area at its own expense.[3] The mission that had been attacked also received 3,000 taels of silver in compensation for stolen or damaged property, and received the right to construct seven fortified residences in the area, also at government expenses.[4] This settlement strengthened missionary work in Shandong province and was part of the events that led to the Boxer Uprising (1899–1900), a movement directed against the Christian and foreign presence in northern China.[5]
Historian Paul Cohen has called the Juye incident "the opening wedge in a process of greatly intensified imperialist activity in China,"[6] whereas Joseph W. Esherick comments that the Juye killings "set off a chain of events which radically altered the course of Chinese history."[7]
Notes
- ^ Esherick 1987, p. 123.
- ^ Esherick 1987, pp. 129-30.
- ^ Esherick 1987, p. 131.
- ^ Tiedemann 2007a, pp. 27-28.
- ^ Esherick 1987, pp. 134-35; Cohen 1997, p. 21.
- ^ Cohen 1997, p. 21.
- ^ Esherick 1987, p. 123.
Bibliography
- Cohen, Paul (1997), History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth, New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-10651-3.
- Esherick, Joseph W. (1987), The Origins of the Boxer Uprising, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-06459-3.
- Tiedemann, Robert G. (2007a), "The Church Militant: Armed Conflicts between Christians and Boxers in North China", in Robert Bickers and R.G. Tiedemann (eds.) (ed.), The Boxers, China, and the World, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 17–41, ISBN 978-0-7425-5395-8
{{citation}}:|editor-last=has generic name (help).
Further reading
- Tiedemann, R. G. (2007b). "Not Every Martyr is a Saint! The Juye Missionary Case of 1897 Reconsidered." In Noel Golvers and Sara Lievens (eds.), A lifelong dedication to the China mission: essays presented in honor of Father Jeroom Heyndrickx, CICM, on the occasion of his 75th birthday and the 25th anniversary of the F. Verbiest Institute, K.U. Leuven. Leuven Chinese studies, 17. Leuven, Belgium: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute, K.U. Leuven. ISBN 978-90-801833-8-4, ISBN 90-801833-8-5.
