Panthay Rebellion
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The Panthay Rebellion (known in Chinese as the Du Wenxiu Qiyi 杜文秀起义, 1856–1873) was a separatist movement of the Hui people and Chinese Muslims, against the imperial Qing Dynasty in southwestern Yunnan Province, China, as part of a wave of Hui-led multi-ethnic unrest.
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[edit] Causes
Between 1648 and 1878, more than twelve million Hui and Uyghur Muslims were killed in ten unsuccessful uprisings against the Qing Dynasty.[1] The unfavorable discrimination with which the Hui were treated by the Han and by the imperial administration was at the root of their rebellions. The Panthay Rebellion began out of a conflict between Han and Muslim tin miners in 1853, which degenerated into rebellion. In the following year, a massacre of Muslims was organized by the Qing officials responsible for suppressing the revolt. One of the leaders of the insurrection was Ma Dexin. Anxious to increase his own influence, Ma Dexin finally agreed to submit to the Qing in 1861.[2] He was succeeded by a man called Du Wenxiu (杜文秀; pinyin: Dù Wénxiù) (1823–1872), an ethnic Hui born in Yongcheng.
Starting from 1855 the Muslim majority of Yunnan had risen against the oppression to which they were subjected by the mandarins. They rose against the tyranny and extortion universally practiced by this official class, from which they were excluded. The mandarins had secretly hounded mobs on to the rich Panthays, provoked anti-Muslim riots and instigated destruction of their mosques.[3] The religious hatred of the Panthays was thus aroused. The widespread Muslim desire for revenge for insults to their religion led to a universal and well-planned rising.
[edit] Course of the war
The rebellion started as a local uprising. It was sparked off by the Panthay laborers of the silver mines of Li'nanxian village in Yunnan who rose up against the Chinese. The Chinese Governor of Yunnan sent an urgent appeal to the central government in Beijing. The Panthays, under the able leadership of Tu Wenxiu or Dowinsheow, and driven by the intensity of their feelings and the strength of their convictions, went on to rebel against all forms of authority. They turned their fury on the local mandarins and ended up with challenging the ultimate authority-the central government at Peking. In this way, the rebellion became a matter of national importance.
The Imperial Government was handicapped by problems that cropped up in profusion in various parts of the sprawling empire, the Taiping rebellion being one of them. It was a time when China was still suffering from the shocks caused by the first series of unequal treaties signaled by the Treaty of Nanking. These circumstances favored the ascendancy of Panthays in Yunnan.
The rebellion successfully captured the city of Dali, which became the base for the rebels' operations, and declared themselves a separate political entity from China. The rebels identified their nation as Pingnan Guo (平南国 The Pacified Southern Nation); their leader Sulayman ibn `Abd ar-Rahman, known as Du Wenxiu [originally Yang Xiu]) (d. 1873) was styled Qa´id Jami al-Muslimin ('Leader of the Community of Muslims'), but is usually referred to in foreign sources as Sultan) and ruled 1856 - 26 December 1872.
The rebellion sieged the city of Kunming multiple times (in 1857, 1861, 1863 and 1868). Ma Rulong, a Hui rebel leader from southern Yunnan, sieged the city in 1862 but through the offers of a military post joined forces with the imperial officials. His decision was not fully accepted by his followers who took the opportunity of his absence to kill the Governor-General (Pan Duo), wrest control of the city from the Qing in 1863, and intended to hand the city over to Du Wenxiu, but before Du's forces could arrive, Ma Rulong with the assistance of a rising Qing military officier, Cen Yuying, raced back to Kunming and regained control of the provincial capital.
Later, as imperial troops began to gain the upperhand versus the rebellion, the rebels sent a letter to Queen Victoria, asking the British Empire for formal recognition and for military assistance; the fledgling state was turned down by the British. The rebellion was eventually suppressed when Qing troops killed and decapitated the 'sultan'. His body is entombed in Xiadui.
[edit] Aftermath
[edit] Atrocities
Though largely forgotten, the bloody rebellion caused the death of up to a million people in Yunnan.[4] Many surviving Hui refugees escaped over the border to neighboring countries, Burma, Thailand and Laos, forming the basis of a minority Chinese Hui population in those nations.
[edit] Impact on Burma
The rebellion had a significant negative impact on the Burmese Konbaung Dynasty. After losing lower Burma to the British, Burma lost access to vast tracts of rice-growing land. Not wishing to upset China, the Burmese kingdom agreed to refuse trade with the Panthay rebels in accordance with China's demands. Without the ability to import rice from China, Burma was forced to import rice from the British. In addition, the Burmese economy had relied heavily on cotton exports to China, and suddenly lost access to the vast Chinese market.
[edit] See also
- Panthay
- Islam in China
- Islam during the Qing Dynasty
- Chinese rebellions
- Dungan revolt in North-Western China (1862-77)
- Genocides in history
- Yusuf Ma Dexin, a prominent Muslim scholar in Yunnan at the time of the rebellions
- List of wars and disasters by death toll
[edit] Notes
- ^ Historical Sketch of the Hui Muslims of China
- ^ Gernet, Jacques. A History of Chinese Civilization. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-521-49712-4
- ^ (Anderson, 1876, 233)
- ^ Damsan Harper, Steve Fallon, Katja Gaskell, Julie Grundvig, Carolyn Heller, Thomas Huhti, Bradley Maynew, Christopher Pitts. Lonely Planet China. 9. 2005. ISBN 1-74059-687-0
[edit] References
- Atwill, David G., The Chinese Sultanate: Islam, Ethnicity and the Panthay Rebellion in Southwest China, 1856-1873, ISBN 0-8047-5159-5
- Fitzgerald, C.P., The Southern Expansion of the Chinese People, ISBN 974-8495-81-7
- Thant Myint-U, The Making of Modern Burma, ISBN 0-521-79914-7
- WorldStatesmen - China
- "Religious toleration in China" Contemporary Review v. 86 (July 1904)
