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Abstract
This article examines the role of Western missionaries and Chinese Christians as new powerbrokers in the competitive arena of rural politics in South China during the post-Boxer decade (1900–10). Focusing on four well-documented lawsuits involving Christians in the Chaozhou-speaking region of Guangdong province, this study shows that the power relationship between Christians and non-Christians had undergone a qualitative change since 1901. The crushing of the Boxers increased the prestige of Western missions and Chinese churches on the land, and it was this prestige that made it possible for native Church leaders to use the judicial process to effect changes in their favor and to enforce settlement agreements at the county courts. Litigation became an important tool of unifying and empowering rural Christian communities. These case studies not only provide insight into the local management of treaty rights and foreign affairs but also highlight the instrumental role of the churches in China during a time of rapid and profound change.
Research for this article was fully supported by a generous grant from the Center for Christian Studies of Shantou University in China (Project Code: CCSRF1112-A).
Notes
1 John Campbell Gibson, Mission Problems and Mission Methods in South China (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier, 1901), 184–85.
2 Throughout this article, the term Christian refers to the Catholic and Protestant missionary movements in South China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
3 Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, The Bible and the Gun: Christianity in South China, 1860–1900 (New York: Routledge, 2003, Chinese edition, Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2010).
4 Lingdong ribao (Lingdong Daily), 1902–911, Shantou Municipal Archive, Shantou.
5 For some recent studies of Christian communities in late imperial China, see Daniel H. Bays (ed.), Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), and Jessie G. Lutz and Rolland Ray Lutz, Hakka Chinese Confront Protestant Christianity, 1850–1900, with the Autobiographies of Eight Hakka Christians and Commentary (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1998).
6 Dong Wang, China’s Unequal Treaties: Narrating National History (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005).
7 Yang Dachun, Wanqing zhengfu jidujiao zhengce chutan (A Preliminary Study of the Late Qing Policies Toward Christianity) (Beijing: Jincheng chubanshe, 2004); Jiang Sun, “Yangjiao or the ‘Other’: Christianity and Chinese Society in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century,” Frontiers of History in China, 6·1 (2011), 53–73.
8 Alan R. Sweeten, Christianity in Rural China: Conflict and Accommodation in Jiangxi Province, 1860–1900 (Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2001), 178–95; Ernest P. Young, “The Politics of Evangelism at the End of the Qing: Nanchang, 1906,” in Christianity in China, 91–113; Roger R. Thompson, “Twilight of the Gods in the Countryside: Christians, Confucians, and the Modernizing State, 1861–1911,” ibid., 53–72.
9 R. G. Tiedemann, “They Also Served! Missionary Interventions in North China, 1900–1945,” in Re-interpreting the East Asian Christianity, ed. by Feiya Tao and Philip Yuen-Sang Leung (Hong Kong: Center for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004), 159.
10 William R. Shenk, Changing Frontiers of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 34–58.
11 Lee, The Bible and the Gun, 21–38 and 101–61.
12 Joseph Tse-Hei Lee (李榭熙), “Jiehe lishi dang’an ji tianye diaocha de jidujiao yanjiu fangfaxue: yi Chaoshan jiaohui weili [Integrating archival research and fieldwork in the study of Christianity in Chaozhou and Shantou],” Zhongguo shenxue yanjiuyuan qikan (The Journal of the China Graduate School of Theology), 48 (2010), 63–85.
13 David Faure, “The Local Official in Commercial Litigation in Early Nineteenth-Century China,” University of Tokyo Journal of Law and Politics, 1 (Spring 2004), 144–55.
14 Adam S. Groesbeck, Chaoyang county city to P. S. Hauser, Shantou, November 25, 1907, Record Group No. 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts, Consular Post, Swatow, China (hereafter as RG84), vol. 13, “Miscellaneous Correspondence Received and Sent, December 15, 1906–March 22, 1909,” National Archives, College Park, Maryland.
15 Groesbeck, Chaoyang county city to Hauser, Shantou, November 25, 1907, RG84, vol. 13.
16 Groesbeck, Chaoyang county city to Hauser, Shantou, February 10 and 11, 1908, RG84, vol. 13.
17 Groesbeck, Chaoyang county city to Hauser, Shantou, January 8, February 10, and March 4, 1908, RG84, vol. 13.
18 Adam S. Groesbeck, “Letter to Friends,” July 1, 1908, and “Annual Report, Chaoyang Station,” 1909, Box 1, Folder 5, Adam and Clara Groesbeck Papers, Ax 818, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon.
19 Daotai Wu, Chaozhoufu to Hauser, Shantou, September 15, 1908, RG84, vol. 9, “Chinese dispatches received November 15, 1906–April 1, 1909,” 52.
20 George W. Lewis, “Statement of the Case Regarding the Opposition to Building a Chapel at Sai-Sua,” October 19, 1909; George W. Lewis, Huanggang to Leo A. Bergholz, Guangzhou, January 17, 1910, RG84, “Miscellaneous Correspondence, January 1, 1910–December 30, 1910,” 43.
21 Lewis, “Statement of the Case Regarding the Opposition to Building a Chapel at Sai-Sua.”
22 Lewis, “Statement of the Case Regarding the Opposition to Building a Chapel at Sai-Sua.”
23 George W. Lewis, “Statement of the Further History of the Sai-Sua Case and Taken from Former Correspondence with Consul Pontius,” March 12, 1910, RG84, “Miscellaneous Correspondence, January 1, 1910–December 30, 1910.”
24 Lewis, “Statement of the Further History of the Sai-Sua Case.”
25 Lewis, “Statement of the Further History of the Sai-Sua Case.”
26 Lewis, “Statement of the Further history of the Sai-Sua Case.”
27 Lewis, Huanggang, April 26, 1910, and Lewis, Huanggang to George E. Chamberlin, Shantou, May 17, 1910, RG84, “Miscellaneous Correspondence, January 1, 1910–December 30, 1910,” 72 and 112.
28 Lewis, Huanggang to Chamberlin, Shantou, August 12, 1910, RG84, “Miscellaneous Correspondence, January 1, 1910–December 30, 1910,” 223.
29 C. C. L. Williams, Shantou to William J. Calhoun, Beijing, February 10, 1911, Record Group No. 59, Records Relating to China Among the Central File of the Department of State (hereafter as RG59), Box 4663.
30 “A Copy of the Reply from His Honor, Daotai Wu, to H.B.M.’s Consul Re Church Site, Theft of Building Materials and of Paddies in the County of Ungkung,” RG84, vol. 10, “Chinese Dispatches Received, April 13, 1909–December 31, 1910,” 46.
31 “Magistrate Dong of Raoping to Mr. Williams,” RG84, vol. 10, “Chinese Dispatches Received, April 13, 1909–December 31, 1910,” 47.
32 C. C. L. Williams, Shantou to Percival Heintzleman, Beijing, August 8, 1911, RG59, Box 4663.
33 Lingdong jiayin: Lingdong jinxinhui lishi tekan (Lingdong Good News: A Special Issue on the History of the Lingdong Baptist Church), nos. 10–12 (Shantou: Lingdong Baptist Church, 1936), Shantou Municipal Archive, Shantou.
34 Jacob Speicher, Jieyang county city to P. S. Hauser, Shantou, March 17, 1909, RG84, vol. 13.
35 Speicher, Jieyang county city to Hauser, Shantou, March 17, 1909, RG84, vol. 13.
36 Edward J. M. Rhoads, China’s Republican Revolution: The Case of Kwangtung, 1895–1913 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 71.
37 Adam S. Groesbeck, “Report for Chaoyang Station, 1908,” January 9, 1909, Box 1, Folder 5, Adam and Clara Groesbeck Papers.
38 Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 45 and 55.
39 Shuk-Wah Poon, “Between Religion and Superstition: Buddhism and Daoism in Guangzhou, China, 1900–1937,” Journal of Religious History, 33·4 (December 2009), 457, and Negotiating Religion in Modern China: State and Common People in Guangzhou, 1900–1937 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2009).
40 Adam S. Groesbeck, “Report, Chaoyang Station, 1908,” November 17, 1908, Box 1, Folder 5, Adam and Clara Groesbeck Papers.
41 “From the Daotai Regarding Converts’ Trouble with School Authorities, Puning,” March 31 and April 1, 1909, RG84, vol. 9, “Chinese Dispatches Received from November 15, 1906–April 1, 1909,” vol. 2, part 2, 70–71.
42 Albert W. Pontius, Shantou to Jacob Speicher, Jieyang county city, June 6, 1909, RG84, vol. 8.
43 Pontius, Shantou to Daotai Wu, Chaozhoufu, June 18, 1909, RG84, vol.10; Pontius, Shantou to Speicher, Jieyang county city, June 25, 1909, RG84, vol. 8.
44 Myrl S. Myers, Shantou to Magistrate Lan, Chaozhoufu, June 29, 1914, RG59, Box 4061.
45 Chaozhou shi jidujiao sanzi aiguo hui (The Chaozhou Municipal Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement) (comp.), Chaozhou shi jidujiao jiaozhi chugao (The Preliminary Draft of the Gazetteer of Christianity in Chaozhou) (Chaozhou, Guangdong province: Chaozhou shi jidujiao sanzi aiguo hui, 1986), Chaozhou Municipal Library, B949-2-3342; Sun Yat-Sen Library of the Guangzhou Municipal Library, K-B979·2-C41(2).
46 Myers, Shantou to Magistrate Lan, Chaozhoufu, June 29, 1914, RG59, Box4061.
47 Myrl S. Myers, Shantou to Wu Xiangda, Shantou, September 1 and 23, 1914; Wu Xiangda, Shantou to Myrl S. Myers, Shantou, September 2 and 21, 1914; Myrl S. Myers, Shantou to the US Secretary of State, Washington DC, October 2, 1914, “Persecution of Christian Converts in Wu Le Ch’iao Village,” RG59, Box4061.
48 Lida Scott Ashmore, Shantou, to Edith Ashmore, US, May 3, 1914, Series II: Lida Scott Ashmore Papers, Box 6, Folder 4, The Ashmore Family Papers, Ax 564, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon.
49 Myers, Shantou to the US Secretary of State, Washington DC, May 5, 1914, “Trespass Upon Premises of American Baptist Mission,” RG59, Box 4663.
50 Myers, Shantou to the US Secretary of State, Washington DC, October 2, 1914, “Persecution of Christian Converts in Wu Le Ch’iao village,” RG59, Box 4061.
51 “Translation of an Excerpt from the Kung Yen Press of September 20, 1914,” RG59, Box 4061.
52 Myrl S. Myers, Shantou to Wang Yun-Chia, the Daoyin for Chaomei Circuit, Shantou, October 9, 1914, RG59, Box 4061.
53 Wang Yun-Chia, Shantou to Myers, Shantou, October 12, 1914, RG59, Box 4061.