1900 · Beijing, China
Boxer Rebellion and Chinese Martyrs
During the Boxer Uprising of 1900, anti-foreign militias killed an estimated 30,000 Chinese Christians along with missionaries, in one of the largest persecutions of Catholics in modern history.
By 1900, China was humiliated and angry. Western powers had carved it into spheres of influence, imposed unequal treaties, and used military force to open the country to trade and missionaries. A movement called the Boxers, formally the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, rose up with the tacit support of the Qing dynasty to drive out all foreigners and their influence. Christian missionaries and their Chinese converts were prime targets. The Boxers' fury was not unprovoked. Western missionaries had sometimes behaved arrogantly, and the treaties that protected them were imposed at gunpoint. Some missionaries used their extraterritorial privileges to interfere in local legal disputes. Chinese Christians were often seen as collaborators with the occupiers. But the victims of the persecution were overwhelmingly ordinary Chinese believers, not Western clergy. An estimated 30,000 Chinese Catholics and Protestants were killed, along with several hundred missionaries and their families. In some villages, entire Christian communities were wiped out. The 120 martyrs canonized by John Paul II in 2000 include Chinese laypeople, catechists, and children as young as nine. Their canonization was controversial: the Chinese government protested that some of those honored had been involved in colonial aggression. The history is genuinely complicated, and honesty requires acknowledging that the missionary enterprise in China was entangled with imperialism in ways the Church has had to reckon with.
Why it matters
One of the largest mass persecutions of Catholics in modern history, killing approximately 30,000 Chinese Christians, and raising lasting questions about the relationship between missionary work and colonialism.
What Happened
In the summer of 1900, the Boxer militia, supported by elements of the Qing government, attacked foreign nationals and Chinese Christians across northern China. Catholic and Protestant communities were besieged, churches were burned, and tens of thousands of Chinese Christians were killed. The siege of the Beitang cathedral in Beijing, where over 3,000 Chinese Catholics held out for two months under French missionary leadership, became one of the conflict's most dramatic episodes. An international military force eventually relieved the besieged communities.
Why It Still Matters
The Chinese Martyrs force Catholics to hold two truths at once. The people who died were genuine martyrs who refused to renounce their faith under threat of death. But the missionary enterprise that brought Christianity to China was deeply entangled with Western imperialism, and some of the anger behind the Boxer Uprising was legitimate. The canonization of the 120 martyrs in 2000 strained Vatican-China relations and remains contentious. These martyrs challenge the Church to honor their courage while honestly examining the colonial context.