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A Few Bits of Ephemera from the Boxer Uprising!

March 6th, 2026

Been a while since the last scrap I posted, and I unfortunately have had several ideas for ones that I keep on putting off actually writing (which kind of goes against the whole spirit of the thing, since I made this whole little side-micro-blog as a place to put relatively low-effort stuff I just find interesting!!!). So, I figured, I'll stop putting it off and just go for it! Bit of a simple one today, but that is what it is.

In the late 1890s and into the very first years of the 20th century, a new movement spread across the north of China. Going by various names, like the Militia United in Righteousness, the Plum Blossom Fists, and the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, they would come to be known in the English-language press as the Boxers, owing to their rituals derived from popular martial arts practices. Coming out of a melange of influences in lower-class popular culture and political expression in the north Chinese plain, including its predecessors in the Big Sword Society and the White Lotus Sect/Eight Trigrams Sect (depending on who you ask), popular traveling stage shows based on the classical Chinese novels, peasant rebellions in the aftermath of the Yellow River's shifting course, and all sorts of widespread magical and religious beliefs, the Boxers set their sights on extricating foreigners and foreign influence (namely the foreign religion, Christianity) from China. This was, of course, the high point of the era of imperialism, when just about every inch of the world was divvied up between less than ten powers in Europe, North America and Japan (the newest entrant on the imperialist scene). China, at the time under the rule of the Qing dynasty in its last decade, was basically powerless to stop Western companies from exploiting Chinese laborers and resources, or Western missionaries and churches from not just converting the local populace to their new religion but from asserting that they ought to have special privileges from the Chinese state. Over the course of three years, from 1899 to 1901, right on the turn of the 19th century to the 20th, all of this came together into something that snowballed from a peasant rebellion lashing out at Chinese Christian converts lording over peasants worse off than them into a huge war across the north of China that had the sometimes support sometimes opposition of the ruling dynasty and ended up being defeated by what amounted to a punitary expedition of all of the imperialist powers. Future president Herbert Hoover was in Beijing at the time! A real who's who of late 19th century early 20th century imperialist types.

Also, the Boxers had the fervent belief that by doing special rituals derived from the martial arts and popular religious milieu that gods could and would travel down from the heavens to possess their bodies and make them invulnerable to Western-manufactured guns, in addition to (potentially) other magical abilities. That's a pretty crucial component of it!!

I love the Boxer Uprising (more commonly called the Boxer Rebellion, but some historians have made the compelling case that the Boxers weren't really rebels against the Qing in the first place), and read a handful of books about it last year, one of which is by far the best thing to read on the topic and is the ultimate source of my version of events described in the paragraph up there. If you read one book about the Boxers, make it The Origins of the Boxer Uprising by Joseph Esherick. While it focuses more on the events leading up to the big bombastic war between the Boxers and the imperialists, i.e. the titular origins of the movement itself, it uses that focus to such good use, describing in so much detail the cultural, economic, social, religious, and political life of peasants in northern China (namely in Shandong province, where the Boxer movement originated before spreading across China). Another book I'd recommend is History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth, which looks more at the events of the uprising proper rather than the leadup to it, and reads it through three lenses: as a historical event reconstructed by historians, as a firsthand experience had by the people who lived through it, and as a memory that is reinterpreted and reshaped by subsequent generations. I have some personal disagreements with some of Cohen's conclusions, but its still a good book! If you read TWO books on the Boxers, make it both of those!

With that introduction and brief lit review out of the way, what I'm really here to do is share a couple of primary sources from the Boxer Uprising, made by the Boxers themselves. These are simultaneously pieces of political propaganda, religious expression, and folk art (if they were made closer to today or in a less politicized environment they might even be termed "outsider art," a term I will continue to orbit around uncertainly for forever I think). Without further ado! Both of the following are sourced from within Esherick's The Origins of the Boxer Uprising:

First, a very cool looking placard with a gnarly tiger motif made by a Boxer or Boxer-supporter:

From Esherick: "Boxer Placard. In addition to the usual pro-Qing and anti-foreign sentiments, this placard particularly warns of the harm that will come to those who collaborate with the enemy. Courtesy of the Chinese Historical Museum, Beijing.

And, my actual favorite thing, a popular poem that would have been scrawled on some placards similar to the above (although it isn't the text on the placard in the photo):

Divinely aided Boxers,
United-in-Righteousness Corps
Arose because the Devils
Messed up the Empire of yore.

They proselytize their sect.
And believe in only one God,
The spirits and their own ancestors
Are not even given a nod.

Their men are all immoral;
Their women truly vile.
For the Devils it's mother-son sex
That serves as the breeding style.

And if you don't believe me.
Then have a careful view:
You'll see the Devils' eyes
Are all a shining blue.

No rain comes from Heaven.
The earth is parched and dry.
And all because the churches
Have bottled up the sky.

The god are very angry.
The spirits seek revenge.
En masse they come from Heaven
To teach the Way to men.

The Way is not a heresy;
It's not the White Lotus Sect.
The chants and spells we utter,
Follow mantras, true and correct.

Raise up the yellow charm,
Bow to the incense glow.
Invite the gods and spirits
Down from the mountain grotto.

Spirits emerge from the grottos;
Gods come down from the hills.
Possessing the bodies of men.
Transmitting their boxing skills.

When their martial and magic techniques
Are all learned by each one of you.
Suppressing the Foreign Devils
Will not be a tough thing to do.

Rip up the railroad tracks!
Pull down the telegraph lines!
Quickly! Hurry up! Smash them—
The boats and the steamship combines.

The mighty nation of France
Quivers in abject fear.
While from England, America, Russia
And from Germany nought do we hear.

When at last all the Foreign Devils
Are expelled to the very last man.
The Great Qing, united, together,
Will bring peace to this our land.

I fully intend on doing more scraps on the Boxers and sharing other historical primary sources so keep an eye out for those! (Maybe my site's catchphrase, but yknow! eyes!!)