Year: 1992
Type: article
Abstract: On July 21,1904, a levy on Leping's major product, indigo, sparked a peasant riot.The levy was imposed to raise funds for the establishment of a school under the Qing state's "new policy" for modernization."The rioters", as British Consul at Jiujiang, Walter Clennell reported, "made a demonstration at the Hsien Yamen, then destroyed a lijin office and finished the day's amusement by wrecking the houses of some native catholics."'Rioters included not only peasants but also landlords, merchants and other members of the indigo peasant community.Steered by a local branch of the Triads, Bianganghui (Whip the Strong Society), the riot swiftly turned into an uprising and engulfed the whole of the district and nearby regons.Witnessing its magnitude, a reporter commented that "it seems as if we must call it a rebellion rather than a riot."2It persisted for more than two months and petered out only after a superior and well-armed imperial force was dispatched from the outside.This uprising was the largest peasant agitation in Leping since the Taiping turbulence.Its origin lay in the subsistence crisis of indigo peasants.In the early twentieth century, diminishing returns from indigo, once a highly profitable cash crop, disrupted the peasant household economy not only in Leping but also in other specialized areas of its production in ~i a n ~x i .~The expanding long distance trade and foreign encroachments during this period restricted the traditional, relatively autonomous nature of indigo production and distribution, and exacerbated the subsistence dilemma of peasants.The origin of the Leping Uprising thus should not be seen apart from the specific local crisis confronted by indigo producing peasant households.Yet, the Uprising was a result of crisis not merely in the peasant
Author: Kamal Sheel
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1542190381