History and Historiography of Punjabi Sikh Migration

From SikhNet

Punjabi Sikhs are an important ethnic and religious group from northwest India. Known for their hard work and distinctive religious ideas, Sikhs are found throughout the world. This paper aims to explore the history and historiography of Punjabi Sikh immigration within the British Empire and into the United Kingdom and the United States. While Sikhs reside in nations throughout the world, the boundaries of this short paper prevent a complete examination of the large scope of Punjabi migration. 

From Rotten Tomatoes

     In 2002, a small independent film featuring a Sikh Punjabi teen and her love for soccer caught the attention of the movie-going public. Bend It like Beckham was a film about a British Asian girl, Jesminder Bhamra, or “Jess,” who loves soccer and adores English soccer star, David Beckham. The film features the conflict the young protagonist feels between the traditions of her Sikh Punjabi family and the majority of British culture. Much of the movie reflects the experience of its director Gurinder Chadha and her life growing up in West London. As a Punjabi girl in England, Chadha felt torn between her identity as an Indian and her British nationality.[1] The film 11 million pounds in the UK while earning over 76 million dollars worldwide.[2]  The success of Bend It Like Beckham places a Punjabi Sikh family at the center of the film and introduces many to a religious and ethnic group unknown to many in the West. While the appeal of the movie lies in the struggle of its protagonist to balance her dedication to her family with her love for sport, the film has another significance as it demonstrates the impact of immigration from South Asia. This paper aims to explore the history and historiography of Punjabi Sikh immigration with its roots in the British Empire.

            The Punjab, ruled by the Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh, faced internal conflict and two wars with the British resulting in the British annexation of the Punjab. Migration became a central role in the life of Sikhs as demonstrated by the relocation of the young heir of Ranjit Singh, Duleep Singh, to Britain. Rozina Visram provides a complete survey of the Asian community in Britain and details how Duleep Singh was the first step in a century of Punjabi migration into Britain.[3] The young Maharaja lived like an English lord on his estate, Elveden but eventually grew disillusioned with his situation, rejected British authority, and died in exile in Paris.

Maharaja Duleep Singh (from Wikipedia)

            Punjabi migration began to become a pattern by the later decades of the Nineteenth Century as many Sikhs entered police or military service. Historian of Sikh History, W.H. McLeod also identifies a centuries-old commercial network of trading castes spreading to different parts of India. This network consists primarily of the Khatri caste, and their business enterprises extended the Sikh presence throughout the subcontinent. Larger migration patterns originated from rural Punjab as unskilled workers entered the military with the expectation of migrants returning home.[4] Malcolm Lyall Darling was a British civil servant concerned with the cycle of ever-increasing debt many Punjabi farmers found themselves. Darling believed that continual debt fueled poverty and contributed to migration.[5] Darling also proposed that the Jat custom of subdividing land inheritances left many Punjabis with little ability to earn a profit from their small landholdings, which put them further into debt. With limited choices, the Punjabi peasant sought an alternative in the military or migration overseas. Many Sikhs sought migration to the United States or Australia, but many traveled to Africa after those countries closed the door to Indians.[6] McLeod agrees with Darling regarding the problem of land division as a problem in the Punjab but believes that Darling’s answer is insufficient because the answer is more than poverty since the impoverished lacked the means to relocate. McLeod surmises that the decision to migrate was often a family decision made prior to dividing the land. Many of the men who relocated made their decisions with the goal of returning in the future. McLeod uses the experience of Sikhs in New Zealand as a comparison. Many Sikhs arrived in New Zealand soon after World War I with the plan to return but remained as they obtained farms and established roots.[7]

            

Punjab region in both India & Pakistan (from Wiki Media Commons)

    For many Punjabi Sikhs, the first experience of overseas travel was recruitment in the military. Sikhs were a desirable group for military recruitment as most British military leaders assumed the theory that certain ethnicities were naturally martial races. Colonial authorities believed that other Indians from the south lacked inherent martial abilities, while Gurkhas and Sikhs were natural warriors. While the idea of martial races fit within the racial ideas of the later Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, Thomas Metcalf argues that race played little role in recruitment in the Punjab after 1857.

The initial recruitment of so-called martial races, however, had little to do with race theory of any sort. Rather it was a pragmatic response to the mutinous behavior of the Bengal Army. Those who rallied to the British cause, for whatever reasons of their own, such as Punjabi Sikhs and Nepali Gurkhas, won favorable commendation at the time and subsequently secured a preferential entry into the reorganized Indian Army.[8]

 

The critical role Sikhs played in the army furnished the British with a source of troops in their Empire and provided Sikhs with a familiarity with the world outside India. After their enlistment period, most Sikh soldiers returned home, but a minority decided to return home but a minority elected to remain in British Asian colonies such as Malaya. Still, others decided to journey to Australia, America, or Canada. As migrants arrived in each location, word reached the villages of Punjab, encouraging others to proceed to the new locations.[9] N. Gerald Barrier refers to this migration as the first wave of Sikh immigration as Sikh troops traveled to British possessions in Asia such as Burma, Malaya, and Hong Kong with the largest group residing in Malaya. Other Sikhs settled in East Africa around 1900, with Ramgarhias working on the railroad and Jats remaining after serving in the military.[10] The last segment of this first wave landed on the west coast of North America as mostly former soldiers became the first to migrate to Canada and the United States. Among the first Sikhs to enter Canada journeyed from Hong Kong, to Vancouver for celebrations around the Coronation of Edward VII in 1902. Others journeyed to the American states of California, Oregon, and Washington.[11]

Dutch historian Gijsbert Oonk also recognizes Indian migration in different waves or patterns. He identifies the first phase as the trade diaspora as traders set out for trade and business opportunities. Most of these travelers settled abroad temporarily and often moved as trade prospects changed. Oonk identifies the second current as indentured laborers who often replaced the enslaved workers as colonies transitioned to free labor. At the same time, many Indians went abroad to serve in British colonies as clerks and teachers serving colonial governments.[12] These waves of migration identified by Oonk correlate with the stationing and resettling of Punjabi Sikh troops in different sections of the British Empire.

The Metro. French woman places a flower on the uniform of an Indian soldier. 2nd Lancers Regiment. (from Medium.com)

Sikhs settling in Canada faced backlash as they encountered racism and xenophobia. From 1904 to 1908, about 5200 Indian immigrants arrived in British Columbia, of which 80-85% were Sikh, while the rest were Hindu or Muslim Punjabi.[13] The backlash against the presence of Sikhs and other Indians was fierce and developed into a ban on continued Indian migration into British Columbia in 1908. Britain hesitated to interfere in their white settler colonies against their Asian colonies. The government desired a closer relationship with the white settlers and sympathized, who feared of a takeover from Asian culture. As early as 1897, Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, told colonial premiers,

 We quite sympathise with the determination of the white inhabitants of these colonies which are in comparatively close proximity to hundreds of millions of Asiatics that there should not be an influx of people alien in civilisation, alien in religion, alien in customs, whose influx moreover would most seriously interfere with the legitimate rights of the existing labour population . . . but we ask you also to bear in mind the traditions of the Empire, which make no distinction in favour of or against race or colour.[14]

 

 Rachel Bright maintains that for the white settlers at the center of their rights within a liberal society were the elements of Britishness and whiteness, “and the occasional conflict between these two identities, in part, depended on an Asian ‘other’ which captured settler imaginations.” According to Bird, the racial attitudes within the white settler colonies posed a threat to the unity within the British Empire.[15] The prohibition against Indian migration into Canada proved very effective as only six immigrants from arrived in 1908 when the legislation took effect. The 1907 immigration numbers only passed 1907 in 1967 when the relaxation of immigration laws allowed more Indians to migrate into Canada.[16]

But with the doors closed to further immigration into Canada from India, Sikhs began to organize their own institutions, such as the Khalsa Diwan Society in 1907 and the first gurdwara in Vancouver in 1908. Narinder Singh maintains that racial opposition and growing resentment pulled Punjabis of different religious traditions together as the gurdwara became a gathering place and center of collective action of all Punjabis.[17] Sikhs continued to face discrimination and possessed no voting force in British Columbia. Canadian Indians also faced the problem of an inability to visit their homeland since once they departed Canada, the government barred their reentry. In 1908, the Canadian government proposed removing all Indian settlers to British Honduras. Strong opposition from Sikhs and negotiations led by the Khalsa Diwan Society prevented deportation from Canada. In 1913, the Society later petitioned the government in London and the Indian government to remove the punitive immigration restrictions. After negotiations, most of the restrictions remained, but wives and children received permission for entry into Canada. [18]

The disruption and disunity within the Empire described by Bird due to the racial attitudes of white settlers bore fruit within Canada. In 1914, the ship Komagata Maru docked in the port of Vancouver. On board were 376 Indians who were all Sikhs but thirty. The Canadian government refused the Indians entry into the country. Negotiations led nowhere and the ship left Vancouver after two months in dock. James Chadney echoes the conclusion of Bird and points out that the conflict over the Komagata Maru reinforced Sikh and Indian conclusions that their status was second class.[19]

Sikhs migrated to the west coast of the United States in the early years of the Twentieth Century and faced similar opposition as their fellow Punjabis encountered in British Columbia. The majority of the Punjabi migrants into the west coast found livelihoods in the agricultural communities. The preponderance of these Punjabis was Sikhs, although there were also Muslims and Hindus. The majority settled within the Imperial Valley along the southern border of California and experienced the American government's problematic issue of not allowing the entry of wives and children. White Americans long expressed racial prejudice against Chinese and Japanese immigrants and Indians faced similar discrimination. Most of the emigrants were former soldiers from central Punjab and journeyed to California for economic opportunities. Karen Isaksen Leonard describes these new immigrants' choices when they chose to remain in California. Racial discrimination led many Indians to live within foreign and Hispanic neighborhoods. Because of their similar skin complexions, Punjabi settlers chose to marry Mexican American women. While the children of these nuptials shared the Roman Catholic faith of their mothers, marriages with Mexican Americans allowed the Punjabis to own land through their wives and children.[20]  This community remained important in the Imperial Valley, known as the Mexican-Hindus. Due to the lack of continued immigration from India because of strict immigration laws the culture lost its Asian distinctiveness. The descendants mostly identified themselves with their Hispanic heritage.[21] With the advent of American immigration reform in 1965, Punjabi Sikhs and other Indians began to immigrate to the United States in increasing numbers. Between 1965 and 1985, Indian residents of the U.S. grew from 15,000 to 500,000.[22]  California hosted the largest number of Sikhs, with most initially settling in largely agricultural Yuba City, California. [23] Since immigration reform, Sikhs spread throughout the U.S., with over 200 gurdwaras scattered in 40 states and the District of Columbia.[24]

"Group of Sikh immigrants, Angel Island, 1910 courtesy of California State Parks" (from: sikhfoundation.org)

Barrier describes the post-World War II period as the second wave of Sikh immigration, which saw many migrants settle in Britain.[25] Punjabi migrants arrived in Britain as the nation faced serious labor shortages. Many of the first Punjabi Sikhs migrated to west London when the R Woolf rubber factory manager in Hayes remembered the work ethic of the Sikh troops under his command. Responding to opportunities for work, mostly Sikh men settled in nearby Southall due to the affordable nature of the neighborhood.[26] Most of these migrants originated from central and northeastern Punjab, primarily from Jullundur and Hoshiarpur. According to Sandhya Shukla, the similarities in origins created a homogeneity that encouraged the arriving Punjabis to gather with other Punjabis. Family connections and religious affiliation brought comfort within the Southall neighborhood.[27] Many of these migrants previously served the Empire in the Indian Army, which served as a badge of honor. Most of the early migrants were men, as many planned to return to India after saving a large income. This goal led to much of the early Punjabi migrant experience centered around pubs and men’s boarding houses. The boarding houses were overcrowded, and many only used for eating and sleeping. Often men from different factory shifts shared the same bed.[28]  In 1962, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act greatly limited immigration from India, but the population of Southall continued to grow as new migrants hurried to arrive before implementation of the Act, and relatives, dependents, and new marriages continued to see the number of Punjabis increase in west London.[29]

London's Southall (from The Guardian)

In the 1960s, Punjabi Sikh communities also began to grow in the central English cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, with specialty shops, restaurants, and gurdwaras rising in what were once strictly English enclaves. Most of the Sikh migrants were of the Jat caste and gained a reputation for hard work and heavy drinkers.[30] The Sikh fame for hard work was earned on the farmlands of the Punjab as well as the Indian Army under British officers. Despite new the new law limiting immigration, Punjabi communities continued to grow as employers in the Midlands and Northern England still faced severe labor shortages and pushed for vouchers for new immigrants and their families.[31] Roger Ballard agrees with Shukla regarding the comfort achieved through a growing Sikh community. The earliest Punjabis in Britain looked forward to returning to the Punjab. Therefore families only prevented the men from saving money. But as the men felt more comfortable in Britain and wives joined their husbands, Sikhs became settlers in England and reproduced many of the practices and religious institutions of the Punjab. Ballard points out the changes Sikhs brought saying,

But just like so many other migrants elsewhere, most stayed on for much longer than they originally intended. On the one hand, they were attracted by the prospect of continuing to earn good money; and on the other hand, they gradually began to feel relaxed about the prospect of staying overseas permanently. But the Britain about which they began to feel more comfortable was not an English Britain. As local Sikh colonies grew in size, many of the social and cultural styles, institutions of the Punjab began to be reproduced. Perhaps most importantly of all, Britain became an arena for status competition. With this it ceased to be a cultural and social no-man’s-land, where all gratification was deferred against an eventual return. Instead it was transformed into an arena for social interaction that was every bit as lively as the villages left behind. As a result, and almost unbeknownst to themselves, sojourners were gradually being transformed into settlers.[32]

 

Oonk identifies a fourth wave of Indian migrants following the breakup of the British Empire. This group of Indians left their homes in the new nations of independent Africa and migrated to Britain since many possessed British passports. These migrants brought more ethnic diversity as many originated from different regions of India, including Punjabis. During the sixties and seventies, these emigrants arrived as many faced expulsion from east Africa. This diverse group contained traders, laborers, as well as professionals.[33] While most of the immigrant Sikhs during the fifties were Jats, the Sikh migrants during the fourth phase brought increased caste diversity into the Sikh community. Ramgarhias, Khatris, Chamars, Nais, and others settled in Britain. Large numbers of Ramgarhia Sikhs came from Africa. This artisan caste originally settled in Africa to work on the railway. They eventually served in an intermediate managerial position underneath British supervisors. As African nations achieved independence, many Sikhs felt that their only option was relocation to Britain.[34]

In the 1990s, another smaller wave of Sikh immigrants relocated from Afghanistan. Afghani Sikhs relocated to Southall, where they established their own gurdwara. Along with an assortment of visa over stays, illegals migrants, and asylum seekers as well as family unification, the Punjabi population continues to grow.[35] Both Eleanor Nesbitt and Roger Ballard agree that while the Sikh community appears uniform to the outsider, the different waves of migration and caste differences remain areas of division. While Ballard acknowledges the comfort of an ethnic community, he also points to the disunity within Sikhs. Ballard proposes that the most critical cause of Sikh disunity is caste differences. While Guru Nanak disavowed caste, division by caste remains a central concern for many Sikhs, although it becomes less important for younger British-born generations. Further, Ballard points out that while urban employment weakens caste, kinship ties and employment similar to caste designations divide the community.[36] Nesbitt maintains that Sikh migration was diverse from the beginning as each wave of Sikh migration involved different social and hereditary groupings, which increased the variety of the Sikh community.[37]

As new Punjabi generations develop in Britain, the question of national identity rises to the forefront. Do the children and grandchildren of the arriving generation primarily hold to their ethnic identity or their nationality as British citizens?   Kathleen Hall discusses this question noting that the colonial ties between imperial rulers and subjects changed into a question of racial justice between citizens. She maintains that any study of Sikh ethnography must account for the transformation of Britain into a multiracial and postcolonial nation.[38] In 2008, the British government required an understanding of basic English for future citizens and tests on history and culture in an attempt to put the importance of the "British way of life" at the center of the naturalization process.[39] As each new Punjabi generation emerges in Britain, new generations find themselves more comfortable with English than speaking Punjabi. British born Sikhs tend to lack the ability to read Gurmukhi even if they remain competent in speaking the language. Eleanor Nesbitt proposes that in addition to language, the decision of many Sikhs not to wear all or any Sikh religious items such as the turban lessens the barrier between the minority and majority populations. But with the passing of years, most white Britons adjusted to the appearance of turbans and uncut beards.[40] The variety of religious observance of the Sikh populace within both Britain and the U.S. also reinforces the disunity which both Nesbitt and Ballard acknowledge.

Through the successive waves of Punjabi Sikh migration lies the history of the British Empire. The prominent position of Sikh soldiers within the imperial Empire allowed village Sikhs to experience new surroundings and cultures. Soon after the annexation of Punjab into British India, Sikhs moved within India and all the corners of the Empire. The good standing of Sikhs within the military is a primary cause of their recruitment into British industry. Succeeding generations grew more comfortable of their status with Western society, yet discrimination based on race continued. Initially, many found that discrimination continued as many cast-off their turbans and uncut hair, but Britain and other countries have begun an adjustment to Indian citizens. Early generations fought battles for the right for observant Sikhs to express their religion and, its not uncommon to see younger Western Sikhs returning to their spiritual traditions.[41]

 

 

Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall; largest Sikh Gurdwara in Britain (from The Independent)

 

 

 

Bibliography

Barrier, N. Gerald, and Dusenbery, Verne A., eds. The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab. Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1989.

Bend It Like Beckham. IMDB. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286499/ .

Buchignani, Norman. "Contemporary Research on People of Indian Origin in Canada." Sociological Bulletin 38, no. 1 (March 1989): 71-93. https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23619917.

Casey, Teresa, and Christman Dustmann. "Immigrants’ Identity, Economic Outcomes, and the Transmission of Identity Across Generations." The Economic Journal 120, no. 542 (February 2010): 31-51. https://doi.org/http://www.jstor.com/stable/27765751 .

Chaudhary, Vivek. "How London's Southall became 'Little Punjab'." The Guardian, April 4, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/apr/04/how-london-southall-became-little-punjab-.

Darling, Malcolm L. Rusticus Loquitur, or, The Old Light and The New in the Punjab Village. London: Oxford University Press, 1930. https://ia903206.us.archive.org/10/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.84175/2015.84175.Rusticus-Loquitur-Or-The-Old-Light-And-The-New-In-The-Punjab-Village.pdf .

Darling, Malcolm Lyall. The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt. London: Oxford University Press, 1925. https://indianculture.gov.in/rarebooks/punjab-peasant-prosperity-and-debt .

Gibson, Margaret A. "Punjabi Orchard Farmers: An Immigrant Enclave in Rural California." The International Migration Review 22, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 28-50. https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2546395.

Gonzales, Juan L. "Asian Indian Immigration Patterns: The Origins of the Sikh Community in California." The International Migration Review 20, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 40-54. https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2545683.

Hall, Kathleen D. "The Ethnography of Imagined Communities: The Cultural Production of Sikh Ethnicity in Britain." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 595 (September 2004): 108-21. https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4127613.

Heir, Rajpreet. "Bend It Like Beckham and the Art of Balancing Cultures." Culture. The Atlantic, April 2017. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/04/bend-it-like-beckham-and-the-art-of-balancing-cultures/522477/.

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Jacobsen, Knut A., and Kristina Myrvold, eds., Sikhs in Europe: Migration, Identities and Representations. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2016.

Leonard, Karen I. Making Ethnic Choices: California's Punjabi Mexican Americans. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992.

Metcalf, Thomas R. Imperial Connections: India in the Indian Ocean Arena, 1860-1920. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pnz08?turn_away=true.

Oonk, Gijsbert, ed. Global Indian Diasporas: Exploring Trajectories of Migration and Theory. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007.

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Passmore, Eleanor, and Thompson, Andrew S. eds., Empire, migration and identity in the British World. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013. https://www-jstor-org.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/stable/j.ctt18mvn04

Shukla, Sandhya. India Abroad: Diasporic Cultures of Postwar America and England. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Singh, Gurharpal. "British Multiculturalism and Sikhs." Sikh Formations 1, no. 2 (December 2005): 157-73.

Singh, Pritam, and Thandi, Shinder Singh, eds. Punjabi Identity in a Global Context. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.

 The Pluralism Project: Harvard University. Last modified, https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2546395.

Visram, Rozina. Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History. London: Pluto Press, 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Rajpreet Heir, “Bend It Like Beckham and the Art of Balancing Cultures,” The Atlantic, April 12, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/04/bend-it-like-beckham-and-the-art-of-balancing-cultures/522477/

[2] “Bend It Like Beckham,” IMDB, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286499/

[3] Rozina Visram, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History, (London: Pluto Press, 2002), 99-100.

[4] W.H. McLeod, “First 40 Years of Sikh Migration,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, eds. N. Gerald Barrier and Verne A. Dusenbery (Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1989), 34-35.

[5] Malcolm Lyall Darling, The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt, (London: Oxford University Press, 1925), 26, https://indianculture.gov.in/rarebooks/punjab-peasant-prosperity-and-debt

[6] Malcolm Lyall Darling, Rusticus Loquitur, or, The Old Light and The New in the Punjab Village, (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), 28-29, https://ia903206.us.archive.org/10/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.84175/2015.84175.Rusticus-Loquitur-Or-The-Old-Light-And-The-New-In-The-Punjab-Village.pdf

[7] McLeod, “First 40 Years of Sikh Migration,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, 36-37.

[8]  Thomas R. Metcalf, Imperial Connections: India in the Indian Ocean Arena, 1860-1920, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 72, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pnz08?turn_away=true

[9] McLeod, “First 40 Years of Sikh Migration,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, 44.

[10] N. Gerald Barrier, “Sikh Emigrants and Their Homeland,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, eds. N. Gerald Barrier and Verne A. Dusenbery (Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1989), 65-67.

[11] N. Gerald Barrier, “Sikh Emigrants and Their Homeland,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, 69.

[12]Gijsbert Oonk, Global Indian Diasporas: Exploring Trajectories of Migration and Theory, (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007), 11. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n1bq.4

[13] Norman Buchignani, “Contemporary Research on People of Indian Origin in Canada,” Sociological Bulletin 38, no.1 (March 1989): 71, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23619917 .

[14] Rachel Bird, “Asian migration and the British World, c. 1850–c. 1914,” in Empire, migration and identity in the British World, eds. Kent Fedorowich and Andrew S. Thompson, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), 137, URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18mvn04.12

[15] Bird, “Asian migration and the British World, c. 1850–c. 1914,” in Empire, migration and identity in the British World, 128.

[16] James G. Chadney, “The Formation of Ethnic Communities: Lessons from the Vancouver Sikhs,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, eds. N. Gerald Barrier and Verne A. Dusenbery (Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1989), 187.

[17] Gurinder Singh,” Canadian Sikh Identity,” in Punjabi Identity in a Global Context, eds. Pritam Singh and Shinder Singh Thandi, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), 390.

[18] Gurinder Singh,” Canadian Sikh Identity,” in Punjabi Identity in a Global Context, 391-392.

[19] James G. Chadney, “The Formation of Ethnic Communities: Lessons from the Vancouver Sikhs,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, 187-188.

[20] Karen Isaksen Leonard, Making Ethnic Choices: California’s Punjabi Mexican Americans, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), 62-63.

[21] Leonard, Making Ethnic Choices: California’s Punjabi Mexican Americans, 201.

[22] Margaret A. Gibson, “Punjabi Orchard Farmers: An Immigrant Enclave in Rural California,” The International Migration Review 22, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 28. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2546395

[23] Juan L. Gonzales Jr., “Asian Indian Immigration Patterns: The Origins of the Sikh Community in California,” The International Migration Review 20, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 42. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2545683

[24] The Pluralism Project, Harvard University. https://pluralism.org/the-gurdwara

[25] N. Gerald Barrier, “Sikh Emigrants and Their Homeland,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, 68.

[26] Vivek Chaudhary, “How London's Southall became 'Little Punjab,'” The Guardian, April 4, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/apr/04/how-london-southall-became-little-punjab-

[27] Sandhya Shukla, India Abroad: Diasporic Cultures of Postwar America and England, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 92.

[28] Arthur W Helweg, “Punjab Farmers: Twenty Years in England,” India International Centre Quarterly 5, no. 1 (January 1978): 16. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23001628

[29]   Shukla, India Abroad: Diasporic  Cultures of Postwar America and England, 93.

[30] Helweg, “Punjab Farmers: Twenty Years in England,” India International Centre Quarterly, 16.

[31] Roger Ballard, “Differentiation and Disjunction Amongst Sikhs in Britain,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, eds. N. Gerald Barrier and Verne A. Dusenbery (Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1989), 209.

[32] Ballard, “Differentiation and Disjunction Amongst Sikhs in Britain,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, 209.

[33] Oonk, Global Indian Diasporas: Exploring Trajectories of Migration and Theory, 12.

[34] Ballard, “Differentiation and Disjunction Amongst Sikhs in Britain,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, 208- 210.

[35] Eleanor Nesbitt, “Sikh Diversity in the UK: Contexts and Evolution,” in Sikhs in Europe: Migration, Identities and Representations, eds. Knut A. Jacobsen and Kristina Myrvold, (London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2016), 226.

[36] Ballard, “Differentiation and Disjunction Amongst Sikhs in Britain,” in The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, 203.

[37] Nesbitt, “Sikh Diversity in the UK: Contexts and Evolution,” in Sikhs in Europe: Migration, Identities and Representations, 225.

[38] Kathleen D. Hall, The Ethnography of Imagined Communities: The Cultural Production of Sikh Ethnicity in Britain,“ The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 595, (September 2004): 113. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4127613

[39] Teresa Casey and Christian Dustmann, “Immigrants’ Identity, Economic Outcomes, and the Transmission of Identity Across Generations,” The Economic Journal 120, no. 542 (February 2010): 31.  URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/27765751

[40]Nesbitt, “Sikh Diversity in the UK: Contexts and Evolution,” in Sikhs in Europe: Migration, Identities and Representations, 243-244.

[41] Terence Thomas, “Old Allies, New Neighbors: Sikhs in Britain,” in The Growth of Religious Diversity: Volume I Traditions, ed. Gerald Parsons, (London: The Open University, 1993), 229.

John Lewis, Julian Bond, and the 1986 Congressional Election

John Lewis 1940-2020 from The Guardian

John Lewis served over 30 years in the US House of Representatives representing the Georgia 5^th district. His history as a civil rights leader and victim of a brutal beating while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge during a march for voting rights propelled Lewis to a status as an icon. His long service in the House, stand for issues of justice & racial reconciliation, and his willingness to befriend those on the opposite side of the aisle brought him the reputation as the conscience of Congress.

                Less known was the campaign which won Lewis his long-held seat in Congress which provided Lewis a national platform and transformed him into figure beloved by Americans of every ethnicity and political persuasion. Lewis ran for the 5th District seat in 1977 after Andrew Young resigned to serve as President Jimmy Carter’s ambassador to the United Nations but Lewis lost his first bid for Congress after losing the vote to Wyche Fowler. After a brief service in the Carter administration, Lewis served six years as an Atlanta city councilor until Fowler resigned his House seat to run and eventually narrowly win the election to the US Senate. The campaign for the open 5^th District seat brought Lewis into conflict with another figure who also deserved the label as an icon of the civil rights movement, Julian Bond, and a campaign long remembered as a no holds barred political fight.

Julian Bond & John Lewis from Society of US Intellectual History

            John Lewis and Julian Bond both emerged into leadership during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and were both co-founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). But while men shared leadership and friendship during significant elements of civil rights, their backgrounds and experiences contrasted completely different backgrounds of being black during Jim Crow segregation. Julian Bond was the son of historian and university president Horace Mann Bond and Julian Bond enjoyed a childhood surrounded by academics and exposure to intellectuals in what many would describe as a life of privilege.  Bond describes his life,

My father got his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He taught at a succession of black colleges. He was president of Fort Valley State College, president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, dean of education at Atlanta University. [At Lincoln University,] we had this great big old white house like a Southern plantation house. In our home were all the great figures of the day. I have a picture of me sitting on Paul Robeson’s knee while Robeson sings to me. I have a picture of Albert Einstein. It was just an incredible life for a kid. . . . I never really knew what a segregated school was until high school. At George School [a Quaker institution in Pennsylvania], I started dating this white girl from Virginia. . . . We’d go into Philadelphia on Saturdays or Sundays, then get back to school around 6 or 7 in the evening. Then one afternoon, the dean of men called me into his office. . . . He looked like a tennis player or a country club golf pro who had just begun to age. He told me, in a very calm and polite voice, that he’d appreciate it if I didn’t wear my school jacket on those trips to Philadelphia. It was just as though he had slapped me across the face. All of a sudden, you realize all the talk there’s been, all the whispering. . . . And also that you’re a Negro. That moment was the first time I realize realized it—that distance. . . . I simply couldn’t speak anything to him. I just stood up and walked out of his office.[1]

Bond remained at the center of civil rights deciding to remain in Atlanta and served over twenty years in the Georgia General Assembly and became a founder with Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama. After the election to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965 Bond and seven other black representatives faced opposition when white members of the Georgia House refused to allow them to take their place in the House because of their opposition to the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court forced the Georgia Assembly to seat Bond declaring that the House denied him freedom of speech.[2] In 1968, he received a nomination for vice-president of the United States at the Democratic National Convention in spite of at the age of 28 not meeting the age requirement. Over time Bond grew adept at legislating eventually becoming the chair of the Fulton County delegation and sponsored bills assisting poor Georgians in obtaining home loans. Eventually, his years of effort helped to create the Fifth District as the first majority-black congressional district in Georgia, ironically the office he lost to Lewis. The handsome and urbane Bond represented the future of black leadership and in 1977 when he hosted SaturdayNight Live, Bond presented an image of cool to the nation. Nationwide appearances and speaking tours hinted at a bright future for Bond as some even predicted that Bond would even reach the Georgia governor’s office.[3]

Julian Bond & MLK from The New York Times

            John Lewis as the third child of ten children of a sharecropping family was in many ways the opposite of Julian Bond. Lewis experienced not only grinding poverty but the worst of Jim Crow segregation as a native of Troy, Alabama. By the age of four, Lewis picked cotton and peanuts just a few miles from the boyhood home of George Wallace. Discrimination and injustice distressed Lewis,

            My father couldn’t afford a newspaper subscription. I’d walk half a mile to get my grandfather’s paper after he got done reading it. I kept up with what was going on, reading that paper and listening to that radio. . . . We ordered everything from the Sears & Roebuck catalog. We called it ‘the Wish Book.’ . . . I was bused 18 miles to the Pike County Training School. Black schools were ‘training schools’; whites went to high schools. We had old broken-down buses, ragged books, a rundown building. White students had new buses, nice painted buildings with the grounds kept up. . . . In Troy, they had a soda fountain where you could get Coca-Cola. We called it a combination. A black person could not take a seat. We had to stand at the end of the counter. ‘May I have a combination?’ You put your money down and went outside to the street corner to drink it. . . . As a young child I saw a difference. I resented it. Even the country road where I grew up—because black people owned the land, the road was left unpaved for many, many years. When it rained, the bus got stuck in the mud. That was life in Alabama.[4]

Inspired by the Montgomery bus boycott, Lewis organized sit-in demonstrations while a student at Fisk University and later became one of the original Freedom Riders. Lewis served as the leader of SNCC in 1963 and adhered strongly to a philosophy of nonviolence and reconciliation during a tumultuous of confronting the worst evils of racism. Lewis emerged as one of the important leaders and speakers during the March on Washington. On March 7, 1965, Lewis endured a beating during the march from Selma to Montgomery which fractured his skull and left scars he carried the rest of life.

John Lewis during his time on the Atlanta City Council from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

            Despite an old friendship rooted in the civil rights movement, Bond and Lewis faced an intense and bitter Democratic primary campaign when both entered the race to replace Wyche Fowler as the representative for the Georgia Fifth district. Because the 5^th district was overwhelmingly Democratic, a win in the primary was equivalent to victory. Bond was the favorite of the black establishment of Atlanta and received the important endorsement of Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young who also formerly served as the representative of the 5^th District. At the time Bond was the greater celebrity and hosted fundraisers featuring Washington mayor Marion Barry and jazz great Miles Davis. Bond felt entitled to the seat, “I’d created the seat, drawn the lines myself, I’d made it possible for a black person to be elected. I wanted badly to be there. I could see myself there. It seemed natural to me, the next step.[5]”  

State Senator Julian Bond shakes hands with his opponent City councilman John Lewis at a rally in 1986

Drug use became a focus of the campaign when rumors spread that Bond engaged in drug use. Lewis pounced on the issue and challenged Bond to take a drug test while Bond accused Lewis of “McCarthyism and demagoguery.”[6] During a debate, Lewis proclaimed that he passed his urinalysis test and came out clean but Bond refused to take the test because it “trivializes the issue.[7]” In black churches, the question arose on whether Bond was a man of faith as his intellectual personality appeared off-putting to many. But it was the white population whose mistrust of Bond became decisive in the election. Many of Atlanta’s white liberal establishment mistrusted Bond and wondered out loud if he would represent them in Washington. Although Bond was favored, the election remained tight and Lewis defeated Bond in an upset. From the New York Times,

With all 241 precincts reporting in the unofficial count tonight, Mr. Lewis had 34,548 votes, 52 percent of the total, to 32,170 votes for Mr. Bond. In a race that badly strained relations in Atlanta's black community, Mr. Lewis's margin of victory appeared to come from his strong lead in white precincts on the city's north side, the last to be tabulated tonight. Mr. Lewis, endorsed by the Atlanta newspapers and a favorite of the white liberal establishment and neighborhood organizations, swept the white vote in the first primary, and Mr. Bond captured the black vote. But in a district whose electorate is 58 percent black, that division was almost enough to give Mr. Bond a majority. He got 47 percent to Mr. Lewis's 35.[8]

Defeat devastated Bond and claimed whites cost him the victory he believed he deserved.  The bitter campaign destroyed the friendship between Lewis and Bond who wouldn’t speak to each other until 1989. Bond’s marriage dissolved into bitter acrimony as his wife Alice publicly accused Bond of drug use although she later recanted he accusations. After a divorce Bond left Atlanta and relocated to Washington. He taught at American University and the University of Virginia. In 1998, Bond assumed the chairmanship of the NAACP after a scandal rocked the organization. But many still felt that Bond never reached his full potential and that he never really recovered from the defeat in 1986.

Lewis went on to a storied Congressional career and came to be regarded as an American saint due to his sacrifice at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and his role as the conscience of Congress. But in spite of his present revered status, Lewis was still a politician and his 1986 campaign demonstrated a willingness to engage in the tough and dirty mud of a tough political campaign. His readiness to build bridges in the 1986 campaign anticipated a congressional career that crossed the political divide and work with Republicans even to build friendships with those he disagreed. His touching tribute to Georgia Republican Senator Johnny Isakson upon his retirement was just one testimony of the bonds developed by Lewis. But Lewis also showed a willingness to lead protest when he felt the call and participated in efforts to remind Congress and Americans of the unfished work of civil rights. His doggedness led to the creation of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Lewis served long enough to see BarackObama elected as the nation’s first black president and in 2011 Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Upon his death, Lewis became the first black man to have his body lie in state in the Capitol rotunda. And in spite of his many honors and accomplishments, one must wonder the question of What If? If Bond triumphed in the congressional election of 1986 might Bond have risen to become the conscience of Congress and achieve the promise so many predicted in his youth.

Memorial for John Lewis in the Rotunda

                                    

Sources

Alzuphar, Adolf. "Julian Bond Vs. John Lewis: An Unforgettable Fight For Atlanta’s Fifth Congressional District." Blavitv:News. Last modified July 3, 2017. https://blavity.com/julian-bond-vs-john-lewis-an-unforgettable-fight-for-atlantas-fifth-congressional-district?category1=black-history&subCat=community-submitted&category2=community-submitted.

Clendinen, Dudley. "EX-COLLEAGUE UPSETS JULIAN BOND IN ATLANTA CONGRESSIONAL RUNOFF." New York Times. Last modified September 3, 1986. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/03/us/ex-colleague-upsets-julian-bond-in-atlanta-congressional-runoff.html.

Coppola, Vincent. "The Parable of Julian Bond & John Lewis." Atlanta Magazine. Last modified March 1, 1990. https://www.atlantamagazine.com/great-reads/the-parable-of-julian-bond-john-lewis/.

Eversley, Melanie. "Voices: Bond's quiet dignity commanded respect." USA Today. Last modified August 16, 2015. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/08/16/voices-julian-bond/31819723/.

Hallerman, Tamar. "John Lewis 1940-2020." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Last modified July 2020. https://www.ajc.com/john-lewis-obituary/#chapter-1.

           

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[1] Vincent Coppola, “The Parable of Julian Bond & John Lewis”, Atlanta Magazine,  March 1, 1990, https://www.atlantamagazine.com/great-reads/the-parable-of-julian-bond-john-lewis/

[2] Roy Reed,” Julian Bond, Charismatic Civil Rights Leader, Dies at 75,” The New York Times, Aug 16, 2015

[3] Copplola, March 1, 1990.

[4] Coppola, March 1, 1990.

[5] Coppola

[6] Dudley Clendinen, “ Ex-Colleague Upsets Julian Bond in Atlanta Congressional Runoff”, New York Times, Sep 3, 1986, https://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/03/us/ex-colleague-upsets-julian-bond-in-atlanta-congressional-runoff.html

[7] Clendinen

[8] Clendinen

Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth by Kevin M. Levin

Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth by Kevin M. Levin

Gunhawks comic: from Wikipedia

During my childhood and early teen years I was an avid comic book reader. One particular fascinating comic book was a Marvel Western series called Gunhawks. The main character in the comic was a black gunslinger named Reno Jones along with his childhood friend Kid Cassidy. Reno is a freed slave who lived a happy life on the plantation with a kindly master where he and Cassidy grew up as friends. But the Union Army attacked his home and the girl he loved. Rachel Brown became a captive of the Yankees and in response Reno joined the Confederate army. At the end of the war, Reno and Kid Cassidy roamed the west on a quest to find Reno’s lover Rachel. The publication of the Gunhawks comic was in the early Seventies but the Gunhawks was an example of a series of stories that began after the success of the Civil Rights Movement which claimed that the Confederate army had thousands of free blacks and slaves that fought alongside white Rebel soldiers.

Today the proposition that the Confederate army included thousands of black rebels soldiers remains a belief found in websites, Facebook groups, and even museum exhibits. The increasing reach of the internet, amateur historical research, and the desire to validate history for political and cultural purposes has only led to the spread of claims that blacks participated in large numbers in the Confederate forces. Heritage groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans use the narrative of black Confederates as a vindication of their ancestors as well as a tool to set them apart from white extremist groups. Kevin Levin in his book, Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth draws on primary source documentation to annihilate the legend of black Confederates although he still maintains that the labor of slaves became an essential element of the Confederate ear effort. As soldiers marched to war, many brought body servants and other slaves who served the army in a wide range of roles including cooking, foraging, cleaning, and manual labor indispensable for a functioning army.

Actual Confederates would consider the identification of camp slaves with Confederate soldiers puzzling. In fact the idea put forth by many present Neo-Confederate that the Confederate Army consisted of entire regiments of black soldiers is contradicted by the fact that the Confederacy forbid the participation of black soldiers in the army. Some point to the existence of the black Louisiana Native Guard as an example of a Confederate regiment within the Confederacy but their usefulness to the defense of New Orleans proved limited as the state militia limited membership to “free white males capable of bearing arms,” and many of the Native Guard became members of General Butler’s U.S. Corps d’ Afrique.(45)  In spite of the fact that free blacks volunteered service the response of the southern Government was a denial of any role in combat for all blacks.  In response to reports in Northern newspapers that the Confederacy recruited blacks to serve, John B. Jones of the Confederate War Department responded in his diary saying, “This is utterly untrue. We have no armed slaves to fight for us, nor do we fear a servile insurrection.” Much of Jones’ insistence was a response to the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union policy of arming blacks, which he viewed as an attempt to instigate a slave rebellion. (46) Viewing slavery and white supremacy as a bedrock principle of Southern society and culture the very idea of arming blacks undercut the reason for an independent South.

One of the few lone voices calling for arming slaves was the Irish Confederate general, Patrick Cleburne. By 1864, Cleburne believed that the reserves of available white soldiers was exhausted and promoted the idea of offering freedom to slaves who fought with the South. He also believed that the participation of black soldiers in the army would, “strip the enemy of foreign sympathy and assistance.” (58)  But Cleburne’s suggestion faced instant rejection as Joseph E. Johnson refused to forward Cleburne’s proposal. It was not until January 1865 that faced with defeat would Southern politicians consider the idea of a regiment of blacks. But this plan of desperation was too little and too late as the Confederate government fled Richmond.

General Patrick Cleburne from National Park Service

By the end of the 19^th century, southerners looked for ways to understand and explain their defeat which led to the myth of the Lost Cause. The Lost Cause viewed the War as not about slavery, but as a struggle for state’s rights and a fight to protect the southern way of life. Central to the myth was the benevolence of slavery and the loyalty of slaves. The participation of the camp slaves became evidence of the loyalty and fealty of slaves to their masters. During reunions of Confederate veterans, many former camp slaves participated and became symbols of the loyal slave. As the civil rights movement began to impact the South in the sixties and seventies, many groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Daughters of the Confederacy pointed to the camp slaves as evidence that the War was not caused by slavery and that the Confederate cause had a just foundation. Kevin Levin provides an excellent resource in refuting the myth of the black Confederate and another essential reading in the role of African Americans in the American Civil War.

see:

Levin, Kevin M. Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019.

Smithsonian Magazine, The Diaries Left Behind by Confederate Soldiers Reveal the True Role of Enslaved Labor at Gettysburg

 

Photo of Sergeant Andrew M Chandler of the 44th Mississippi Infantry Regiment with his family slave Silas. This photo is often seen as evidence regarding the existence of black Confederates. But Silas served only as a camp slave and the weapons were most likely props. (see Levin, p. 13)

Immigration: The Guarded Gate

Okrent, Daniel. The Guarded Gate. New York:Scribner, 2019.

An examination of US history reveals a pattern of xenophobia and nativism which often leads to discrimination and hostility towards immigrants and different ethnic groups. Germans, Irish, and Italians found themselves the target of anti-immigrant hysteria and discrimination. The rhetoric used against recent immigrants also appears to bear some similarities to past discussions. The early decades of the twentieth century appear as a watershed in the history of American immigration as thousands of migrants from Eastern and Southern Europe poured into American docks. The United States previously banned immigration from China and Japan through the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 forbidding Japanese immigration. The concern over immigration increased as largely Catholic and Jewish immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe poured into the United States threatening in the eyes of the elite the dominance of the Protestant majority culture. Daniel Okrent in his book, The Guarded Gate tells the story beginning in 1895 of anti-immigrant or restrictionist politicians and elites who strived to not only limit immigration but halt the large number of migrants from areas deemed too alien for the United States to successfully assimilate.  The move to limit immigration soon discovered an ally within scientific racism and eugenics as many progressive elites believed that the large numbers of Catholics and Jews derived from an inferior racial grouping which would dilute the superior Northern European ancestry of most Americans.

            The core concern of many progressive elites was the theory that if immigration continued that the inferior genetic immigrants threatened to replace the majority Northern European Protestant with their substandard racial characteristics and supposed lower intelligence. Politicians led by Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge initially sought to limit immigration trough a literacy test for new immigrants. But failure to institute literacy tests led to a use of scientific racism along with eugenics to provide a scientific basis for immigration quotas. Charles Benedict Davenport, a descendent of New England Puritans sought to use eugenics to improve an evolving humanity and established the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for the study of human improvement through eugenics. Henry Goddard’s Kallikak study of “defectives” convinced many states to impose sterilization upon those judged feeble minded or slow. Goddard also examined recent immigrants at Ellis Island and judged that 79% of Italians, 80% of Hungarians, and 83% of Jews were feeble-minded or imbeciles. Madison Grant, the founder of the Bronx Zoo, caused great concern of racial replacement in his book The Passing of the Great Race, where he declared that the white race faced extinction due to intermixing with inferior racial groups and low birth rates. According to Grant and most who expressed fears of immigration the immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe were definitely not white but a different racial stock altogether.  Interestingly, Grant’s ideas and writings later found great reception in Nazi Germany and still find enthusiastic acceptance among white supremacists and nationalists today.

The concern over immigration and the “science” of racial classifications culminated in the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 which placed strict quotas on new immigrants and based the quotas on the 1890 census. Areas such as Britain and other Northern European countries received higher quotas based on the descendants within America in 1890 while other areas received only a pittance in the number of migrants allowed in the USA. The comprehensive was not only meant to limit immigration but to preserve and protect White Protestant society in the United States. Not only did the quotas inspire Hitler and the Nazi Party, who verbally praised American efforts, but placed roadblocks to fleeing Jews desperate to escape the horrors of the coming Holocaust. Okrent’s work presents serious arguments regarding the consequences of the bigotry and racism which drove much of the anti-immigrant hysteria of the early 20^th century. The appearance of the same arguments used by white supremacists groups and even the use of the replacement theory by respected commentators demonstrates the importance of examining this history and makes The Guarded Gate a valuable tool in examining this important history.  

China and History: The Importance of the Taiping Rebellion and the Boxer Rebellion

Detail from The Suppression of the Taiping Rebellion, ink on silk.

Preston, Diana. The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story ofChina's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900.New York: Berkley Books, 1999.

Spence, Jonathan D. God's Chinese Son: The Taiping HeavenlyKingdom of Hong Xiuquan. New York: W. W. Norton& Company, 1996.

Add caption

            Recent news from China shows a deep suspicion from the Communist Chinese rulers for what they consider foreign religious interference. Thousands if not over a million Muslims languish in internment camps in the western Xinjang region which the Chinese government claims are centers for voluntary education and training. As Christianity spreads throughout China in recent years the reaction of the Chinese government has been to forcibly close churches and jail pastors. The forced closing of the Early Rain Covenant Church in the city of Chengdu, recently led to a nine-year prison sentence of the pastor Wang Yi. Much of the reaction and persecution of religious groups stems from the totalitarian and authoritarian nature of the Chinese Communist Party, but many answers also rise from a study of Chinese history. As the Western world began to explore and colonize the Western hemisphere and develop Asian trading posts, the Chinese Qing dynasty remained confident in their own superiority. The Chinese rejected any interference from Western Europe and saw no need for trade or use for Western products. Yet a number of events brought China and Westerners into conflict and led to years of Chinese resentment.

            By the mid Nineteenth century, China confronted problems at many different levels. Contacts with Western countries increased as Europeans and Americans clamored for increased trade with China. While many westerners pursued trade opportunities, missionaries looked to establish a Christian presence in China with converts among China’s millions. Profoundly desiring isolation from Western influence, the Qing monarchy resisted Western intrusion, but the British victory after the Opium Wars forced the presence of European and American traders within China along with Christian missionaries who worked to spread Christianity.[1] Caught between a monarchy desperate to maintain control and foreigners eager for riches or a spiritual kingdom was the common Chinese struggling to live out their bare existence. Jonathan Spence in his book, God’s Chinese Son and Diana Preston in her book, The Boxer Rebellion describe two of the most violent upheavals in Chinese history which demonstrate the ferocious reaction of the frustrated millions against both Western influence and Qing corruption. 

Hong Xiuquan

            Hong Xiuquan was a lower-middle-class man of Hakka origin, whose dream to become part of the Qing administration continually faced frustration as he failed to pass the required Confucian examinations. A dream vision followed by his reception of a Christian tract led Hong to understand himself as the younger brother of Jesus with the mission to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. Unlike many messianic figures, Hong gathered massive numbers of followers ready to obey and fight against the demonic forces of the Qing monarchy. The appeal of his message to so many reveals not only the ability of Hong to win converts but also the desperate situation of many Chinese peasants. Hong not only shared a religious message but provided a “promise of solidarity against threatening forces all around.[2] Common Chinese trapped between oppressive forces reached out to the stabilizing assurance offered by Hong and his vision of a Heavenly Kingdom. With the promise of a place within the Heavenly Kingdom, millions followed Hong into a revolution that consumed China and killed millions. The Taiping Rebellion led by Hong Xiuquan was the bloodiest civil war in human history costing the lives of millions of Chinese and almost led to the toppling of the Qing Dynasty. Casualties remain unknown, but the Taiping Rebellion costs the lives of anywhere from 20 to 50 million people considering war caused famines and disease.

            Diana Preston in her book, The Boxer Rebellion discusses a revolutionary movement of Chinese people undergirded by the common people. Preston presents a more popular interpretation of the Rebellion rather than an academic account.[3] The Boxers, like the followers of Hong, were a mystical peasant group frustrated with conditions in China. They were “anti-Christian, antimissionary, and antiforeign” and believed that through their exercises and magic formulas that their mission was to free China of foreigners and Christianity.[4] The Boxer movement swept rapidly through China which and was a “heartfelt response to desperate and worsening conditions in northern China and an increasing sense of impotence.[5]” The Boxers gave their followers a sense of power against frustrating conditions in a similar manner that the followers of Hong Xiuquan found their purpose in the Taiping community. The Qing monarchy led by the Empress Dowager, Tzu Hsi,  attempted to utilize the Boxers for her own purposes. While her influence over the Boxers appeared unclear, she shared with them a hatred and fear of foreign influence. But the rise of the Boxers was a movement born from peasants frustrated with economic and natural disasters who blamed their misfortunes on “foreign interference and Christian converts for alienating China’s traditional gods and causing them to punish the land and its people.[6]” Both the Taiping Rebellion and the Boxer Rebellion rose from Chinese frustration, but while the Heavenly Kingdom directed their wrath at the demonic forces of the Qing, the Boxers believed foreigners were the source of their pain.

Boxers

            While both uprisings rose from among the Chinese peasant class, both authors view the greed of Western imperialism and the intrusion of Christian missionaries as instrumental in both revolutionary movements. Particular notice points to the missionaries as instruments who disturbed the social fabric of Chinese life. Chinese Christians refused participation in the cultural and religious customs of village life thereby causing division within the community. Practices such as ancestor worship, long common among the Chinese for centuries became labeled as a form of idolatry and rejected by Chinese Christians. For many, the rejection of long-held customs was a rejection of Chinese culture and identity.[7] For Preston, insensitivity to Chinese customs from missionaries led to the rejection of Chinese Christians by the larger community and an enraged peasant class. 

            The origins of the Taiping Kingdom rose not from the vexation of foreign influence but from the rigidity of the Qing social system. But Spence lays blame at missionaries who intruded into Chinese culture with little understanding of the culture and civilization. Many missionaries concern themselves with their individual missions and numbers rather than the impact of their message. The Taiping Rebellion does provide a case study regarding the rapid spread of ideas and the ways in which the use of religion can point to revolutionary movements. While both authors view foreign interference as a cause of both rebellions, the inflexibility and seclusion of the Manchus from the population also bear responsibility for the violence. Current Communist Chinese rulers also possess rigidity in dealing with citizens who fail to conform to Communist standards. But unlike the Qing, it remains to be seen if the failure to respond to the needs of China will lead the Communists to the same doomed path.

China from Geology.com

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[1] For a good treatment of the Opium Wars see: W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello, The Opium Wars (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2002)

[2] Jonathan D. Spence, God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996), 88. 

[3] For an academic treatment of the Boxer Rebellion see: Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Rebellion, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)

[4] Diana Preston, The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900 (New York: Berkley Books, 1999), 22-23.

[5] Ibid., 24.

[6] Ibid., 24.

[7] Ibid., 26.