Massacred Protestant missionaries--Boxer consideration--The
warlike qualities of Roman Catholics--Martyrs--Barricaded at
Ch’ing-Ting-fu--A gallant defence--Catholics and their converts.
The number of Protestant missionaries massacred by the Chinese in the
three months following Mr. Brooks’s murder is put down at 93, or 28
men, 40 women (20 married and 20 single), and 25 children.
Twenty-eight of these were Americans--9 men, 13 women (5 married and 8
single), and 6 children.
As many as 125 people (56 men, 50 women, and 19 children), of whom 54
were American, were still in the interior at the beginning of October,
beside 100 more persons in the provinces of Shansi and Chili, about
whose welfare considerable anxiety was felt by their friends. None
of these people had been heard from (on September 29) since June 13,
that is since before the massacres had taken place in Tai-yuen-fu, the
capital of the province.
There are instances in which the Boxers, either through fear or because
they were held in check by influential people, behaved with less
cruelty, and even with consideration and kindness, but these cases were
few and far apart.
A Mr. and Mrs. Greene, two children, and Miss Gugg were known to be
in the hands of the Boxers at Hsin-an-Hsien, a town eighty miles
from Tientsin. After the relief of Pekin an intimation was at once
sent to the officials that, should the lives of these captives be
spared, the city would escape destruction at the hands of the punitive
expedition, while in the contrary case no quarter would be given to
the inhabitants, and their houses would be destroyed without mercy. It
was pleasant to hear that the Europeans were still alive on September
1, and that the merchants and leading people in the town had joined
in supplying the captives with food and clothes, although they were
held prisoners and closely watched by armed Boxers, inside a temple,
presumably Buddhist.
The Roman Catholics all over China seem to have displayed warlike
qualities quite unexpected in people so religious. As they took up arms
solely in self-defence and for their own preservation, the circumstance
is much to their credit. It may be that, being more conversant than the
English and American Protestant missionaries with the Chinese language,
and being more thrown together with the natives of all classes of
society, no matter of what creed, the Catholics knew better what was
coming and how they would fare in the hands of the Boxers, soldiers, or
officials. Therefore, in many cases, instead of trusting blindly to the
protection of treacherous officials or soldiers, they preferred from
the beginning to make a brave stand for their lives. To those who know
the contemptible cowardice of the Chinese and kindred races, it seems
possible that many lives might have been saved had the missionaries
in every station all joined in a determined fight to keep Boxers and
soldiers at bay, as was successfully done in the remarkable defence of
the Legations and Pe-tang mission in Pekin.
It is, however, not fair to express an opinion; even a comparison is
hardly just, since it is possible that the Protestant missionaries had
no arms or ammunition with which to make a stand, in which case the
chances of success of such a defence would be but very small.
[Sidenote: LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS]
Missionaries ought to be law-abiding people, and undoubtedly those
who were victims believed they were acting rightly in obeying the
hypocritical orders of the various bloodthirsty Governors and
magistrates who led them into death-traps. No blame, therefore, can
attach to those poor martyrs--for there is no other name for them--who
were killed. Considered as peaceful and law-abiding citizens, the
missionaries could not have acted better, or in a more conciliatory
manner. All the heavier should be the punishment inflicted on the
Chinese authorities for their barbarous and infamous behaviour towards
men, women, and children of our race.
At Ch’ing-Ting-fu, for instance, all the missionaries--some twenty, all
counted--barricaded themselves in the Roman Catholic church, where they
made a most gallant defence against the besieging Boxers. They had kept
the Boxers and soldiers at bay, but, when last heard of, were running
short of food and ammunition, and were begging urgently for relief.
Mr. and Mrs. Griffith and Mr. Brown, of the China Inland Mission, were
among the besieged. The rest were all Catholics.
Considerable anxiety was felt regarding some twenty-five missionaries,
travelling in various directions from Kansul, Yumsan and Kweicheo to
places deemed safe; but, although long overdue, it was hoped that all
three parties might eventually reach some foreign settlement in safety.
My informant had not the same facilities for getting news about the
Catholics, but thirty-five of their missionaries had certainly been
reported massacred, of whom five were bishops, twenty-eight priests,
and two Sisters of Charity. Twenty more were massacred in Shen-si, and
Shan-si alone, the hotbed of Boxerdom. Painful beyond words was the
news that practically all their converts, the result of the patient
work of centuries, and of untold hardships and privations, had been
murdered. No less than fifteen to twenty thousand native Catholics
had been massacred, and whole villages and small towns of Christians
exterminated by the Boxers, in the northern provinces and in Manchuria,
where Roman Catholicism had made great strides.
[Illustration: JUNKS ON THE PEI-HO]