ABSTRACT
THE REBELS OF THE SOUTH: THE AMERICAN SOUTH, THE
TAIPING, AND THEIR STRUGGLES FOR NATIONHOOD
The United States and China were both embroiled in civil war in the midnineteenth century, during what scholars have deemed the “Age of Nationalities.”
This thesis seeks to explore the similarities and differences between the South, in
the United States, and the Taiping in China, in their respective struggles for
nationhood. By looking globally, we discover more about the local with the South
and the Taiping. Furthermore, utilizing Benedict Anderson's theoretical
understanding of nationalism, we are able to observe that Taiping nationhood
though dynastic, has similarities with Southern nationhood, illustrating that both a
Western and Eastern nation implemented and used similar ideas, despite having
different government systems. This thesis seeks to explore the common themes
between the South and the Taiping, which are: history, in which both used it to
justify their respective presents, identity, which was ethnocentric, and Christianity,
in that both believed they were God’s chosen people. This thesis concludes that it
is not surprising that both the South and the Taiping looked into their historical
memory to establish their respective nation-states, just as future generations will
look into the past to shape and reshape their identities in both America and China.
Alexandra Marie Jones
August 2016
THE REBELS OF THE SOUTH: THE AMERICAN SOUTH, THE
TAIPING, AND THEIR STRUGGLES FOR NATIONHOOD
by
Alexandra Marie Jones
A thesis
submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts in History
in the College of Social Science
California State University, Fresno
August 2016
APPROVED
For the Department of History:
We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student
meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the
university and the student's graduate degree program for the
awarding of the master's degree.
Alexandra Marie Jones
Thesis Author
Ethan J. Kytle (Chair)
History
Frederik Vermote
History
William Skuban
History
For the University Graduate Committee:
Dean, Division of Graduate Studies
AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION
OF MASTER’S THESIS
X
I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in
its entirety without further authorization from me, on the
condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction
absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of
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Signature of thesis author:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would first like to thank my friends and family, for their support in the
thesis writing process. I would especially like to thank my Dad for reading my
thesis in its entirety, as well as Greta Bell, and Trevor Bodi who read part or parts
of this thesis, and provided helpful feedback. I would also like to thank both my
Mom and Dad for their support over these years for without their love, help, and
support in career shift I would not be where I am today. I would also like to thank
the professors of the Fresno State History Department; I have learned a great deal
about the discipline of History. I would specifically like to thank my thesis
committee. First, the Chair Dr. Ethan Kytle, for agreeing to be my thesis advisor
and for chairing this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. Kytle, for his guidance
that stopped me from going down unnecessary research rabbit holes. Second, Dr.
Frederik Vermote, who in Fall 2014 challenged the students of 230T to take our
theses and make them global, without this challenge I would not be the historian I
am today, and nor would I be interested or studying Chinese history. I would also
like to thank Dr. Vermote for answering my never ending questions. Third, Dr.
William Skuban, who has encouraged and provided helpful feedback on my
different research topics and papers. I would also like to thank Dr. Skuban for
being my third reader. Furthermore, I have learned a good deal from Dr. Kytle, Dr.
Vermote and Dr. Skuban, which I in turn hope to use in the future. Lastly, I am so
blessed and grateful for all the amazing people I have gotten to know and learn
from, here at Fresno State.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION – WEST VS. EAST?.......................................... 1
Nationalism ....................................................................................................... 4
Historiography................................................................................................... 8
CHAPTER 2: HISTORY – THE COLLISION OF THE PAST AND THE
PRESENT .................................................................................................... 21
The Back Story ................................................................................................ 22
The Southern View of History ........................................................................ 36
The Taiping View of History .......................................................................... 42
Conclusion....................................................................................................... 50
CHAPTER 3: IDENTITY – THE ETHNOCENTRISM OF IDENTITY ............. 52
What is Hakka and the Han-Chinese?............................................................. 54
The North and the South of Different Races? ................................................. 56
Ethnocentric Superiority ................................................................................. 65
The Barbarian and Aliens to the North .......................................................... 72
Geography ....................................................................................................... 77
Conclusion....................................................................................................... 81
CHAPTER 4: CHRISTIANITY – GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE............................ 84
The South and the Taiping as Saviors ............................................................. 86
The Divine Providence of the Confederacy and Taiping Dynasty ................. 93
Southern, Confederate, and Taiping Uses of Scripture in the Justification
of their Cause ..................................................................................... 100
Conclusion..................................................................................................... 105
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION – SOUTHERN LEGACIES ............................... 108
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................ 112
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION – WEST VS. EAST?
The years 1850 to 1865 were some of the bloodiest years in the nineteenth
century. Tensions between the North and the South in the United States grew until
the Southern states could no longer bear to follow what they saw as Northern
policies, which they believed led to tyranny. Beginning in December 1860, with
South Carolina leading the charge, the Southern states seceded one by one. War
finally reared its ugly head between the North and the South in 1861; it was a
bloody conflict that would last until the South’s surrender in 1865, leaving
750,000 dead.1 This war is considered to be the bloodiest in United States history,
however there is another civil war that took place during this period: the Taiping
Civil War.2 The loss of life in that conflict is estimated at 30 times greater than the
American Civil War, or about 22.5 million people.3 The Taiping Civil War in
China broke out in 1850 amidst economic strife and severe government
corruption, and it ended in 1864 with the capture and execution of the last of the
1 Don H. Doyle, The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War
(New York: Basic Books, 2015), 167. The figure 750,000 total dead on both sides of the American Civil
War, which Doyle stated is an updated number.
2 David Armitage, “Interchange: Nationalism and Internationalism in the Era of the Civil War,”
The Journal of American History (September 2011): 461; Michael Geyer and Charles Bright, “Global
Violence and Nationalizing Wars in Eurasia and America: The Geopolitics of War in the Mid-Nineteenth
Century,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol 38, no. 4 (October 1996): 624, 627. Both these
pages of Geyer’s and Bright’s article refer to the American and Taiping Rebellion (Civil War) as the
bloodiest conflicts in the 19th century. On page 627 they specify that the Taiping Rebellion is the first.
Stephen Platt described it as “The war that engulfed China from 1851 to 1864 was not only the most
destructive war of the nineteenth century, but likely the bloodiest civil war of all time.” Stephen R. Platt,
Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom: China, The West, And The Epic Story of The Taiping Civil War (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), xxiii.
3 Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom, xxiii; Tobie Meyer-Fong, What Remains: Coming to
terms with Civil War in 19th Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 1. It is important to
note that Meyer-Fong does state that it is impossible to know the number dead from the Taiping Civil War
and even an approximation is impossible to know with any certainty. Meyer Fong quoted the estimate of
between 20 to 30 million people dead. (7)
2
main Taiping leaders.4 The Taiping Civil War is considered to be the bloodiest
conflict in the nineteenth-century world, yet in the West and particularly the
United States this conflict remains largely unknown.5
The conflicts of the nineteenth-century American South and the Taiping in
China are part of what has been deemed the “Age of Nationalities” by scholars,
who study the development of modern nationalism and the nation state on a global
scale.6 The wars of unification in Germany, the revolutionary wars in France, and
the American Civil War, are all examples of nineteenth-century struggles for
nationhood. Historians have begun to put the American Civil War into a global
context by examining its effects on the Atlantic World.7 This shift in scholarship
has allowed for global connections to be made between westernized and nonwesternized cultures. Historian Stephen Platt, in his monograph Autumn in The
Heavenly Kingdom: China, The West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War,
allows for new avenues of study. One such avenue is exploring the connections
between the American South and the Taiping through the examination of
nationalism during the mid-nineteenth century.
The synchronicity between the American South and the Taiping, both of
whom struggled for independence during this period, has largely been
4 Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China third edition (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2013), 168-178. 1864 is the official end year because that is the year in which the last of the top
Taiping leaders died or were captured and executed. There were a couple of leaders that continued on the
fight but the Taiping rebellion was over by 1868. Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion: History and
Documents vol III (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), 1543.
5 Armitage, “Interchange: Nationalism and Internationalism,” 461. Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly
Kingdom, xxiii-xxiv.
6 The Author. “Interchange: Nationalism and Internationalism in the Era of the Civil War,” The
Journal of American History, (September, 2011), 455. This is from the opening introduction they do not
specify the name of who authored it and at the bottom of the page they have  The Author 2011, thus when
the writer is not specified “The Author” will take the place of the name.
7 Ibid., all.
3
overlooked.8 The Taiping were embroiled in their civil war against the Qing
dynasty from 1850-1864.9 Meanwhile, the 1850s saw increased tensions between
the North and the South in the United States, with full out war from 1861-1865.
Analyzing and comparing the emergence of Southern identity and Taiping identity
reveals that both groups, similarly used history, ethnocentrism, and Christianity in
their quest for nationhood.10
Examining these commonalities expands our understanding of Southern
identity and Taiping identity. In the South, slavery has been front and center,
which has overshadowed the ethnocentric and Christian elements of nationalism.
Similarly, the Christian element has been the dominant focus of Taiping
nationalism and identity in Western scholarship. Therefore, scholarship has failed
to place ethnicity in its proper role in Taiping nationalism and identity. By
utilizing Benedict Anderson's tenets of nationalism we are able to observe that
Taiping nationhood, though dynastic, has similarities with Southern nationhood.
8 The American South will by and large for the rest of the thesis be referred to just as the South or
the Confederacy.
9 The Taiping Civil War is more commonly known as the Taiping Rebellion, however western
scholars have begun to call it a civil war, revolution or other names for conflicts other than Rebellion.
Stephen R. Platt in Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom, prefers to call it a civil war for two main reasons the
first is by calling it a Rebellion, though the Taiping were rebels Platt points out, sides with the Qing
dynasty. Second Platt calls it a civil war because to call it a Rebellion rests sole blame on the Taiping. Platt,
Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom, xxvii-xxviii. Tobie Meyer-Fong stated that the term Rebellion reflects
both the United States and Britain siding with the Qing. Her main reasoning for calling it a civil war was
because “the term civil war also allows that the nineteenth-century Chinese case might not be exotic or
exceptional and is in fact a civil war, we can refocus attention on damage and destruction rather than the
peculiar vision or ideology of a man and his followers.” Meyer-Fong, What Remains, 11. Immanuel C.Y.
Hsü called the Taiping Rebellion the Taiping Revolution throughout Chapter 10 which was strictly on the
The Taiping. Immanuel C.Y. Hsü, The Rise of Modern China 6th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press,
2000), 221-256. Lastly Jonathan D. Spence calls the Taiping Rebellion an Uprising. Jonathan Spence, The
Search for Modern China, 168. Furthermore, I choose to call it a Civil War not only for the reasons laid out
by Platt and Meyer-Fong but also because Chinese were not just fighting the Manchus, but the Chinese
who sided with them as well.
10 It is important to note that to understand the American South and the rise of nationalism one
needs to look at sources from the 1850s.
4
This will illustrate that both a Western and Eastern nation implemented and used
similar ideas, despite having different government systems. So, by placing the
South and the Taiping in a global context through this comparative study, we will
able to better understand the local in terms of the elements of nationalism. This
comparative approach has allowed us to better probe the impact ethnicity had in
the Southern local regions of the United States and China, in addition to providing
a better understanding of Southern and Taiping nationalism and identity.
There are limits to this comparative study of the South in the United States
and the Taiping in China. First, the focus was on Western scholarship, which is
particularly important to note in the study of China. Second, since the focus is on
Western scholarship the Chinese primary sources evaluated were therefore those
that were already in English or translated into English. Thus, this thesis does not
speak to Eastern scholarship or more precisely Chinese scholarship, in part
because there is still much headway that needs to be made in Western scholarship.
Nationalism
Before we can examine nationalism and identity, nationalism first needs to
be defined. The problem, however, is that often those within a nation do not
always agree on what their nation should do, let alone what it means to be part of
that nation. 11 It is little wonder that to define nation, nationality, and nationalism,
has been “notoriously difficult” for scholars who study nationalism.12 Benedict
Anderson defined nation as an “imagined political community” that was not only
11 Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 3.
12 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006), 3. Another source on nationalism see Homi K. Bhabha, “Introduction:
Narrating the Nation,” in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1990).
5
inherently limited, with finite boundaries, but also sovereign.13 These elements
were present in both the South’s and Taiping’s struggles for nationhood. Exploring
the similarities and differences between the South and the Taiping will shed a light
on how nationalism emerged and was justified by both groups in the “Age of
Nationalities.”14
In addition, nationalism, nation, nationality, and even nation-state have
been difficult for scholars to define in part because there is significant debate over
nationalism and it’s categorizations, which are inherently problematic. To
categorize nationalism as strictly political, cultural, civic, or ethnic, would be a
mistake. Furthermore, as the South and the Taiping will demonstrate it is typically
a combination of these.15 This means that the nationalism employed by the South
and the Taiping was multidimensional in nature and therefore, consisted of both
the political and the cultural – which includes ethnic and religious aspects – that at
times favored one or the other. Thus, by examining nationalism as
multidimensional project, we are able to set the nation first on the cultural “terrain
where it was elaborated, conceived as a complex, uneven, and unpredictable
process, forged from a process of cultural coalescence and specific political
intervention.”16 In examining both the political and the cultural in the Southern
13 Ibid., 6-7. Sarah Anne Rubin also defined nation which does line up with Anderson as “an
emotional, ideological, and frequently sentimentalized construct, created by individuals who selfconsciously share the belief that they are all united by a common culture, history, and social personality.”
Anne Sarah Rubin, A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy 1861-1868 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina, 2005), 2-3.
14 The Author, “Interchange: Nationalism and Internationalism,” 455.
15 Umut Özkirimli, Contemporary Debates on Nationalism: A Critical Engagement (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 20-25.
16 Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, Becoming National: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996), 8. A longer version of this quote can also be found in Özkirimli, Contemporary
Debates on Nationalism, 21.
6
United States and in China, we gain a better understanding of the struggles for
nationhood.
Furthermore, we can explore other studies of nationalism such as Stewart
Jones’s discussion on nationalism in regards to late-nineteenth-century Europe.
What Jones observed has applicability in the South and in China. He stated that
nation building in late-nineteenth-century Europe involved not only storytelling,
which is the myth of the nation’s beginning, but also “an ‘objective’ process of
national integration,” that brings the nation together.17 Paul Quigley built on
Jones’s argument by arguing that this concept held true in Southern nationalism
prior to the Civil War. In the South, nationalism resided in stories (the cultural),
meanwhile, they faced the political issue of how to unite, demonstrating the
multidimensional project of Southern nationalism. For Southerners the solution
was cultural because they shared a common historical experience that was distinct
from the North, which they believed warranted an independent Southern nation.18
Jones’ view of late-nineteenth-century European nationalism also holds true when
one examines a non-westernized culture such as the Taiping in China, who like the
South linked themselves to their ancestors, and they too studied history to inform
their identity. Prasenjit Duara, a scholar who studies China, explained that nationstates, the political organization of a somewhat homogenous group of people, had
a difficult balancing act because on the one side they sought to “glorify the ancient
or eternal character of the nation,” yet on the other side, “emphasize the
unprecedented nature of the nation-state.” In other words, they had to utilize the
17 Paul D. H. Quigley, ““That History is Truly the Life of Nations”: History and Southern
Nationalism in Antebellum South Carolina,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 106, no.1 (Jan.
2005): 15-16.
18 Ibid., 15-16.
7
history of their nation to demonstrate precedent, however, they also needed to
emphasize that they were different, to justify the establishment of the nation-state
they were creating. It is the result of the wanting to emphasize the uniqueness of
their nation-state that “the people-nation” realize their role as the “subject of
History.”19
This explanation of Duara’s directly correlates with Anderson’s discussion
of the creation of a nation-state. Anderson stated that a nation claims to be not
only new but also historical, which gives them “an immemorial past,” while
allowing them to soar into a future that is full of possibilities. For that reason, “it is
the magic of nationalism to turn chance into destiny.”20 Anderson was arguing
that looking to the past gives authority to what those in the present are creating.
This allowed the South and the Taiping to not only justify but also provide a
foundation on which to build for the future. Thus, nationalism leads to a sense of
destiny, which is evident in how the South and the Taiping viewed themselves as
superior.21 Therefore, demonstrating the multidimensional reality of nationalism,
particularly for both the South and the Taiping, which was not only political but
also cultural in terms of the ethnocentric and religious elements.
Moreover, we will examine Southern and Taiping nationalism by using
Anderson’s three tenets of nationalism, which are: imagined limited, imagined
sovereign, and imagined community, all of which Anderson derived from his
study of the “imagined political community”. Imagined limited was defined as a
group of people or a society with finite boundaries, which may have a small
19 Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation, 29. Description of nation-state from MerriamWebster’s Collegiate Dictionary 11th ed. (Springfield: Merriam – Webster Incorporated, 2005), 826.
20 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 11-12.
21 Ibid., all.
8
degree of elasticity, but by and large has limits. Imagined sovereign was defined
as freedom by being one’s own sovereign state and if under any power, it is
directly under the power of God. Lastly, imagined community was defined as the
conceived comradeship that exists in a nation and in the creation of a nation,
which is often mythic like, in terms of a sense of fraternal community.22 The three
key themes discussed in this thesis exemplify Anderson’s tenets listed above. By
exploring how the South and the Taiping looked to history to justify their
respective causes through looking to the past to justify their present, both the
South and the Taiping exemplified imagined limited, imagined sovereign, and
imagined community. Identity and more specifically ethnicity through the belief of
being the superior race exemplified imagined limited and imagined community.
While both the South and the Taiping looked to Christianity to justify their cause
via the belief in being God’s Chosen people, which exemplified imagined
sovereign and imagined community.
Historiography
At the heart of this research is Stephen Platt’s Autumn in The Heavenly
Kingdom: China, The West, And The Epic Story of The Taiping Civil War,
published in 2012. Platt’s main focus was on the conclusions of the Taiping Civil
War and the ethnic grounds upon which the Taiping made their argument, rather
than focusing on the “origins of the war,” and the Christian element of the Taiping
movement. Platt opened the door to a comparative study of the Southern United
States and the Taiping not only by noting the “simultaneity of the Chinese and
American Civil Wars was no trivial matter,” but also through his argument that it
was the start of the Civil War in America, which had a hand in shaping “the final
22 Ibid., 2-3, 7.
9
outcome of events in China.” Britain feared the loss of their economic markets in
the United States and China, which were their two largest markets, forcing Britain
to make a choice. Britain chose to meddle in China in order to remain neutral in
the United States.23 Building from where Stephen Platt left off, this thesis seeks to
analyze the similarities between the South and the Taiping in their respective
struggles for nationhood in the middle of the nineteenth century.
In discussing Taiping nationalism it is crucial to look at the rise of
Christianity and how it has been studied. Since the 1960s work has been done to
change the perspective of how Christianity is studied in China. Prior to the 1960s,
the scholarship explored missionary success in China and how they proselytized
the Chinese. Scholars since the 1960s have attempted to answer questions that are
geared towards studying both movements of support, and anti-Christian
movements in terms of the Chinese ability to accept Christianity or western
science. Scholars also sought to answer how the Chinese reacted towards the
missionaries.24 Nicolas Standaert noted that traditionally, scholars who studied
church history and missiology studied the strategy of the missionaries, which
shifted to studying the “establishment of the local community.” This then links
“the concept of “Chinese response”” to the initial western impact via
Christianity.25 Thus, shifting the study from the foreign perspective of the
missionaries to “the native cultural setting.”26 Standaert further discussed how the
interactions between the Chinese and the West can be better understood through
23 Ibid., xxiv.
24 Nicolas Standaert, “New Trends in the Historiography of Christianity in China,” The Catholic
Historical Review 83, no. 4 (Oct 1997): 574.
25 Ibid., 579, 580.
26 Ibid., 581.
10
studying Christianity. 27 This thesis adds to the understanding of the Chinese
through examining the Taiping, and how both Christianity and ethnicity formed
their identity, in hopes that it will lend to greater understanding of the Chinese
interactions with western culture, in the future. It is also essential to equally
examine ethnocentrism alongside that of Christianity in order to gain a fuller
understanding of the Taiping identity and their rise to nationhood. Though Jacques
Gernet examined an earlier period of Christianity in China, his work can be
applied to the Taiping period as well. Historians have examined how the Taiping
used Christianity to change many aspects of their society.28 This is the very thing
Gernet explored particularly in terms of the xenophobic conservatism, which was
hostile to Christianity. Gernet also discussed how modernity was associated with
Christianity and the Chinese who converted. These converts were believed to have
moved away from their traditions towards a more open world.29 Specifically with
the Taiping, Hong Rengan, a Taiping leader, looked to the west to aid in creating
policies that would bring China into the global economy.30
In addition, the main focus of Western scholarship in terms of the Taiping
has been on Christianity, and the influence it had in Taiping writing. This focus on
Christianity has relegated ethnocentric notions to the background of Taiping
27 Ibid., 611.
28 Sources which discuss the impact Christianity had: Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern
China third edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013); Vincent Y.C. Shih, The Taiping
Ideology: Its Sources, Interpretations, and Influences (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967); Carl
S. Kilcourse, “Son of God, Brother of Jesus; Interpreting the Theological Claims of the Chinese
Revolutionary Hong Xiuquan,” Studies in World Christianity 20, iss. 2 (2014); Thomas H. Reilly, The
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 2004).
29 Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures, trans. Janet Lloyd
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 1.
30 Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom, 50-57, 60.
11
nationalism, instead of recognizing that both were of equal importance.
Ethnocentrism is also a significant part of the story for both ethnocentric and
Christian notions not only appeared side by side, but also reinforced each other.
Through ethnicity the Taiping justified their cause based on race and declared that
Han-Chinese was the superior race, while also justifying their cause by declaring
that they were God’s chosen people.31 Hence, it is part of the story that still needs
to be told, in Western scholarship.
Thomas Reilly falsely argued that not enough emphasis has been placed on
Christianity in scholarship and noted the works of Vincent Shih and Jonathan
Spence, whose works left room for Reilly’s monograph. He rightly argued that
there is a Taiping Christianity, which has not fully been realized in Western
scholarship. But to rest the Taiping ideology behind their nationalism fully on the
religious aspect does a disservice, just as much as not discussing or
acknowledging the key impact and role that it did in fact play.32 Thomas Reilly
did not make a fair assessment that Taiping historiography has focused mainly on
the ethnic element in terms of Western historiography. Many of the Western
works written on the Taiping focus mainly on the religious aspect and the
movement. They make mention of the ethnic element, yet analyze it very little.
Jonathan D. Spence approached the Christian element through analyzing
Hong Xiuquan. Spence did this in God’s Chinese Son: the Taiping Heavenly
Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan, which focuses on Hong Xiuquan, the Taiping
31 Yang Hsiu-ch’ing and Xiao Chaogui, “Proclamations by Imperial Sanction” in The Taiping
Rebellion: History and Documents vol II, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1971); Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom.
32 Thomas H. Reilly, The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004). This idea of Taiping Christianity can also be found in
Vincent Y.C. Shih, The Taiping Ideology: Its Sources, Interpretations, and Influences (Seattle: University
of Washington Press, 1967).
12
Heavenly King, with the goal of understanding him and the impact he had on
China.33 Spence as a result of examining Hong Xiuquan, spent much of his time in
his book on Christianity. In addition, Vincent Y. C. Shih, in The Taiping
Ideology: Its Sources Interpretations, and Influences, argued that in exploring the
Taiping ideology, though there were a few unique characteristics, the reality was
according to Shih that, the ideology of the Taiping followed a “more or less
uniform pattern” as previous rebellions did. Shih discussed that there are
similarities among rebel ideologies, which can then be argued that these ideologies
are a part of a tradition all their own. Shih discovered in terms of the Taiping
ideology that it was the religious element, which bound the Taiping together.34 He
also stated that the Taiping, like the Hebrews, lived lives dominated by religion,
and noted that the Taiping Civil War was both political and religious in nature.
While acknowledging the ethnic issue that existed in the Taiping period, he spends
relatively little time on this and analyzes it very little in comparison to that of
Christianity.35
This thesis further seeks to bring front and center ethnocentrism so that it
alongside Christianity can give a better and deeper picture of Taiping nationalism.
Even in Chinese ethnic studies the ethnocentric notions of the Taiping are rarely
mentioned if they are even mentioned at all. For example, in a collection of essays
edited by Thomas Mullaney, James Leibold, Stephane Gras, and Eric Vanden
Bussache, titled Critical Han Studies: The History, Presentation, and Identity of
China’s Majority published in 2012, none of the authors even mentioned the
33 Jonathan D. Spence, God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan
(New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1996), xxvi.
34 Shih, The Taiping Ideology, x, xii.
35 Ibid., xvi, 471.
13
Taiping Civil War, while other wars and rebellions were mentioned that had ethnic
elements. This is significant because one of the main groups that make up the Han
Chinese is the Hakka and they led the Taiping Civil War. Despite the absence of
the Taiping in the conversation, the scholars’ essays have provided insight into
Taiping ethnocentric notions, albeit unintentionally. They did this particularly in
their discussion of the complexity of Han-Chinese identity, and Southern Chinese
belief of superiority to Northern Chinese. The Chinese of the South believed that
they were purer culturally and by blood to the Northern Chinese. The South in the
United States likewise, also saw themselves to be more culturally pure, and the
purer descendants of the revolutionary fathers, than their northern counterpart.
An emerging field of historical study comes out of World or Global history,
which is comparative histories between countries, more specifically, the United
States and other countries. Thus far, the focus has mainly been on Europe and
Russia, with little comparative work done on United States and China. The article
“Global Violence and Nationalizing Wars in Eurasia and America: The
Geopolitics of War in the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” by Michael Geyer and
Charles Bright, mainly focused on the comparison between the American Civil
War and the German Wars of unification. They acknowledged that comparing the
Civil War with the wars of unification is in fact “extremely difficult to compare.”
They went on to state that such a comparison is valid because “not only are the
two wars dissimilar, they were also utterly distant from each other.” For this
reason “these foundational wars were or should be linked it is their separateness
that proves most striking.”36 It does mention a point of comparison between the
American Civil War and the Taiping Civil War in that “being a civil war, the
36 Geyer and Bright, “Global Violence and Nationalizing Wars,” 620, 621.
14
American war between the states, like the Taiping wars in China, was about the
preservation of a pre-existing sovereign entity and involved the mobilization of
resources by the political center to crush rebellion.”37 This thesis takes the
opposite perspective, by looking at the rebels, and comparing how the rebels in the
South and in Southern China constructed their nationalism around justifying their
respective causes in the midst of battle.
There have been studies that analyze the United States and China in terms
of U.S. – Chinese relations. One example is, Yuan-chung Teng, who wrote
American and the Taiping Rebellion: A study of American-Chinese Relationship,
1847-1864, which was published in 1982. Yuan-chung stated that there were many
Americans in China during the period of 1851-1864, in the midst of the Taiping
Civil War. The “Americans were in China as missionaries, merchants, government
representatives, and adventurers.” This means that there were some who had direct
contact with the Rebels and thus took interest, however, for many of the
Americans the interest was indirect and dependent on what was of primary
concern at that moment.38 Yuan-chung argued that in order to understand ChineseAmerican relations completely, it is essential that we understand the relationship
between the Americans and the Taiping.39 This thesis expands upon this by
looking strictly at the South and the Taiping, not so much in interactions with each
other but how they were similar and yet differed on different aspects of
nationalism. This begins to fill the gap left by scholars who study the United
States in 1861-1865, in a more global context by focusing mainly on the South.
Scholars often mention American or the United States in the discussion of 186137 Ibid., 617.
38 Yuan-chung Teng, American and The Taiping Rebellion, i.
39 Ibid., i.
15
1865, in which they are referring to the North. During this period the United States
was divided and less research has been done on the South in a global context,
though historians such as Don H. Doyle and Matthew Pratt Gutrel are beginning to
change that.
A comparative approach that appears in this thesis adds to the
historiography of the American Civil War, more globally. It does so by focusing
on the South, when many of the works tend to focus on the North in the global
context. Though the works of historians such as Don H. Doyle, and Matthew Pratt
Gutrel are shifting this, this thesis looks also at the Taiping in China, which neither
of the authors focused on. Gutrel in his monograph American Mediterranean:
Slaveholders in the Age of Emancipation published in 2008, did discuss the use of
Chinese laborers in Cuba. He further went on to describe the South’s exploration
from about the 1850s of the Chinese as a possible source of labor. Gutrel’s work
helped to expand the understanding of the multifaceted nature of Southern
ethnocentric notions discussed in chapter three.40
Don H. Doyle in 2002 published Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the
Southern Question, which considered the South and Italy in their respective
struggles. He wanted to place the United States into the discussion of nationalism,
as a result of the Americas being largely left out of the discussion. Doyle brought
forth two types of nationalism, which were civic and ethnic. He defined civic
nationalism as “a political concept that defines the nation as a common
government, a state that may encompass a variety of ethnic and cultural groups.”
He then defined ethnic nationalism as “the idea of common descent, religion,
language, or other deeply rooted primordial traits,” which is based on blood not
40 Matthew Pratt Gutrel, American Mediterranean: Southern Slaveholders in the Age of
Emancipation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 151-152, 159, 160-163.
16
common belief.41 This thesis argues that the nationalism in the South had
significant ethnic elements and so cannot be considered civic nationalism, for the
South claimed common descent and used their belief in God to bind themselves
together in the bond of brotherhood against the North. Though it is true that there
was a variety of ethnic and cultural groups in the South the reality is they sought to
create a nation bound together in common descent and belief in God. This helps to
highlight the cultural side of nationalism in terms of ethnicity and religion in
Southern nationalism. We are also able to highlight this cultural side of
nationalism in the Taiping, and as we will see both implemented the same ideas in
similar and different ways.
Another way the American Civil War is beginning to be looked at more
globally is through Southern nationalism in terms of Confederate attempts to be
recognized by European states such as France and Britain. Don H. Doyle, did this
in The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War,
published 2015.42 The American Civil War is also beginning to be studied more
globally through conversations among leading American and World scholars. In
the pages of The Journal of American History in 2011, a conversation titled
“Interchange: Nationalism and Internationalism in the Era of the Civil War,”
scholars discussed the nineteenth century which is called the “Age of
Nationalities,” focusing specifically on the mid-nineteenth century. The purpose of
the interchange was “to explore the extent to which the American Civil War was –
and was understood to be at the time – a central event in global history and to
examine how the construction of the American nation was related to the global
41 Don H. Doyle, Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the Southern Question (Athens: The
University of Georgia Press, 2002), xiii, xiv.
42 Doyle, The Cause of All Nations.
17
processes of national formation in the mid-nineteenth century.”43 This interchange
also examined “the ideological and material underpinnings of such conflicts to
connect the nationalist impulses in the Atlantic world, Europe, and more broadly
in this period.”44 In this interchange Jörg Nagler stated that by looking
transnationally we gain a better understanding of the relationship that exists
“between war and nation building.”45 Also, Susan Mary-Grant pointed out in the
interchange, that we are able to gain a more entangled picture of the American
Civil War, by isolating “discrete strands” such as “the economic, nation building
(the state), nationalism, and cultural” as well as “the political bases of all these
elements.”46 This thesis expands upon this interchange, which only mentions the
Taiping by comparing the Taiping’s struggle for nationhood with that of the
South. In doing so, we gain a better understanding of the struggles that both the
South and the Taiping faced through how they justified their respective causes.
This thesis seeks to take nationalism and demonstrate the entanglement of
history through looking globally to observe the threads that are less talked about in
the South and the Taiping Civil War. Entangling the understanding of West and
East through demonstrating that both the Taiping and the South used similar ideas,
though they did not always implement them in similar ways, it is also those
differences which also shape our understanding of West, and East, as well as the
identities of the South and the Taiping.
43 The Author, “Interchange: Nationalism and Internationalism,” 455.
44 Ibid., 455.
45 Jörg Nagler, “Interchange: Nationalism and Internationalism in the Era of the Civil War,” The
Journal of American History (September 2011): 457-458, 458.
46 Susan Mary-Grant, “Interchange: Nationalism and Internationalism in the Era of the Civil
War,” The Journal of American History (September 2011): 455.
18
Finally, we will look at the historiography of nationalism in three ways:
nationalism in general, Southern nationalism, and thirdly, Chinese nationalism.
For nationalism in general, the works of Homi K. Bhaba and Benedict Anderson
are of particular use. In the introduction of Nation and Narration, a book of
collected essays, he edited, Bhabha acknowledged the influence Anderson’s book
had. He stated that this collection of essays sought to explore the representation of
culture, or the “‘coming into being’” because it is a system of culture, which
represents “social life rather than of the discipline of social policy.”47 Benedict
Anderson in Imagined Communities, outlines his tenets of nationalism, which
helps to not only see the similarities and differences between the South and the
Taiping, but also illustrated how looking globally helped to inform the local. It is
through Anderson’s tenets of nationalism that we are able to see how both the
South and the Taiping justified their causes in terms of the historical, the ethnic,
and the Christian elements, which came together and often complimented each
other and as a result, showed the multidimensional nature of nationalism in that
political and cultural are both employed in the creation of a nation.48
Second, in Southern Nationalism, historian Drew Gilpin Faust, wrote The
Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War
South, in which she argued that the leaders of secession and the Confederacy
struggled to articulate Southern nationalism. This was because they found it
difficult to communicate an ideology that met their needs.49 Faust concluded that
the South was forced to confront both the social and intellectual constraints
47 Homi K. Bhabha, “Introduction: Narrating the Nation,” in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K.
Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1990), 1-2, 2.
48 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 149, 150; Eley and Suny, Becoming National, 8.
49 Drew Gilpin Faust, The Creation of Confederate nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil
War South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 2.
19
involved in forging Confederate nationalism. This was in part because they had to
“negotiate with different social groups on the one hand, and on the other, with the
logic of the idea systems central to the process of self-legitimation.” Faust also
concluded that “Confederate ideology was defeated in large measure by the
internal contradictions that wartime circumstances” brought to the forefront.50
This thesis examines both the religious and ethnocentric side of nationalism,
particularly in terms of the social. The nationalism literature aids in the
understanding of just how ethnically driven Southern nationalism was and how
they used their religious beliefs to justify their cause along with looking to the
past. Thus, in the South’s eye providing authority and legitimacy to the
Confederate States of America.
Finally, some historians who study China, study Chinese Nationalism, such
as Maria Hsia Chang who wrote Return of the Dragon: China’s Wounded
Nationalism. She explained how for much of Chinese history, China could not be
described as a nation because they did not have the “nationalist sentiments.”
Therefore, China and the Chinese have been labeled as a “civilization.” Chang
argued that “Chinese nationalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, its inception
dating to the mid-nineteenth century as a reaction against foreign predation and
mistreatments.”51 This places the Taiping Civil War in the thick of the beginning
nationalist period that Chang describes. As a result, this thesis seeks to build on
the understanding of nationalism in the mid-nineteenth century China, through
gaining a better understanding of Taiping ethnocentric notions that appeared
50 Ibid., 83, 84.
51 Maria Hsia Chang, Return of the Dragon: China’s Wounded Nationalism (Boulder: Westview
Press, 2001), 33.
20
alongside Christian notions. Even when looking to the past to legitimize their
dynasty.
CHAPTER 2: HISTORY – THE COLLISION OF THE PAST AND
THE PRESENT
History is where the journey begins, both the South and the Taiping used it
to provide meaning and to justify their respective causes. It is the great connector
between ethnocentrism of identity and Christianity. Both the South and the
Taiping used the past to support their ethnocentric, and Christian notions that often
appeared alongside each other. History also reinforced their respective identities
and belief that they were chosen by God.
The Taiping and the South illustrated the collision that occurs between the
past and the present in the creation of a nation be it a nation-state or another
dynasty in the case of the Taiping. In looking at how the South and the Taiping
viewed their respective histories, and the place which they believed they filled,
this narrative helps to contextualize the arguments and justifications for their
respective causes, which they made in terms of identity, through ethnic notions
and Christianity. This collision of the past with the present was the product of
using history to justify their respective causes.
Before we explore how the South and the Taiping did so, we first need to
delve into the history that the Taiping and the South studied, then briefly cover the
Taiping and American Civil Wars. From there we can then look at how the South
used history to justify secession from the Union, and the creation of the
Confederate States of America. We will then examine how the Taiping used the
past to justify the establishment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. By studying
how both the South and the Taiping justified their respective causes allows for two
things to occur. The first is that it lays the ground work for the following chapters
on identity and Christianity. Second, is that the history upon which both the
Taiping and the South looked to, ties directly back to Anderson’s tenets of
22
nationalism, which are imagined limited, sovereign, and community. This will
demonstrate that both a Western and Eastern nation implemented and used similar
ideas in terms of nationalism, regardless of the system of government being
established.52
The Back Story
In the years of 1850 to 1865, we are able to observe two groups of people
struggling to create their own “nation.” In the West the South broke away from the
North in the United States, which threw the country into Civil War from 1861 to
1865. In China the Taiping rebelled in 1850 in a war that would officially last until
1864. Before we can examine how the South and the Taiping justified their
separate nations through history, ethnicity, and Christianity, we need to understand
what brought the Taiping and the South to all-out war with their respective enemy.
It is true that both China and the United States had trade relations, which gives a
superficial connection, for neither country caused the war in the other. It is also
true that both wars do have an indirect connection through that of Britain. In the
1850s Britain had no problem letting the civil war wage in China and conclude
however it may. But the years of 1860 and 1861 changed all that, when the civil
war broke out in America, which forced Britain to face the possibility of losing its
two largest economic markets. As a result, Britain chose to remain neutral in the
United States at the expense of the Taiping, who faced the British backed Qing
dynasty.53
52 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006), 11-12.
53 Stephen R Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom: China, The West, And The Epic Story of
the Taiping Civil War (New York: Alfred A knopf, 2012), xxiv.
23
To understand where the South and the Taiping found themselves we need
to answer the following questions: how did civil war break out in Qing China
around 1850? How did tensions between the North and the South in the United
States increase during the 1850s? How is it that secession turned into civil war in
1861? To answer these questions, we need to glance further back in both countries
history to understand the road upon which the Taiping and the South walked. It is
necessary that we begin this story back in 1644, which means we must first cast
our gaze on China.
In 1644 the Manchus supplanted the Ming dynasty, tracking down and
defeating the final Ming claimant to the throne in 1662, which gave rise to the
Qing dynasty. The Manchus’ victory was an extraordinary achievement, for not
only did they defeat a dynasty that had ruled for 276 years, they did so having not
been in existence for most of the Ming dynasty’s reign.54 The Manchus expanded
through the establishment of the Qing dynasty the Chinese empire, and they made
it a multiethnic empire.55
The Manchus were also called the Northern barbarian conquerors of China,
and they added Confucianism and aspects of Chinese governance to legitimize
their rule over the Chinese people. Though they legitimized their rule over the
Chinese, this did not mean that the Manchus became civilized Chinese people, as
William Rowe has noted “that nothing so complete ever happened.” In fact, the
Manchus or the Qing dynasty governed all the people under their different
54 William T. Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2009), 1, 25. The number 276 years comes from the date range of the Ming
1368-1644 in Albert M. Craig and et al., The Heritage of World Civilizations vol. I, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle
River: Prentice Hall, 2009), 176.
55 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 1. Rowe details that China under the Qing included the following
ethnic groups “Tibetans, Uighur Muslims, certain groups of Mongols, Burmese, and Tais along the
southwestern frontier.” Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 1.
24
constituencies “in differing ways simultaneously.” Thus, what made the Qing
emperor different from the previous Chinese rulers was that the Qing ruler was a
multinational emperor. As ruler of the Chinese, the Qing emperor was referred to
as the Son of Heaven, this meant that he acted as an intermediary between men
and Heaven. The Chinese believed that this mandate of heaven could be received
by any of the constituents.56 In addition, the Qing dynasty’s success like other
dynasties before it, required the support of the gentry.57
The Qing, like the Ming before them, utilized the civil service examinations
as their chief mode of appointing officials to office. The civil service exam had
three levels: each one was harder to pass than the last, yet each offered more
rewards. You had the local exam every year and a half, followed by the provincial
and the metropolitan exams every three years.58 However, to begin the process of
climbing the ladder one had to take the qualifying exam first.59 All exams required
a knowledge of the Confucian classics and though they tried to maintain “integrity
and effectiveness” the reality was that the exams were not only written, but also
graded by people who could be manipulated, and who had their own political
agendas.60
56 Ibid., 19. The Chinese believed that to receive the mandate was based on personal virtue and
not bloodline “with “virtue” defined fairly precisely in Confucian cultural terms.” For at the heart of
Confucian “virtue” was ethics which meant that an individual regardless of birth had the capacity to have
“human-heartedness.” Thus, it was not only rulers and nobles who could cultivate virtue according to
Confucius, but all people regardless of status. Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions
That Run the World (New York: Harper One, 2010), 115-116.
57 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 1, 25, 17, 28. Manchus were from the North and they were not
considered to be part of the Chinese people.
58 Ibid., 45-46
59 Benjamin A. Elman, Civil Examinations and Meritocracy in Late Imperial China (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2013), 206.
60 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 45-46.
25
Another problem that plagued the Qing dynasty, which was far more
troubling, was Secret Societies. These groups “explicitly resisted the hierarchical
organization of orthodox society which compelled deference to state officials,
lineage and generational elders, and property holders.” What the different societies
had in common was “Han proto-nationalism and an antipathy to Manchu rule.” 61
Much of this antipathy was the result of British invasion in the 1830s and the
Opium war in the 1840s, in which the Qing were defeated. Furthermore, in the
1840s a new kind of anti-Manchuism emerged which was “based on a theory of
betrayal.” Chinese nationalism, which the Taiping used in early recruitment,
dictated that if you wanted “to protect the fatherland from the foreign devils of the
West, the Manchus had to be overthrown.”62 The Qing could thus not squash the
anti-Manchu sentiment, which rose up in the 1840s amongst the Chinese people,
through force or accommodation.63 Furthermore, the Secret Societies such as the
Triads and the Taiping, in the 1840s known as the Society of God Worshippers,
were among those in Southern China, who held the belief that the “true” Chinese
people were Southerners. The Northern Chinese were contaminated because they
had mixed blood as a result of inner Asian conquest.64
Along with the anti-Manchu sentiment, the economic issues only added
fuel to the fire, as the gap between the rich and the poor widened. Both of these
factors played into the outbreak of the Taiping Civil War. 65 On top of this, what
did not help was trade with Westerners whose main commodity was opium. The
61 Ibid., 178, 179.
62 Ibid., 186.
63 Ibid., 173; Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom.
64 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 187.
65 Ibid., 158.
26
Qing dynasty made multiple efforts to close the opium market, while the West was
trying to force it open. This led to the Opium War in the 1840s, which ended with
the treaty of Nanjing. The loss of the Qing empire to the West helped to bring to
the surface the anti-Manchu sentiment, which “had festered under the surface for
two centuries,” among the Chinese people.66
The 1840s also witnessed the emergence of the Taiping as the Society of
God Worshippers, a peaceful religious movement. This movement was started by
Hong Xiuquan, his friends, and relatives in Southern China. They went
“throughout the highlands of Guangdong and neighboring Guangxi,” forming
communities of the Society of God Worshippers. Among the converts, were the
Hakka, boatmen (who were part-time pirates), charcoal burners, racketeers, and
Triad smugglers, all of whom were occupationally marginalized.67
The question then becomes how did the Society of God Worshippers, a
peaceful religious movement, transform into the political rebellion of the Taiping?
The answer lies with Hong Xiuquan, who took the civil service exams four times,
failing for sure three times, starting in 1827.68 Sometime before the third exam
66 Ibid., 167, 170, 173.
67 Ibid., 187.
68 Based on primary and secondary sources it is clear the Hong Xiuquan sat for four examinations
both William Rowe and Benjamin Elman specify that he passed one exam, and Elman stated that it was the
qualifying exam. Jonathan Spence as well makes it clear that he passed the initial exam. However,
secondary sources such as Stephen Platt state that Hong Xiuquan sat for the Provincial exam, which would
not have been possible for that exam was every three years. This confusion is some what understandable
since primary sources also lend to the confusion. The answer to this confusion, I believe lies in the primary
sources I do not have access to, which are in Chinese. Therefore, I cannot fully speak on the subject of civil
service examinations. The sources consulted were: William T. Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great
Qing (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2009); Benjamin A. Elman, Civil
Examinations and Meritocracy in Late Imperial China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013);
Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China third edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
2013); Stephen R Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom: China, The West, And The Epic Story of the
Taiping Civil War (New York: Alfred A knopf, 2012); Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion: History and
Documents Vol I. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971); Theodore Hamberg, The Vision of
Hung-Siu-Tshuen, and Origin of the Kwang-Si Insurrection (Hong Kong: China mail office, 1854);
27
Hong received tracts of the bible that had been translated into Chinese. He then
placed them on his shelf without looking at them. After failing the exam for the
third time in 1837, he suffered a mental breakdown and for about 40 days he had
visions. Hong at first was humiliated as was his family, he returned to his teaching
job and tried one last time to pass the exam and fails yet again in 1843.69
Some years later at the urging of Hong’s cousin, he read the Christian
tracts. As a result of studying these tracts he found striking similarities to the
visions he had experienced in 1837. This “remarkable coincidence convinced him
fully as to their truth and that he was appointed by God to restore the world, that is
China to the worship of the true God.”70 Hong Xiuquan also believed that he was
the Son of God and the Younger Brother to Jesus.
In 1850, Hong Xiuquan raised the flag of rebellion, beginning the Southern
rebels’ quest for the right to rule China.71 These Southern rebels’ where called
“long-haired bandits” because under Qing rule, it was demanded that all men
shave their forehead, but they chose to let their hair grow and wear it according to
Augustus Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh; The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution vol I (London: Day &Son,
Lithographers & Publishers, 1866).
69 Spence, The Search for Modern China, 168; Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom,14-16;
Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 186-187.
70 Theodore Hamberg, The Vision of Hung-Siu-Tshuen, and Origin of the Kwang-Si Insurrection
(Hong Kong: China mail office, 1854), 21. Siu-tshuen in pinyin is Xiuquan and Hung –Siu –Tshuen in the
title of Hamberg’s book is Hong Xiuquan in pin yin. The reason for the differences is that there have been
many different systems used to Romanize the Chinese language. To make matters a little more challenging
scholars also came up with their own modifications. Today the system that is widely used by all except
Taiwan is Hanyu pinyin or pinyin for short, which has been around since 1958. Libraries in both the U.S.
and Europe are in the process of switching over to this system, however this is expensive to do. Information
from Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A Manual (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000),
xix-xx. Also there was no spelling standardization in the nineteenth century so there are also variations in
primary sources as well. Lastly I want to further note that I have tried as much as possible to keep names,
dynasties, and places with one spelling but there were times when this was just not possible, so I will
footnote the spelling that I have standardly used throughout this paper. When the author of a primary
source was spelled differently from what is in the main text I have also footnoted.
71 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 187.
28
Han tradition. 72 This allowed the Taiping to draw connections to their ancestors.
Ming loyalists continued to rebel, but by May of 1662 the Qing were finally able
to extinguish the last of the Ming dynasty supporters. Anti-Manchu feelings
persisted and there were Chinese who rose up in the name of the Ming, in hopes of
of restoring the Ming to power, but they ultimately failed.73
The key facts about the Taiping Civil War itself is that it spanned fourteen
years starting in 1850 and ending in 1864, and, as historian Stephen Platt noted, it
was and is the bloodiest civil war in the history of the world. In 1851 Hong
Xiuquan was declared the Heavenly king.74 In June of 1864 Hong Xiuquan died
though it is unclear whether it was by suicide or illness, soon after Nanjing, the
Taiping Heavenly Capital, was captured by the Qing.75 It is important to note that
in China one could not rule unless they got the approval of the gentry. The Taiping
failed to obtain this support because they alienated many of the literati by
destroying lineage halls, temples, and grave sites, as well as by encouraging the
poor farmers to fight.76
Another key Taiping leader was Hong Rengan, who was the cousin of
Hong Xiuquan. He was not able to join the Taiping cause until 1859. Once in
Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan bestowed honors, and offices on his cousin such as Shield
King, which put Rengan in opposition to many of the Taiping leaders. Rengan’s
ideas for the Taiping government were somewhat Western, and he was also seen
72 Ibid., 188.
73 Ibid., 23-28.
74 Spence, The Search for Modern China, 170-171; Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom,
xxiii, 18. Also other historians have seen this to some degree as the bloodiest war in the world see Thesis
Introduction footnote 2. Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 188.
75 Spence, The Search for Modern China, 175; Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom, 18;
Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 197. Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 197.
76 Ibid., 193.
29
by Western missionaries as the best hope to set the Taiping Christians right.
Rengan, beyond the religious aspects, believed that the most important thing the
Taiping needed to do, to be strong was to tap into the global industrial economy.77
What was so appealing about the Taiping? The answer lies in the land
system and society. The land system of the Taiping was significantly different
from what already existed in China, in that the Taiping’s land law sought to
establish equal land for all. This meant that both men and women received equal
shares of land. How this system worked was that after keeping the food needed to
survive, the rest would go into the common granaries, which had much appeal
among the peasants.78
The appeal of the Taiping was also in part the society they created. There
was more equality between men and women, for women like the men were equally
entitled to land, and they also could take the Taiping Civil Service Exams.
Additionally, women were not barred from fighting, in fact, the Taiping had two
women bandit leaders who joined them in their cause.79 This was significantly
different from the West, where if women wanted to fight in the American Civil
War they had to dress like men. As for having roles in government, that was rare
and was widely discouraged in the West.
The Taiping however, had significant struggles: the land system did not
work and actually became just another tax agency. Jonathan Spence stated that
China’s most prosperous region had been left a barren waste land, as a result of the
77 Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom, 50-57, 60.
78 Spence, The Search for Modern China, 172.
79 Ibid., 169-170.
30
demand on the land to feed not only the Taiping military, but the Qing military as
well.80
The Taiping also faced significant internal struggles among the five main
kings. This conflict would eventually play a part in the downfall of the Taiping.
The Eastern King Yang Xiuqing who claimed that he was possessed by the Holy
Ghost, cemented his place first in the Society of God Worshippers, in 1848
through trances. This meant he represented God the Father –the person – and this
was how Yang instructed followers on what they should do. When Yang rose to
prominence Hong Xiuquan really had no choice other than to embrace Yang, and
legitimize Yang’s trances. Yang amassed a great following and commanded much
of the army, however, in September of 1856 the power struggle came to a head
with Yang trying to take power. This ended in the assassination of Yang, and the
death of about 20,000 followers, which also included his family. With Yang’s
death there was a hole left in terms of the military that the Taiping were never able
to fill. As a result, Hong Xiuquan solidified his leadership, and became more
paranoid.81
Lastly, though the Taiping practiced a form of Christianity, the support that
they had among foreigners, particularly foreign missionaries, had been lost from
the West in terms of sympathy for their cause. The West decided it was better to
go with the devil you know in terms of trade, since it was becoming more apparent
that the Taiping held the same views as the Qing.82
What about the South in the United States? To start with we must go back
to 1774 and the Continental Congress. Even in the early meetings of the
80 Spence, The Search for Modern China, 173.
81 Michael, The Taiping Rebellion, 36-37, 113, 115.
82 Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom; Rowe, China’s Last Empire.
31
Continental Congress, sectionalism existed and the North and the South both
participated in it. Yet, they had always been able to come together in the face of “a
common danger and common purpose.”83 As time went on, tensions between the
North and the South continued to grow as a result of specific quarrels such as the
tariff disputes of the 1830s and increasing southern sectionalism.84 This
sectionalism that both the North and the South participated in, is defined as the
product of a group of people that is part of a geographical section, coming together
over “common interest in specific issue or set of issues.” 85
Southern nationalism springs from sectionalism and the roots of southern
nationalism can be observed in the Missouri Crisis and the Nullification Crisis. 86
The Missouri Crisis, which took place in 1819-1820, caused the North and the
South to face the slavery question in terms of expansion, as Missouri was seeking
to enter the Union as a slave state. On this point the North and the South collided.
What the Missouri Compromise did was allow Missouri into the Union, in
exchange for the prohibition of slavery in the territories of the northern Louisiana
purchase.87 The Missouri Compromise brought to light for the Southerners the
decline of power they had in the United States Congress.88
83 John McCardell, The Ideas of a Southern Nation: Southern Nationalists and Southern
Nationalism, 1830-1860 (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1979), 14.
84 Ibid., 4.
85 Ibid., 5,6.
86 Ibid., 4. This is a good example of the political dimension of nationalism that existed in
Southern Nationalism, which was addressed in the nationalism section of Chapter 1.
87 John Mack Faragher, Mary Jo Buhle, Daniel Czitrom, and Susan Armitrage, Out of Many: A
History of the American People vol I, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006), 237-238.
88 McCardell, The Idea of a Southern Nation, 23, 24. This decline of Southern power is evidenced
according to McCardell, by “the South in 1789 held 46 percent of the membership of the House of
Representatives but held only 42 percent in 1820.” McCardell, The Idea of a Southern Nation, 24.
32
The Nullification crisis at the end of the 1820s and into the beginning of the
1830s, only deepened the divide between the North and the South. This crisis was
over the protective tariff, which was supposed to be a temporary tariff to aid
recovery after the war of 1812. Thus the bills of 1824 and 1828 not only protected
more products but also raised the rates higher despite the protest of the South, who
were out voted by the North and the West in congress.89 Therefore, in 1828 South
Carolina introduced their nullification doctrine, which they believed was well
within their rights. By threatening to secede South Carolina had forced
concessions, which ended the nullification crisis.90
The question of slavery which was raised again in the 1840s, resulted in
another major crisis that produced the Compromise of 1850. The measures in this
compromise dictated that the federal government, would not promote nor would it
prohibit slavery in the new territories of Utah and New Mexico, rather it would be
up to the residents of the respective territories to decide. While some politicians
believed this to be “the final resolution of the slavery controversy,” many in the
North and the South were in fact unhappy with this compromise. 91
Though Southern secessionists began to gain more support, there were
those in the South who still wanted to make the Union work. One such individual
was Robert Toombs, one of the authors of the Georgia platform, which dictated
that the South should stay in the Union so long as the North does three things.
First, the North adhered to all aspects of the Compromise of 1850, which included
the new fugitive slave law. Second, the North “must abandon all attempts to
89 Faragher, Buhle, Czitrom, and Armitrage, Out of Many, 257.
90 Ibid., 257-258.
91 Bruce Levine, The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution that
Transformed the South (New York: Random House, 2013), 34, 35.
33
outlaw slavery in Washington, D.C. and the federal territories.” Thirdly, they must
be willing to bring in “additional slave states into the Union.” Thus, the Georgia
unionists expressed that if the North did not adhere to all these then Georgia
should and will resist even if it means leaving the Union.92 By the end of the
decade, unionists such as Robert Toombs advocated for secession, which
demonstrated that unionism in the South was in fact a perishable commodity. 93
What further added fuel to the secessionists’ fire was Harpers Ferry, which
took place in 1859. This was led by the New England abolitionist John Brown,
who led a group of armed men in Virginia, against the federal armory in hopes of
capturing it. Brown hoped that his actions would trigger a massive slave revolt that
would spread across the South. Brown failed in the revolt, yet succeeded in
Southerners seeing their worst nightmare realized, which was an abolitionist from
the North leading a slave uprising.94 In December of that same year the Central
Southern Rights Association of Virginia reconvened after being out of session for
over five years. The association could not decide on how to respond to Harpers
Ferry, but “they agreed in late November that “calling a convention of all the
Southern States with the view of forming a Southern Confederation” should, at the
very least, be an option.” After Harpers Ferry it became increasingly evident for
the South that they “must prepare to resist snowballing northern aggression.” Even
in December 1859, though the South believed their institution of slavery was
under attack, nevertheless the South was still very much attached to the United
92 Ibid., 39-40, 41.
93 James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1988), 87.
94 Levine, The Fall of the House of Dixie, 40.
34
States. However, unionism in the South was holding on by a thread, for this was
becoming a harder and more difficult position to defend.95
As 1859 became 1860, Southerners looked anxiously at the upcoming
presidential election. They increasingly feared that a republican victory would not
only mean an end to slavery, but also would cause divisions among those in the
South. An example was Robert Toombs and the Georgia Platform, which opposed
secession in 1850, but come 1860 believed that should Abraham Lincoln be
elected then there would be no more hope, nor reason, for the South to remain in
the Union. Thus, with Abraham Lincoln’s election on November 6, 1860 this was
the last straw for those in the South.96
Starting with South Carolina on December 20, 1860, the Southern states
began to secede from the Union. South Carolina was soon followed by
Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana in January of 1861, and Texas following
in February. The last four states joined the Confederacy, after the fall of Fort
Sumter, in South Carolina in April, where the Confederacy was able to take the
fort from the North or Union troops. These last states to secede were Virginia,
Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. 97 By summer of that year the
Confederacy had set up their provisional government in Richmond.98 The
Confederacy only a few months old, found itself fighting the North while also
building its nation, and what it meant to be Southern. The Confederacy had to
unite the South, not only in common cause, but through nationalism in ethnic and
95 Paul Quigley, Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848-1865 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012), 104-105.
96 Levine, The Fall of the House of Dixie, 40.
97 McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 234-237.
98 Anne Sarah Rubin, A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy 1861-1868
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2005), 11.
35
Christian terms as to why they were one people, as well as create this Southern
identity. One cannot think of the antebellum South and the secession South of
1860-1861 as united with a distinct Southern identity and culture. Before the Civil
War, state loyalties were of more importance than any kind of regional affiliation,
and it was this regional affiliation that the Confederacy now sought to create.99
In the establishment of the Confederate States of America, the South kept
the basic government format of the United States, and much of the American
Constitution. They saw themselves as the next stage and were therefore protecting
that which the revolutionary fathers had created. 100 For the Confederacy, “Fort
Sumter had become a commanding symbol of national sovereignty in the very
cradle of secession, a symbol that the Confederate government could not tolerate if
it wished its own sovereignty to be recognized by the world.”101 Consequently, the
outbreak of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, in the eyes of many Southerners was
Abraham Lincoln’s fault.102
In February 1861, the Confederacy selected Jefferson Davis, a senator from
Mississippi, former secretary of war, and a secessionist, as President of the
Confederate States of America. This was a job that Davis did not seek nor seemed
to want, yet he accepted the post. Alexander Stephens, a “one-time Whig and more
recently Douglas Democrat,” of Georgia was selected for the Vice Presidency.103
The war began in April of 1861, and it would be a long four-year battle,
that would not leave the South or the North unscarred. The South like the Taiping
99 Michael O’Brien, “The Lineaments of Antebellum Southern Romanticism,” Journal of
American Studies 20, no.2 (Aug 1986): 175.
100 Ibid., 18, 20, 22.
101 McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 263.
102 Ibid., 277.
103 Ibid., 259.
36
had early success in their fight against the North, however, they ultimately failed
and upon their defeat General Lee surrendered at Appomattox in Virginia on April
9th 1865. A few days later John Wilkes Booth, assassinated Abraham Lincoln at
Ford’s Theater, in Washington D.C. on the night of April 14th 1865.104
Thus, Southern peoples in China and the United States rose up to fight civil
wars. In the American South, the plantation elite led the way in rebellion with
South Carolina at the forefront. In China, the Taiping, who came from and began
their rebellion in the South, rose up with the aid of the poor farmer, and in the
process alienated much of the elite. Nevertheless, both failed, though different
segments of society led the charge. It is differences such as these as well as
similarities that further spurs the comparison between these two Southern Rebels.
The Southern View of History
The South in the 1850s used history to begin to justify why the South
should become its own separate nation. William Henry Trescot, from Charleston,
South Carolina, who was an ardent secessionist and advocate of Southern rights
via pamphlets argued for separation in 1850. In his pamphlet “The Position and
Course of the South,” he expressed the radical views of not only South Carolina,
but also the Southern region generally towards the Compromise of 1850. Trescot
expressed the view that the South should consider a destiny separate from the
Union, by examining history and geography, which we will explore in Chapter
three.105 He used nature as evidence by observing rivers and mountains had drawn
boundaries, but so too had history with nature’s guidance. Trescots case and point
104 Faragher, Buhle, Czitrom, and Armitrage, Out of Many, 425-426.
105 Jon L. Wakelyn, ed., Southern Pamphlets on Secession: November 1860 - April 1861 (Chapel
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 14.
37
was that the United States had two separate foundings. The North had its founding
in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the South in Jamestown, Virginia. From the
founding of these two colonies, the North and the South went off in different
directions, which has led to two defined and distinct sections. From the beginning
the South and the North were different and have a long tradition of cultural
differences, as a result, the logical conclusion was according to Trescot, that the
South should be its own separate nation. 106
As the 1850s went on tensions between the South and the North only grew:
in 1854 there was the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the 1820 Missouri
compromise by allowing the question of slavery to be answered by the residents of
the Kansas and Nebraska territories. The South was in favor, the North was
against, and those in the North began to believe that it would be impossible to
compromise with the South.107 Thus, the divisions only grew, which was
evidenced by “The South and The Union,” an article that appeared in De Bow’s
Review in April of 1855. The author expressed that the free states of the North
were like Clive and his plundering of the East, while marveling “at their own
moderation.” The South, the author continued, unlike the North has kept the blood
of the revolutionary fathers pure, and the few emigrants who have come to the
South were quickly integrated into the Southern superior race. The North on the
other hand was of mixed European blood, which had diluted the blood of the
revolutionary fathers.108 The author in this article made a reference to Robert
Clive, who was an English trader with the East India Company and appointed
106 William Henry Trescot. “The Position and Course of the South” 1850, in Southern Pamphlets
on Secession: November 1860 - April 1861, ed. Jon L. Wakelyn (Chapel Hill: The University of North
Carolina Press, 1996), 18.
107 Faragher, Buhle, Czitrom, and Armitrage, Out of Many, 383-384.
108 “The South and The Union,” De Bow’s Review (April 1855): 444-445.
38
governor to Bengal, in August of 1765. The East India Company defeated the
Mughal emperor, and Clive gained the power to appoint revenue officials. As a
result, Britain drained much of the wealth of Bengal and flooded their markets
with goods from Britain. Not all the wealth of Bengal went to Britain, however,
Clive was able to amass a fortune “that made him the richest self-made man in
Europe.”109 The South was pure unlike those of the North, according to the author,
in fact they were as bad as Clive was in India. By linking them with this historical
person, the South was justifying their cause by asserting that the South was the
better society, not only because they were the pure descendants of the
revolutionary fathers, but also they were not swindlers like Clive and their
Northern counterpart. Therefore, in the eyes of the Southerners they were in the
right.
The theme of looking to the revolutionary fathers was further demonstrated
in the South by Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry. He was a lawyer in Alabama, who
had “served in the Mexican War, gained election to Alabama state legislature, and
in 1857 entered the U.S. House of representatives.” Curry resigned from Congress
becoming a secessionist in late January of 1861, and was then elected to the
Congress of the Provisional Confederate States.110 After Lincoln was elected on
November 6, 1860 Curry expressed later that month that “submission involves
inequality with the North, oppressive taxation, foreign rule, emancipation of
negroes and equality with them at the South.” Curry then acknowledged the
downside of resistance in that it “may bring temporary depreciation of property,
109 William Dalrymple, “The East India Company: The Original Corporate Raiders” The
Guardian (March 2015), http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-company-originalcorporate-raiders (Accessed: February 21, 2016).
110 Jon L. Wakelyn, ed., Southern Pamphlets on Secession: November 1860 - April 1861 (Chapel
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 35.
39
commercial depression, and possibly the causalities of war.” He then stated that
“the heroes of ’76 encountered all these and more to prevent the domination of
foreign people.”111 Curry had faith that the South was continuing that which the
revolutionary fathers had started in 1776. Thus, on the road to Civil War the South
believed themselves to be the true heirs of the American Revolution. Southerners
such as Curry imagined the Confederacy as the fulfillment of the American
dream.112 He also expressed the belief that the war was justified, because of
Northern actions, which had made this a war between two foreign nations. He
equated the Southern situation with that of the Peloponnesian War and its chief
causes. The North had committed treason by electing Abraham Lincoln, who was
deemed a Black Republican in the South, therefore the South was vindicated, for
the South was not committing treason since the North had already violated the
compact.113 Curry used history to justify secession, rebellion as an explanation for
treason, and the reason for a separate Southern nation.
Jefferson Davis also looked to the revolutionary fathers to further the cause
of the Southern nation. Davis was chosen to be president of the Confederate
States, and he gave his inaugural address in Richmond, Virginia, on February 22,
1862. Davis highlighted that it was George Washington’s birthday, as he spoke
under the monument of the founding father, and as the Confederate States of
America was ushered into existence. According to Davis it was “under the favor of
Divine Providence, we hope to perpetuate the principles of our revolutionary
111 Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, “The Perils and Duty of the South. ...Speech Delivered in
Talladega, Alabama, November 26, 1860,” in Southern Pamphlets on Secession: November 1860 - April
1861, ed. Jon L. Wakelyn (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 49.
112 Gutrel, American Mediterranean, 63.
113 Curry, “The Perils and Duty of the South,” 41.
40
fathers.”114 Jefferson Davis demonstrated Southern justification for the existence
of the Confederate States through the revolutionary fathers, while the Taiping
looked to their ancestors in the Song and the Ming dynasties, and linked
themselves to the individuals who had chosen death, over submission to foreign
alien rulers. Furthermore, with the mentioning of George Washington’s birthday
we have the Confederate States as a continuation of the revolutionary fathers’
great tradition, which the North had failed.
Davis further believed that the Confederacy was the continuation of the
success of the revolutionary fathers’. He illustrated this by looking to the colonial
ancestors who had been “forced to vindicate that birthright by an appeal to arms.”
The birthright the colonial ancestors were referring to was the right of
representative government, which those in the colonies did not adequately receive,
and the Revolutionary War was fought in part to right that wrong.115 Davis
believed that they were in the right and their actions were justified in the present,
based on what their colonial ancestors did. We will also observe this same idea,
when we examine the Taiping, who looked to their ancestors in the Song, and the
Ming dynasties, to justify their right to rule, which is both similar and different,
and will be explained in the following section. Davis also, believed that it was
important for the South “to show ourselves worthy of the inheritance bequeathed
to us by the patriots of the Revolution, we must emulate that heroic
devotion….”116 Davis expressed the southern belief that the South will earn the
same honor that the Revolutionaries of 1776 enjoyed. Hence, Davis justified their
114 Jefferson Davis, “Inaugural Address as Elected President Richmond, Virginia” February 22,
1862, in Jefferson Davis: The Essential Writings, ed. William J. Cooper Jr. (New York: The Modern
Library, 2003), 224.
115 Ibid., 228.
116 Ibid., 229.
41
cause by linking it to the American Revolution, which was a cause that was
already deemed justified.
Davis and Curry both exhibited part of Confederate nationalism, through
looking to their Revolutionary ancestors. This allowed the South “to emphasize
their connection to the past.” It did not matter if a Confederate soldier was in fact a
descendant of a revolutionary soldier, for this was part of their origin myth, so it
was irrelevant, and this will be further discussed in more detail in chapter three.117
Moreover, Anderson’s tenets of nationalism were illustrated throughout
these examples. Davis exemplified the imagined sovereign aspect of nationalism,
through linking the South’s cause with Divine Providence, and the revolutionaries
desire for their own representation. The South sought to be free to represent
themselves and thus, submitting only to the ruler on high, God because the South
believed in Divine Providence. The Divine Providence aspect will be further
explained in chapter four. We also begin to see imagined limited in the argument
of William Henry Trescot who used the natural land boundaries as limits to groups
of people, however this will be further discussed in chapter three. Finally,
Anderson’s third tenet of nationalism, imagined community can be observed in
historical justification. This was evident in “The South and The Union,” which had
a sense of fraternity and comradeship, inspired through the belief that the South
were the pure descendants of the revolutionary fathers, meanwhile the north were
corrupt as a result of having European blood mixed with that of the revolutionary
fathers.118
117 Rubin, A Shattered Nation, 15.
118 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.
42
For the South and the Confederacy, history proved to be useful in the
justification of their cause, as well as a great benefit in the establishment of
Southern identity. They sought to redefine themselves culturally and intellectually,
to rid themselves of the stereotype of being backwards and uncivilized. They did
this by looking at examples from European history and culture, to define the world
and their place in it.119 The Taiping like the South used history, however, they
did so only within the context of Chinese history. This difference then highlights
Southern understanding in the period of 1850-1865, in which they viewed
themselves as actors in the global historical world.120 This difference will be
further fleshed out in The Taiping View of History.
The Taiping View of History
As the Taiping were making their way North towards Nanjing, which
would become their capital in 1853, they were largely successful in their military
campaigns and in winning the support of the people. Therefore, in the midst of all
this success, it is no surprise that Hong Xiuquan published, The Taiping Imperial
Declaration in 1852. This declaration included “An Ode on the Hundred Correct
Things,” which used examples from history to show what happens when one acts
correctly and incorrectly. The implication was that the Qing dynasty had acted
incorrectly and that the Taiping were correct for “in all times, the correct have
been able to subdue the corrupt; from of old, the corrupt have found it difficult to
conquer the correct.”121 Hong Xiuquan – the author, having received the title
119 Gutrel, American Mediterranean, 13-14.
120 Ibid., 11-14; Don H. Doyle, The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the
American Civil War (New York: Basic Books, 2015).
121 Hung Hsiu-ch’üan, “An Ode on the Hundred Correct Things,” The Taiping Declaration
(1852), in The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol II, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of
43
Taiping Heavenly King in 1851 – gave examples from the Tang dynasty in terms
of what happens when you do not do that which is good and correct. The house of
Li during the Tang period had to deal with internal strife “because men and
women acted incorrectly.” Hong then turned to the period when the Tang empire
was thrown into chaos, he reasoned that it was because the Xianzong emperor of
the Tang indulged his wife, which was deemed incorrect.
Hong then looked to Di Renjie, a general in the Tang dynasty, who was
well admired as a result of “resisting feminine charms,” and was deemed a good
role model, therefore he had acted correctly. Hong also mentioned Wu Sansi, a
minister of the Tang dynasty under Emperor Wu, who lusted after women, acting
incorrectly, which resulted in the people putting him to death. Hong then stated
“Correctness distinguishes men from brutes; Correctness in past and present is
most admired; Correctness in heaven’s nobility is most honored; Correctness is
mankind’s original nature.” The Taiping were therefore, acting how mankind was
intended to act and were honored as heaven’s nobility. Thus, the Taiping were
using history to justify their cause, and their victories were proof that they were in
the right, for the Qing dynasty like many of the examples from the Tang dynasty
were doing that which was incorrect. It was these incorrect actions according to
Hong Xiuquan, which could not stand, and as a result, the Qing dynasty must be
punished.122
Washington, 1971), 33; Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol II. (Seattle:
University of Washington, 1971), 33. Author’s name in pinyin Hong Xiuquan.
122 Hung Hsiu-ch’üan, “An Ode on the Hundred Correct Things,” 33. T’ang is Tang Dynasty,
also the people referred to in passage are various important people within the Tang dynasty. Author’s name
in pinyin Hong Xiuquan. Also, Emperor Wu is the only women in Chinese dynastic history who held the
title of emperor instead of empress.
44
Hong Xiuquan also explored history to support the establishment of the
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and their beliefs. Hong stated that God was
worshipped in China, which can be observed in the historical records, “from the
time of P’an Ku down to the Three Dynasties,” in which subjects and sovereigns
alike worshipped God. He then expressed that despite corruption and demons both
subjects and sovereign alike continued to come together and worship the Great
God, which is the God of their Chinese ancestors.123 Thus, he equated their
community to that of their ancestors and he used history to bring his followers
together as a community which shared a common history. In doing so he was
justifying the Taiping dynasty and cause through faith in the Great God, by
restoring China to their old faith. This coincides with what historian Thomas H.
Reilly pointed out, that the Taiping believed the emperors from the Qin period all
the way down to the Qing period, were “responsible for the blasphemy, the spread
of idolatry, and the general corruption of culture.”124 He also pointed out that
Xiuquan’s intention was to “establish his Heavenly Kingdom on the foundation of
classical China, and thereby continue its traditions into the present.” Hong’s goal
was to get China back on the right path, however we will delve into this further in
chapter four.125 By Hong looking to past dynasties we encounter one of Benedict
123 The Great God Hong Xiuquan is referring to is Shangdi, it is important to note that there is in
fact a difference between this God and the Christian God, who the Taiping mesh with Shangdi. This in part
comes out of imperfect translation which goes back to the Jesuits. For more on this in terms of the Taiping
period see Thomas H. Reilly, The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004); Carl S. Kilcourse, “Son of God, Brother of Jesus:
Interpreting the Theological Claims of the Chinese Revolutionary Hong Xiuquan,” Studies in World
Christianity 20, iss. 2 (2014). For more on the Jesuit period in China and the initial debate over the term
used for God in Chinese (which is still going today among missionaries) see R. Po-chia Hsia, A Jesuit in
the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552-1610 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) and Liam Matthew
Brockey, The Visitor: Andre Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2014).
124 Reilly, The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, 94.
125 Ibid., 100.
45
Anderson’s tenets of nationalism, which is the concept of an ‘imagined
community.’ Hong Xiuquan used history to produce a comradeship among the
Chinese through ancestry, which was really smart for ancestry was huge in
Chinese culture, and this will be further discussed in chapter three.126
Furthermore, the Taiping had to look no further than their own rich history,
in which they studied the dynasties of the Song and the Ming. These two dynasties
provided a legacy of resistance that appealed to the Taiping. For the Ming resisted
the Manchus, though they did ultimately fail. As did their ancestors the Song, who
resisted the northern ancestors of the Manchus, the Jin, who conquered northern
China and later the Mongols, who formed the Yuan dynasty.127 As a result, Hong
Rengan – cousin to Hong Xiuquan and Shield king of the Taiping Heavenly
kingdom – and the Taiping themselves, drew parallels between the loyal Chinese
of the Ming, and earlier Song dynasties, and the Taiping. Thus, the Taiping went
about leading the charge to ensure that the Manchus were not seen as the proper
rulers of China, but rather as barbarian invaders from the North.128 By examining
history we identify this theme of not only having to fight off the aggressor the
Manchus, but the northern aggressor, which can also be observed in the South.
The Taiping used the past to justify their uprising against the Qing dynasty and to
legitimatize their civil war, by claiming to be fighting for the same things as those
who had resisted the Mongols and the Manchus.
This was further observed in a proposal that was submitted to Hong
Xiuquan by Qian Jiang, who was responsible for anti-foreign sentiment in Canton
during the Opium War. He presented this proposal when he met with Hong
126 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.
127 Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom, 160.
128 Ibid., 160.
46
Xiuquan, but he did not join the Taiping as a result of failing to get what he
wanted, so he joined the Qing. Qian made these suggestions in either January or
February of 1853, about the Taiping capital, that was established in Nanjing.
Nanjing was significant because it had previously been the capital of many
dynasties in China, and it was the base from which the first Ming emperor
expelled the Mongols from China. All of this helped the Taiping to justify their
right to rule from a historical perspective.129 Qian Jiang stated that
from the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty the empire underwent numerous
phases of change. Times of breaking up and times of unification followed
one another, and rising and falling dynasties superseded one another. There
was never a definite course. The Chin dynasty was broken by the barbarian
Huns and the reign of the Sung dynasty was ended by the Yüan Mongols.
Those barbarian conquerors, usually relying on their force and savagery, won
the domination of China proper by treacherous means.130
Qian Jiang justified the Taiping cause by stating that their Chinese ancestors had
in the past risen up against foreign invaders and the foreign dynasties such as the
Yuan. In so doing Qian claimed that the Taiping were in the right, and that it was
time once more for the Chinese to rule their own people.
In addition, Hong Xiuquan used history to justify his right to rule, which
was evident when Hong reached Nanjing. Upon his arrival he “summoned the
Mandarins” for he claimed to be the ninth generational descendant “of the last
prince of the Ming dynasty.”131 Hong Xiuquan used the Ming dynasty because the
129 Michael, The Taiping Rebellion, 175. Hsü, The Rise of Modern China, 232.
130 Ch’ien Chiang, “A Proposal to the T’ien Wang” (January or February, 1853), in The Taiping
Rebellion: History and Documents vol II, trans. M. Anneberg and K.H. Lu and ed.Franz Michael (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1971), 178. Qian Jiang is pinyin for Ch’ien Chiang. Also pinyin Song
(Sung appears in text), Yuan (Yüan appears in text) and Qin (Chin appears in text).
131 London Times, “State of China,” Daily Picayune August 28, 1853. Note the article refers to
Hong Xiuquan as Tien-te or Tae-ping-wang. No standardization existed during this period in terms of
written Romanization of Chinese.
47
Ming were considered great, and he glorified those who defied the Qing after the
Ming dynasty had been conquered. In another account, Hong Xiuquan’s family
was traced all the way “back to the time of the Sung dynasty, and the reign of the
two Emperors Hwui-tsung and Kin-tsung, about the beginning of the twelfth
century. These two Emperors were taken captive by northern barbarians, the Kin
and carried away to their country.”132 This demonstrated loyalty and Hong
Xiuquan’s right to rule, for he had descended from a noble lineage. This can be
compared to and is similar to what the author of “The South and the Union” said
about the South being of pure revolutionary blood, for both linked themselves to
their ancestors. Furthermore, he saw himself as playing a historical role like “the
heroes of Chinese history,” but Hong believed his role to be greater than those to
whom he compared himself.133 For both Taiping and the South, history helped
facilitate these ideas of superiority and exceptionalism, be it of the leaders or the
people themselves, which will be further explored in chapter three.
Yang Xiuqing, commander and chief of the Taiping Rebels, who would die
in 1856 due to an internal power struggle, would leave a void that the Taiping
would not be able to fill. Two years earlier Yang puts out a proclamation in May
of 1854, by which time the Taiping had already made Nanjing their Heavenly
capital.134 He stated in the proclamation that
132 Theodore Hamberg, The Vision of Hung-Siu-Tshuen, and Origin of the Kwang-Si
Insurrection, (Hong Kong: China mail office, 1854), 1. Hung-Siu-Tshen is Hong Xiuquan. Kin – another
name for the Jin or Jin dynasty which was the dynasty of the Jurchen people, who had come down from the
north and invaded the Song northern heartland forcing the Southern Song dynasty to share sovereignty.
Also it was the Yuan dynasty (Mongol) that reunified the north and the south. Timothy Brook, The
Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard
University, 2010), 32-33.
133 Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion, 32.
134 Arthur W. Hummel ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period (1644-1912) vol II
(Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1943), 886. Franz Michael, The Taiping
Rebellion, 36-37, 113, 115. In 1853 Nanjing becomes the Taiping Capital.
48
You do not, however, realize that, since the days of old, a revolutionary
change of dynasty had invariably brought about the utter extermination of
inhabitants and complete destruction of all valuables. Blood would have
flowed like a river; no chicken nor dog would have been left alive. Have
there ever been any signs of the Heavenly Dynasty slaughtering people
without just cause, or distributing food and clothing without careful
discrimination? If you do not believe it, you may ask anyone who has read
history, or call on any gray-haired elders. They will give you the information,
and your mind will rest assured.135
According to Yang, war is without a doubt a bloody affair, and that by examining
history you can see that this is what happens, however, the Heavenly dynasty had
killed only those they had just cause to. They had also been careful in the
distribution of food and clothing. The South also justified war and its bloody
affair, by blaming the North for the war. Though both the South and the Taiping
looked to their ancestors for justification, the South sought to blame the North,
while the Taiping took a different approach to justifying war. The Taiping do this
through stating that they have conducted a war more civilized than could have
been conducted in or by previous dynasties, and by using the dynastic cycle to
claim it is time for Chinese to rule once more.
The year 1864 is marked as the official end of the Taiping Civil War. It was
in 1864 that Hong Xiuquan mysteriously dies, Nanjing was captured by the Qing,
and both the Young Monarch and Hong Rengan were captured and executed by
the end of November, though fighting continued until 1868.136 Also in November
of 1864, Li Shixian, the Shih Wang of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, wrote a
letter to the foreigners, in which he specifically addressed the British, the French,
135 Yang Hisu-ch’ing, “Another Proclamation of Yang Hsiu-ch’ing” (May 1854), in Chinese
Sources for the Taiping Rebellion 1850-1864, ed. J.C. Cheng (Hong Kong University Press: Oxford
University Press, 1963), 66. Yang Hsiu-ch’ing or Yang Xiuqing which is pinyin.
136 Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion; Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom; Spence, The
Search For Modern China.
49
and the United States, asking them for help in the fight against the Qing. He
believed that much could be learned not only from the ancients, but also the
moderns in terms of military and in the establishment of a kingdom. Li Shixian
believed and rightfully so, that China and the Western nations were connected. As
such he reminded these nations that before the Taiping, the South was less open to
them in terms of trade. He stated the need of the navy to help in the defeat of the
Qing and that if they should fall, the trade with China will be endangered.137 Here
Li used history to demonstrate how the Taiping are like the other nations, as well
as justifying why the West should support them in their cause against the Qing, in
particular emphasizing all the Taiping had done for them.
Moreover, Anderson’s tenets were illustrated throughout these examples.
As already discussed ancestral claims in part built a sense of comradeship, which
is part of creating an imagined community, and through ancestry this was one of
the ways the Taiping did this. We were also able to observe imagined sovereign
through Hong Xiuquan’s desire to bring back the worship of the Great God. This
meant that the Taiping had only God to answer to, and not the Qing dynasty, or
anyone else. Finally, we also begin to observe imagined limited, through the
Manchus being viewed as northern aggressors and barbarian invaders from the
north. Here the Taiping were using the geographical region to mark the Manchus
as inferior and limit them to the north, thus putting limits on the Qing. This then
helps the Taiping to justify their right to rule for the Taiping were Chinese, and
thus they have the right to rule the region in which they inhabit.138
137 Li Shih-Hsien, “Letter to the Foreigners Soliciting Aid” in The Taiping Rebellion vol III, ed.
Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), 1541.
138 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.
50
Conclusion
A major difference between the South and the Taiping was the range of
history they looked at. The South looked not only to their own American history
but also looked at other nations in hopes of avoiding the mistakes of the nations
that fell. When the South reflected on the history of nations they found many
reasons for the decay of the nations that fell. Some of the reasons were “racial
characteristics, excessive greed, brutal slaveholding, ungodliness or religious
fanaticism, despotism, political radicalism – all were presented by southerners as
explanation for one national demise or another.”139 The Taiping on the other hand,
did not look past its own long history and it could easily and accurately be argued
they did not have to or need to, for the Song and the Ming dynasties provided all
the Taiping needed. In addition, there was the pattern of the Dynastic cycle, and
much anti-foreigner sentiment particularly towards the West existed. So, to draw
on these histories would have fallen on deaf ears, which would have done nothing
to prove their cause. The Taiping demonstrated Chinese distain for foreigners in
that the Yuan dynasty, which reigned between the Song and the Ming dynasties,
got little mention and any of their positive contributions was and still is today
attributed either to the Song or the Ming.140 Thus, looking strictly at China’s own
long history did significantly more for their cause than looking to the history of
other nations, ever could.
Both the South and the Taiping looked to the past to justify their respective
presents, which demonstrated what Anderson had to say about nationalism. He
139 Paul D. H. Quigley, ““That History is Truly the Life of Nations”: History and Southern
Nationalism in Antebellum South Carolina,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 106, no.1 (Jan.
2005): 21.
140 Brook, The Troubled Empire; Frederik Vermote, “Hist 191 Lecture 4: The Mongols in China”
(Lecture, California State University, Fresno History department, Fresno, CA, September 14, 2015).
51
stated that the present gained authority through looking to the past, which allows
one to not only justify, but also build a foundation that would hopefully last into
the future.141 They were hopeful and envisioned their place in world history
through the study of the past. The Taiping also looked to the past to build for the
future by drawing on their history of resistance to foreign invaders, by harking
back to both the Song and the Ming dynasties, as well as their ancient past.
Through the justifications of the South and the Taiping in their respective causes
we have been able to glimpse the collision of the past with the present, all of
which lays the way for the following chapters.
141 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 11-12.
CHAPTER 3: IDENTITY – THE ETHNOCENTRISM OF
IDENTITY
In the Taiping and American Civil Wars, the core of nationalism was
identity, which had a significant part to play in the justifications and examples
used by both to support their right to rule. This emanated from Southern and
Taiping identities in the form of ethnocentrism. The South made distinctions in
terms of race and ethnicity, which was not new because they not only made
distinctions “between white and black but also between “Norman and Saxon” and
“Cavalier and Yankee.”” The South worked to construct their “fictive ethnicity,”
while maintaining their ethnic consciousness. Though slavery is a crucial element
to the South and the American Civil War picture, so were the ethnocentric
elements, which also need to be further analyzed. As Coleman Hutchison noted, it
is the social formations which led to the nationalization of the ethnic, hence, ethnic
nationalism. It is through social formations that the North and the Qing dynasty
become the other in the United States and in China.142
Moreover, Prasenjit Duara believed that the Taiping movement
demonstrated “how a community which had been successfully hardened by a
redemptive narrative to discent [sic] was, in another political context, obliged to
re-open the question of its identity, or rather, identities.” The narrative of dissent
for the Taiping was the Christian aspect, in that they were God’s chosen people
yet they also had another aspect to their narrative which was the political. The
political opened the door to a larger identity based on that of Han vs. Manchu. Yet
142 Coleman Hutchison, Apples and Ashes: Literature, Nationalism, and the Confederate States
of America (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012), 10-11. This ethnic nationalism is an example of
the cultural dimension of nationalism, which is part of both Southern and Taiping nationalisms along with
the political, for both were multidimensional projects. See nationalism section in Chapter 1 for discussion
on the nationalism and why it is seen as multidimensional.
53
this is the aspect that has been significantly ignored in Western scholarship of the
Taiping Civil War. 143
Two of Benedict Anderson’s tenets of nationalism can be considered with
the ethnocentric notions of both the Taping and Southern identities, which are
imagined limited and imagined community. Ethnicity is a key part of identity, and
Kevin Carrico defined identity as “a process of construction and appropriating
multiple layers of labels or imagined boundaries through which people come to
express their desires of centeredness and thus imagined power.”144 Carrico further
expressed that, Han identity or Chinese identity “manifested in complex power
relations and shifting visions of centrality throughout history.”145 This idea can
also be applied to the South, and the larger United States during this period, with
the prominent differential being that of North – South. Therefore, identity and in
particular ethnocentrism is a crucial part of nationalism for both the South and the
Taiping participated in ethnocentric nationalism. In the United States it was
through ethnocentrism that we observe this idea of superiority based on the
perceived inferiority of the North. Furthermore, both the South and the Taiping
argued that they were a different race, thus their northern counterparts were
demons and barbarians. As a result, they then argued that they were under
foreign/alien barbarian despotism. Finally, we will examine the role geography
played in these ethnocentric notions of identity. But before we can discuss all that,
143 Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 69.
144 Kevin Carrico, “Recentering China – The Cantonese in and beyond the Han” in Critical Han
Studies: History, Presentation, and Identity of China’s Majority, eds. Thomas S. Mullaney, James Leibold,
Stephane Gras, and Eric Vanden Bussche (Berkeley: Global Area, and International Archive University of
California Press, 2012), 26.
145 Ibid., 27.
54
we first need to explore identity in China, specifically the Hakka and the
complexity of the Han-Chinese identity.
What is Hakka and the Han-Chinese?
What is Han ethnicity and more specifically, who were the Hakka, since
they led the Taiping Civil War? During the period of 1850-1865 there were two
important Han groups. These groups were the Puntis or “natives,” and the Hakka
or “guest households.” The Puntis, who migrated earlier than the Hakka to
Southern China looked down on the Hakka, though both were considered to be
Han-Chinese. In fact, it was the Puntis who used the label Hakka, which became
widely used in the middle of the nineteenth century. The origins of the name
however remain unclear, some take it back to the Jin and state that it was widely
used by the Song dynasty, while others say it was the name given to them by the
native people.146 The Puntis and the Hakka both had a disdain for each other,
while the Hakka were viewed as violent and belligerent, the Puntis were
considered by the Hakka to be snakes.147
As descendants of the later Southern migration, the Hakkas as a result of
“isolated living gradually developed a somewhat distinctive physical appearance
and cultural identity based on dialect, cuisine, and social practices such as
rejection of female foot binding.”148 The Hakka used their mythology, to claim
community, via dialect with northern people, on account of migrating South from
146 William T. Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University, 2009), 102-103; Nicole Constable, “Introduction: What does it mean to be Hakka?” in
Guest People: Hakka identity in China and Abroad, ed. Nicole Constable (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1996), 3; Sow-Theng Leong, Migration and Ethnicity in Chinese History: Hakka,
Pengmin, and Their Neighbors (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 47, 63-64.
147 Sow-Theng Leong, Migration and Ethnicity in Chinese History, 50,74.
148 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 102-103.
55
the North. Scholars however, have discovered that many of these claims of close
links to other dialects such as Gan, was unlikely. Therefore, though their ancestors
came from the North it was however doubtful that the Hakkas “brought their
language with them.”149 Furthermore, those such as Xu Xuzeng a Hakka
spokesman and native of Heping in the East River Upland, stated in the early
1800s, that the Hakkas were the bearers of the ancient civilization from the Central
Plain, and that it was through loyalism that they moved South; for they were loyal
to the Song dynasty, and migrated South in the hopes of avoiding Mongol rule.150
The Hakka were also known for becoming politically active and they not
only had a central role in the Taiping Civil War, but also in the 1911 Revolution.
A part of the reason for the political activity was economic. When the economy
was good the Hakka sought academic success, but when the economy was in
turmoil there was significant ethnic conflict that erupted most noticeably between
the Hakka and the Puntis. These trends were the result of restricted money making
opportunities.151
What about Han-Chinese? It is in answering this question that historians
such as William Rowe have started by asking “what distinguished the Chinese
from the barbarian or savage?” The answer is usually two fold in that there is the
answer of cultural practices which include: how you eat, how you dress, how you
farm, family system, remembering dead relatives and ancestors, and to a degree
literacy advancement. Then there is the other answer of “biological (“racial”)
differences,” which was not unique to China for the South also made arguments
based on biology. The main point, however, is that it is not one or the other but
149 Sow-Theng Leong, Migration and Ethnicity in Chinese History, 32, 33 quote.
150 Ibid., 77.
151 Ibid., 53, 54, 62.
56
usually the combination of both, with either culture or biology being the dominant
factor.152
The meaning of Han that we have today existed to some degree during the
Taiping Civil War period, and can be traced to the Han dynasty, who “gave its
name to Han ethnicity retroactively.” In fact, this term “Han” and the meaning
assigned to it comes out of the Ming dynasty (1366-1644). This was an
appropriation by the Ming, before this there was no group of people called Han.153
Mark Elliott notes that this term is very unstable but concluded that it is one of the
many words albeit that are not tidy, that we use today. Thus, the notion of a
unified Han people is a myth, “for much of Chinese history, divisions of various
sorts – both those between Chinese and non-Chinese and those between
northerners and southerners – prevented such an idea from taking hold.”154
Therefore, we begin this ethnocentric comparison with the North and the South,
and the notions that Southern rebels, believed made them distinct and different
from their northern counterparts.
The North and the South of Different Races?
The South and the Taiping believed that they were ethnically different from
their Northern counterparts. Thus, the South considered themselves to be superior
152 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 100.
153 Tamara T. Chin, “Antiquarian Ethnographer – Han Ethnicity in Early China Studies,” in
Critical Han Studies: History, Presentation, and Identity of China’s Majority, eds. Thomas S. Mullaney,
James Leibold, Stephane Gras, and Eric Vanden Bussche (Berkeley: Global Area, and International
Archive University of California Press, 2012), 129.
154 Mark Elliott, “Hushuo – The Northern Other and the Naming of the Han Chinese,” in Critical
Han Studies: History, Presentation, and Identity of China’s Majority, eds. Thomas S. Mullaney, James
Leibold, Stephane Gras, and Eric Vanden Bussche (Berkeley: Global Area, and International Archive
University of California Press, 2012), 173, 174, 175 quote. Also there are subethnic groups within the Han
thus, multiple groups of people make up Han Chinese.
57
to their brothers in the North because they were descended from more noble and
honorable races, which they expressed in ethnocentric terms.
William Gilmore Simms, a Southern writer and editor for the Southern
Quarterly Review, saw the South as superior to the North so much so, that he
believed that the South would therefore, have been superior leaders to those in the
North. If the North had allowed the South to rule, the North would not only be
more prosperous, but also thankful and requesting that the South continue to
rule.155 It therefore comes as no surprise that in his letter to James Henry
Hammond in 1858, Simms used ethnocentric terms to describe what would cause
the South to secede from the Union. He declared “no revolution can be effected,
among any people, of the cautious, calculating nature of the Anglo-Norman, or
Anglo-American race, until the usurpation shall invade the household, & be
brought home to every man’s door, in a sense of [per]sonal danger, or pecuniary
loss & privation.”156 Simms believed that the South would only rise up when
danger, loss of money, or basic needs are taken away, without the right to do so.
He stated that the South was peaceful by nature, and it is not in their character to
rise up unless given a reason. This demonstrated that even before the outbreak of
the Civil War those in the South believed that “ethnic differences separated North
and South.” Both the North and the South embraced myths of separate origins,
which involved the South being of the Cavalier, Norman lineage and the North of
155 William Gilmore Simms, “To John Jacob Bockee, Woodlands,” December 12, 1860, in The
Letters of William Gilmore Simms vol. IV, eds. Mary C. Simms Oliphant, Alfred Taylor Odell and T.C.
Duncan Eaves (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1955), 301; Paul D. H. Quigley, ““That
History is Truly the Life of Nations”: History and Southern Nationalism in Antebellum South Carolina,”
The South Carolina Historical Magazine 106, no.1 (Jan., 2005): 12.
156 William Gilmore Simms, “To James Henry Hammond,” January 28th, 1858, in The Letters of
William Gilmore Simms vol. IV, eds. Mary C. Simms Oliphant, Alfred Taylor Odell and T.C. Duncan
Eaves (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1955), 16.
58
the Puritan Saxon Lineage.157 Furthermore, it was “ethnic and regional stereotypes
[that] gave people a language with which to describe regional differences,” which
can also be observed in China during this period.158
Southerners had to reconcile that hereditarily speaking they were indeed
Northern European, yet circumstance “made them southern, almost
Mediterranean.”159 To reconcile hereditary and circumstance they used genealogy,
which allowed them to acknowledge both, and express their superiority. In an
1861 article “The Huguenots of the South” the author describes the Huguenots as
A serious, earnest people, and evince all things that strength of conviction,
steadiness of purpose, and moderation of manner, that distinguish Huguenot
character everywhere in the South. They are of the Roman race, and the
picked people of that race; they were tried and purified in the ordeal of
danger and adversity; purged, like the army of Gideon of all base and
worthless material. It is they who have given character to South Carolina, and
placed her ahead of all other nations. South Carolina has effected a great and
glorious revolution as calmly and quietly as other states enact ordinary
laws.160
The author argued that South Carolina was above all others because its residents
were descended from the Huguenots, who were the descendants of the best of the
Romans, for they conquered and settled France. The author, however, believed
that only about a million people in the South at that time were descended from the
superior Huguenot race, while the rest were descended from the noble Cavaliers
157 Don H. Doyle, Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the Southern Question (Athens: The
University of Georgia Press, 2002), 79.
158 Ibid., 79.
159 Michael O’Brien, “The Lineaments of Antebellum Southern Romanticism,” Journal of
American Studies 20, no. 2 (Aug. 1986): 188.
160 The author I could not find in De Bow’s Review around the article and there was no table of
contents, but Edwin Miles in his work “The Old South and the Classical World” identifies this as the work
of George Fitzhugh. “The Huguenots of the South,” De Bow’s Review XXX (May and June 1861): 520.
59
and Jacobites.161 The author further stated that “the Huguenots are a
Mediterranean people, a very superior race, both in mind and body, and constitute
the best element of Southern Society.”162 Thus, this is evidence for at least one
person’s ethnocentric views in terms of the Huguenots, Jacobites and Cavaliers as
the reason for Southern superiority. However, it was more common to look to the
Cavaliers and Anglo-Normans in terms of race or descent, which the author
mentioned had nobility but not to the extent of the Huguenots. For the author
believed that the Anglo-Normans had been impaired by the blood of the AngloSaxon.163 The North was of Anglo-Saxon descent, and were considered inferior to
the Anglo-Normans in the South, in the eyes of Southerners.
This inferiority of the North is further observed in “The Anglo-Saxon
Mania,” which appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger in the
November/December issue, at the end of 1863, a pivotal year in the Civil War. In
January of 1863, the emancipation proclamation went into effect in the North, the
battles were shifting in favor of the North, while the South had renewed hope in
being recognized internationally from Britain and France.164 Dr. Stuart the author
of this article proclaimed that Northerners were
Saxonized maw-worms. Creeping from the Mayflower on the cold,
forbidding crags of the North, have any right to kinship with the wholesouled Norman British planters of a gallant race, on a welcoming sunny soil?
At Home they were socially, politically, religiously and ethnologically
different – as different as the Cockonian squire of to-day is from the Cockney
costermonger – as different then, as a Highland laird of the present is from an
161 “The Huguenots of the South,” De Bow’s Review XXX (May and June 1861): 520.
162 Ibid., 517.
163 “The Huguenots of the South,” De Bow’s Review XXX (May and June 1861): 517.
164 John Mack Faragher, Mary Jo Buhle, Daniel Czitrom, and Susan Armitrage, Out of Many: A
History of the American People vol I, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006), 414, 421422.
60
Essex hind – that is to say, in nothing a kin, except the accident of having
been born, if not under the same ruling race, within the bounds of the same
dominions.165
In other words, according to Dr. Stuart the North and the South were as different
as a cottage and an estate, both you can live in, but that is where the similarities
stop. Furthermore, this massive difference expressed by Dr. Stuart demonstrated
how for some this line of difference was so stark “that they believed the two could
never be reunited.”166 Dr. Stuart demonstrated his belief in Northern inferiority
through deeming the south to be a gallant race, and by calling the North, Saxon
maw-worms, which are parasitic worms that can be found in the stomach or
intestines. It is clear that Dr. Stuart believed the North to be inferior and not of the
same race.167
In the South, Southerners argued that it was not racial imbalance due to
slavery which had driven the war, rather it was the racial differences between the
North and the South in the United States.168 What it came down to was that
Northern whites were a different race from Southern whites and this difference
was perceived by Southerners to be biology based. Racial or ethnic differences
between the North and the South were one of the key ways in which Southerners
elucidated Secession. According to Christopher Hanlon, this argument of
antagonistic bloodlines went all the way back to 1837, with particular emphasis on
people from the Northeast, who the South felt were completely different from
165 Dr. Stuart, “The Anglo Saxon Mania,” The Southern Literary Messenger (Nov/Dec 1863):
674.
166 Anne Sarah Rubin, A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy 1861-1868
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2005), 93.
167 www.merriam-webster.com/medical/mawworm, “definition of Mawworm”.
168 Christopher Hanlon, “Puritans vs. Cavaliers,” Disunion Blog, New York Times, January 24,
2013, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/puritans-vs-cavaliers/?_r=0. [Accessed September
18, 2015].
61
them. Southerners saw themselves as descendants of Cavaliers or Normans.
Northerners were descended from Puritans who were “descendants of those
vanquished Saxons, Separatist fanatics who burned witches until deciding to dump
tea in Boston harbor instead.” This can be linked to geography which will be
discussed in more detail at end of the chapter along with the idea that there were
two foundings of America - one in the North with the Pilgrims and one in
Jamestown in the South. Accordingly, the conflict between the Normans and the
Saxons through sectional division was “transported across the Atlantic.”169
Like the Manchus, Northerners also, used ethnicity, though not to the same
degree as those in the South. For the South this “racial mythology would be a key
element in this flowering of southern nationalism before and during the Civil
War.”170 It is important to note that in 1854 the majority of Southerners “would
have been uncomfortable with the notion that they constituted a separate race of
people within the United States.” But by 1861 they enthusiastically embraced
these ethnocentric notions.171
Like the South, the Taiping expressed superiority over the Manchus in
ethnocentric terms. To understand this we must first look at twelfth-century China,
when the idea of a Han fatherland and community emerged with an emphasis on
barbarians having no place in such a community. Furthermore, the Song dynasty
used ethnocentric notions to cultivate “loyalty to the fatherland in the peasant
communities,” so that the peasants would resist the Jin “in the name of the Han
169 Ibid.
170 Ritchie Devon Watson Jr., Normans and Saxons: Southern Race Mythology and the
Intellectual History of the American Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), 28.
171 Ibid., 74.
62
Chinese culture and the Song dynasty.”172 Therefore, in 1644 Han-Chinese
ethnocentrism reemerged as a direct consequence of the conquest of the Ming
dynasty by the Manchus. The Qing dynasty was never able to quash this ethnic
nationalism or the anti-Manchu sentiment.173
Ethnicity in China was and is complicated, in part because there are accounts
of individuals such as Tong Guogang petitioning to be reclassified as Manchu and
he was successful. However, not all of his relatives were able to win their petitions
thus, some of his relatives remained Chinese. The reality was that “in this time and
place ethnic identities were far from genetically predetermined but were flexible,
ambiguous, and negotiable,” at least in 1688.174 Furthermore, the Qing empire was
considered to be multiethnic and therefore left ethnic identities open for debate;
this was more so than in any other previous time in imperial history. Almost two
hundred years later, one can observe the Taiping’s use of ethnocentric notions to
further Han-Chinese identity, which was tied to anti-Manchuism. Therefore, the
Taiping like the South viewed themselves as being “more pure” and superior, for
the North were intermarried among other races, which the South in the United
States expressed in terms of the North having so many European immigrants as
explained in last chapter. 175
172 Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation, 59. The Jin dynasty, which was the dynasty of the
Jurchen people, who had conquered and taken northern China from the Song Dynasty, and reigned between
1122 and 1234, when they were finally defeated by the Mongols who established the Yuan dynasty and
united northern and southern China into one territory. Timothy Brook, The Troubled Empire: China in the
Yuan and Ming Dynasties (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010), 26.
Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China third edition, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
2013), 26.
173 Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation, 59. This ethnic nationalism, part of the cultural
dimension of nationalism.
174 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 11. Rowe later stated that “ethnic or national identities, which
were somewhat fungible and negotiable in the early and mid-Qing dynasty, seem to have hardened over the
course of the nineteenth century.” Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 211.
175 Ibid., 100; Hanlon, “Puritans vs. Cavaliers,” Disunion Blog.
63
The Taiping demonstrated ethnocentrism in terms of biology:
The Tartars were of different species, remarkable for their ravenous
disposition, and for this reason, the central kingdom with the eastern
provinces, in order to prevent their invasion, built the great wall.
Unfortunately, during the latter part of the Ming dynasty they were allowed
to invade the interior, we became their victim, and have since been disgraced
by them for these two centuries or more.176
The Taiping demonstrated the biological component of ethnocentrism by calling
the Manchus, whom they also referred to as tartars, a different species. Li Shixian
expressed a feeling of disgrace for the Chinese people had been their victims for
the last two hundred years. This sentiment can similarly be found in the
Confederacy because they believed submission to Northern tyranny was
disgraceful.
In 1852, a year after Hong Xiuquan was crowned the Taiping Heavenly
King, and two years after the civil war broke out, Yang Xiuqing – one of the
original five kings, the Tung Wang, who was assassinated in 1856 – and Xiao
Chaogui – the Xi Wang – published three proclamations that appeared together in
Proclamations by Imperial Sanction.177 In the first and the second proclamations
they made it clear that the Manchus and Chinese people were of different races. In
the first proclamation, they stated that many of the men were part of the Triad
Society, specifically “Hung [Triad] brotherhood.” They called for the men to
honor the blood pact that they had made to exterminate the Qing dynasty. Yang
and Xiao then asked “whoever heard of men pledging themselves in sworn
176 Li Shih-Hsien, Letter to the Foreigners Solicit Aid 1864, in The Taiping Rebellion: History
and Documents vol III, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971),1539-1540.
Authors name in pinyin Li Shixian.
177 Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol I. (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1966).
64
brotherhood, and then turning around and facing north, serving their enemies?”178
On the surface this does not seem ethnocentric or that there is a difference in race,
but when you come to understand what the Triad Society and the Taiping
believed, this then demonstrates an example of the Taiping belief that Chinese and
Manchus were different races. Among the Secret Societies in Southern China were
the Triad Society and the Taiping (or Society of God Worshippers). Although the
ideology of the Triads and the Taiping were different they had a common belief,
which was that “southerners were the “true” Chinese, since northerners had been
contaminated by centuries of mixed blood from Inner Asian conquest
dynasties.”179 Thus, they looked down on their northern counterparts – like the
South did the North – and did not see them as full Chinese, therefore they would
have seen the Manchus as a different race.
Manchus as a different race becomes clearer in Yang and Xiao’s second
proclamation. They clearly believed that Chinese and the Manchus were two
distinct and separate races. Yang and Xiao claimed to have investigated where the
Manchus came from, and their research found that the origins of the Manchus’
ancestor “was a crossbreed of a white fox and a red dog, from whom sprang this
race of demons.” The Manchus multiplied and married amongst themselves, thus
there was “no proper human relationship nor civilization.” They then stated that
“the Manchu barbarians are no more than dogs and swine.”180 Not only were the
178 Yang Hsiu-ch’ing and Hsiao Ch’ao-kuei, “Proclamations by Imperial Sanction,” in The
Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol II, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1971), 143-144. Yang Hsiu-ch’ing and pinyin Yang Xiuqing, Hsiao Ch’ao-kuei in pinyin Xiao
Chaogui.
179 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 187.
180 Yang Hsiu-ch’ing and Hsiao Ch’ao-kuei, “Proclamations by Imperial Sanction,” 146-147.
65
Manchus a different race they were barbarians and “clearly distinguished” from
the Chinese.181
Both the South and the Taiping demonstrated imagined communities
through claiming the North was a different race. By labeling the North as
different, allowed both the South and the Taiping to say we are the same. They
could then create a community based on this sameness because they were Norman,
or Han-Chinese.182
Ethnocentric Superiority
The ethnocentric notions held by the South and the Taiping perpetuated
their belief in their superiority. In the South, Southerners in their diaries and letters
often included races as they described the people, giving a window into the link
between ethnocentric notions and superiority. John B. Jones, a Civil War clerk,
who just over a month prior to the Union defeat at Fredericksburg Virginia,
recorded in his diary on November 8th 1862, that “the Governor of Mississippi
(Pettus) informs the President that a Frenchman, perhaps a Jew, proposes to trade
salt for cotton.”183 Jones felt the need to specify that the trader was not only a
Frenchman, but could also potentially be Jewish. As he went on in his diary, his
unflattering view of Jewish people became undeniable. He wrote that Jewish
people were not truly behind the war effort, this therefore not only made them
inferior but also, not true patriotic citizens of the Confederacy. He illustrated this
in his diary entry from November 9th and 10th of 1862. He wrote:
181 Ibid., 148.
182 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.
183 John B. Jones, “November 8, 1862,” in A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary vol. I (Philadelphia: J.B.
Lippincott & Co, 1866),185.
66
Our brave men win victories under adverse circumstances, and often under
incompetent officers, and the people feed and clothe the armies in spite of the
shortcoming of dishonest commissaries and quartermasters. They are not
sending ten thousands pairs of shoes to Lee’s army in opposition to the will
of the Jew Myers, Quarter-General, who says everything must be contracted
and paid for by his agents, according to red-tape rule and regulation.184
Jones felt it necessary to stress that at the head of the problem was someone of
Jewish ethnicity. Jones therefore, would not have seen Myers as a true Southerner
or Confederate, and this became more evident the next day. He then described that
a couple of days ago some Confederate soldiers marched through the streets of the
city “without shoes, in the snow.” The citizens of this community went to work
obtaining the War Department’s approval, which ordered “all the boots, shoes,
blankets, and overcoats in the shops.” Be given to the soldiers and Jones finished
by remarking “what a commotion among the Jews!”185 Based on diary entries
from the previous two days, the view of the Jewish community’s response was
negative. In addition, it is interesting that Jones singled out Jewish community’s
response specifically. As Jones demonstrated, Southerners were more times than
not fixated upon race and “upon aliens of one sort or another as the primary
offenders.” The Jewish people were often the villains as result of southern antiSemitism.186
However, not all Southerners shared Jones’s view, there were those such as
Augusta Jane Evans, who held an opposite view of Jewish people. All the while,
demonstrating this Southern fixation on race.187 Evans produced best-selling
184 John B. Jones, “November 9, 1862,” in A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary vol. I (Philadelphia: J.B.
Lippincott & Co, 1866), 186.
185 John B. Jones, “November 10, 1862,” in A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary vol. I [Philadelphia: J.B.
Lippincott & Co, 1866],186.
186 Drew Gilpin Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the
Civil War South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 49-50.
187 Ibid., 49.
67
novels in the nineteenth century, her book Macaria was one of only seven novels
published during the Civil War by the Confederacy, and she was a proud
Southerner.188 She urged her good friend Rachel Lyons to write, especially since
she was not married. As part of her plea Evans lauded that Rachel should write
because “your – nationality -; your grand ancestral rights, all of the sublime, that
clusters around God’s ‘chosen people.’” In the eyes of Evans, Rachel should write
because she is Jewish, which allows her to write a tale that Evans in unable to.189
This letter, written two years prior to Jones’s diary entry, illustrated a contrasting
view of Jewish people. Evans was enamored with her friend Rachel’s Jewish
ancestry and it became more evident in a letter to Rachel dated August 28th 1860.
Evans stated “I often wish I might have been born a Jewess” but then goes on to
say she would combine the Christian with the Mosaic.190 These two letters further
showed racial consciousness and this idea of racial superiority. Despite Evans love
for her friend’s heritage, and Evans’ desire to be Jewish, she felt that she could not
be strictly Jewish with just the Mosaic. To Evans it would be incomplete and
therefore necessary to have Christian elements as well. Though Evans thought
highly of Jewish ancestry she also felt that it was inferior, since she believed
Christian elements must be added.
188 Coleman Hutchison, Apples and Ashes: Literature, Nationalism, and the Confederate States
of America (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012), 65.
189 Augusta Jane Evans, “13/ MS Alabama To Rachel Lyons,” July 30, 1860, in A Southern
Woman of Letters: The Correspondence of Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, ed. Rebecca Grant Sexton
(Columbia: South Carolina, 2002), 18. The underline present in quote is present in the book from which
this source came.
190 Augusta Jane Evans, “14/ MS Alabama To Rachel Lyons,” August 28, 1860, in A Southern
Woman of Letters: The Correspondence of Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, ed. Rebecca Grant Sexton
(Columbia: South Carolina, 2002), 20. The underline present in quote is present in the book from which
this source came.
68
This is significant because it helps to demonstrate Southern ethnocentrism
and how racially conscious they were. As a result, we begin to understand that
Southern or Confederate nationalism was ethnocentric. Jones demonstrated the
belief that Jewish people are in fact inferior and not true Southern or Confederate
patriots. Evans demonstrated inferiority via the religious aspect. She loved her
friend’s heritage yet without Christianity involved she could not see how she could
be a Jewess though Evans often wished she was. Both Jones and Evans illustrated
cultural nationalism through the ethnic of the South and the Confederacy, rather
than political nationalism of the United States, whom the South opposed.191
Prior to Abraham Lincoln’s election, which occurred in November of 1860,
Evans was already writing in terms of superiority. In her discussion of God’s
chosen people, we were able to observe her early belief that the South as not only
ethnically superior but also as God’s chosen people as well. This becomes
transparent in the letter Evans wrote to Rachel Lyons almost two years later, in
January of 1862:
God bless our noble army! And preserve it from the pestilence which has
decimated its ranks during the past few months. Ah Rachel! I felt for and
with you when the miserable hirelings of Puritandom desecrated the sacred
soil of your state. I felt every drop of blood boiling in my veins, as I read of
their vandalic expeditions on the islands along your coast! Oh! That we had a
government, capable of dealing with the wretches as they deserve. Not a
soul, should ever be permitted to reembark,[sic] for their worse than Sodomic
homes.192
191 Don H. Doyle, Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the Southern Question (Athens: The
University of Georgia Press, 2002), xiv.
192 Augusta Jane Evans, “27/ MS Alabama To Rachel Lyons,” January 22nd, 1862, in A Southern
Woman of Letters: The Correspondence of Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, ed. Rebecca Grant Sexton
(Columbia: South Carolina, 2002), 39. The underlines present in quote are present in the book from which
this source came.
69
Evans believed that the army of the Confederacy was noble while the North were
no different than the Vandals and the city of Sodom from the Bible.
John B. Jones further expressed ethnocentrism in his diary when he
discussed the Union General Corcoran, who led an Irish brigade.193 In the
discussion of the brigade’s movements on November 26 1862, Jones wrote
“nothing more is heard from Gen. Corcoran, with his Irish bogtrotters, on the
Peninsula.”194 This is great example of the ethnocentric part of superiority because
Corcoran to start with had been a prisoner of the Confederates and he was a
northerner.195 Furthermore, Jones chose the slang bogtrotter, when he described
the Irish, which was an offensive term for someone of Irish birth and ancestry.
Both the South and the Taiping used ethnocentrism, however they used
ethnocentrism in different ways. One significant difference was that for the
Taiping ethnocentrism was more complicated. To start, Southern China was
settled by two main populations the Puntis – Chinese early settlers or natives and
the Hakka – Chinese settlers, who came later.196 Conflict emerged between the
Hakka and Puntis, which occurred mainly in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces.
This was significant because these are provinces in southern China, were the
Taiping Civil War arose.197 However, at some point the Taiping Civil War
consisted of not only Hakka, but also Puntis. Thus Hong Xiuquan had to reassure
193 John B. Jones, “November 25, 1862,” in A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary vol. I (Philadelphia: J.B.
Lippincott & Co, 1866), 196.
194 John B. Jones, “November 26, 1862,” in A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary vol. I (Philadelphia: J.B.
Lippincott & Co, 1866), 196.
195 John B. Jones, “November 25, 1862,” in A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary vol. I (Philadelphia: J.B.
Lippincott & Co, 1866), 196.
196 Michael, The Taiping Rebellion, 19.
197 Ibid., 20.
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both groups of Han that they would be treated alike, even while ethnic conflict
between the two groups continued both during and after the Civil War.198
In “A Patriotic Poem” dated March 1853 the author declared:
I intend to raise the Han and destroy the Manchus, Leaving no corrupt
officials; I am about to assault the capital (Nanking) on behalf of Heaven, so
you need not flee east or west; Wherever the great army comes in, It never
disturbs or harms good citizens; We [Hakkas] also have ancestral graveyards
in your county and are the Kindred of your native land; You people should
guard against bandits: Do not fall into recklessness and become [Manchu]
soldiers.199
Anderson’s tenet, imagined community is exemplified because though it has been
a longtime since the Hakkas had left that region, they believed that they could
claim common ancestry with those on their way to Nanjing. They imagined this
community in hopes of gaining more followers in their cause against the Manchus.
The author also believed that the Hakkas were superior to the Manchus for they
were telling the people to side with the Hakka – your kindred – rather than
Manchus. This is also an interesting point of contrast between the Taiping and the
South. The South, beyond the southern states, one could not call upon a common
ancestry since they prided themselves on being ethnically and completely different
from their Northern brethren. However they could claim kinship with other
countries, such as France in terms of support for their cause and recognition as a
foreign state, especially since they made claims to be descendants of the Cavaliers
and Huguenots.200
198 Ibid., 40.
199 “A Patriotic Poem” (March, 1853), in Chinese Sources for the Taiping Rebellion 1850-1864,
ed. J.C. Cheng (Hong Kong University Press: Oxford University Press, 1963), 63-64. Nanking = Nanjing
(pinyin)
200 Don H. Doyle, The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War
(New York: Basic Books, 2015).
71
The Taiping’s sense of superiority over the West, that would have included
the Confederate South was also observed. Hong Xiuquan made it explicitly clear
that not only were the Chinese people and by extension the Taiping superior to the
Manchus they were also superior to the West, whom they considered to be their
younger brothers. He considered foreigners particularly the West, to be “foreign
younger brothers of the western ocean.”201 He wanted the West to join them in
their cause against the Qing dynasty. Hong Xiuquan made it subtly and elegantly
clear that the Taiping viewed the Westerners as inferior, therefore, the
Taiping/Chinese were superior to the Westerners. He solidified that he not only
wanted the Westerners to come alongside the Taiping, but also that the Westerners
would be inferior to the Taiping. Though lesser Hong Xiuquan used the
affectionate term younger brother. Hong believed that he was to teach them
because they must learn the edicts that God had made known only to him.202
Furthermore, we also see Confucianism in terms of hierarchy and relationship
between younger and older brothers, which would have made sense to the Chinese
people, and we will explore this further in the next chapter.
In A Hero’s Return to the Truth, published the year of the Xianfeng,
emperor’s death, Hong Rengan strongly appealed “to the racial pride of the
Chinese,” while condemning the Manchu policies such as the forced hair cutting
to the Manchu style.203 The Chinese official in the story, who had been working
for the Manchus expressed this ethnocentric pride and demonstrated the belief that
201 Hung Hsiu-ch’üan, “The T’ien Wang’s Manifesto to the Foreign Brothers 1858,” The Taiping
Rebellion: History and Documents vol II, ed. in Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1971), 720. Hung Hsiu-ch’üan is Hong Xiuquan.
202 Ibid., 717.
203 Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol III (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1971), 799.
72
to be Chinese was to be superior. The Chinese official stated "the Heavenly
soldiers say that I am a Tartar, while actually I am a subject of the Heavenly
Kingdom; they say that I am a barbarian demon, while really I am Chinese. In
both flesh and blood I am a man of China proper.”204 The official in the story
wished to become human and to be not only a hero, but also a man of the
Heavenly Kingdom. The Taiping believed the Chinese were superior, and to be
Chinese is to be human, which was demonstrated by the insinuation that the
Manchus were not human, as well as the Chinese who worked for them. The
Chinese, however, had a chance at redemption and could become human again,
the Manchus according to Hong Rengan did not.205
The Barbarian and Aliens to the North 206
The idea of foreign/alien rule in the South and in China illustrated the
concerns of both the South and the Taiping. The reality is, as Michael Hechter has
pointed out, that the people are not so much concerned with the origins “of the
ruling institution,” rather “the hallmark of alien rule concerns identity of the
rulers.” He then argues that all rule can become alien when self-determination is
violated, anarchists for example believe all rule is alien as a result.207 As we will
204 Hung Jen-kan, “A Hero’s Return to The Truth,” in The Taiping Rebellion: History and
Documents vol III, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), 804. Hung Jen-kan
– Hong Rengan (pinyin)
205 Hung Jen-kan, “A Hero’s Return to The Truth.” Hung Jen-kan – Hong Rengan (pinyin)
206 With the term Barbarian it is important to note that historian Christopher I. Beckwith, though
an outlier, takes issue with the term and its use, since even in modern Mandarin there is no equivalent.
Beckwith stated that the Chinese have not borrowed barbar from the Greek. He further stated that they have
multiple words to describe foreigner even in negative context though none mean the same thing as
barbarian. Thus Beckwith concludes that “it is impossible to translate the word barbarian into Chinese
because the concept does not exist in Chinese.” Therefore, historians should not use the term particularly
Chinese or Asian historians. Christopher I. Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central
Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 358.
207 Michael Hechter, “Alien Rule and Its Discontents,” American Behavioral Scientist 53, no. 3
(November 2009): 290-291. Hechtor also argued that the birth of Chinese nationalism came out of the fact
73
see both the South and the Taiping in their own ways felt that their selfdetermination was violated and as a result these foreign alien rulers did not
understand or comprehend the civilized ways of those they ruled, thus those in
power were barbarians.
The South predicated their superiority as did the Taiping based on this idea
of foreign invaders and alien rule. Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry expressed this a few
weeks prior to South Carolina’s secession from the union, in that the government
is controlled by a sectional party that is hostile to the destiny of the South by
“another distinct people.” Curry then stated that “to the slaveholding states it is a
foreign government, which understands not our condition, defers not our opinions,
consults not our interests, and has no sympathy with our peculiar civilization.”208
Curry believed that the North was a foreign government compared to that of the
South, for the North understands not, what it means to be Southern. Thus, the
South and the North were distinct peoples. Curry exemplified Anderson’s tenet of
imagined limited through the North’s inability to grasp what it means to be
Southern. Furthermore, the South was driven by fear that the North would enslave
them and thus writings prior to and during the war reflect this through the
characterization of Northerners as barbarians.209
The view of Northerners as barbarians was expressed in articles such as
“Superiority of Southern Races – Review of Count De Gobineau’s Work”
that China was forced into unequal treaties in the 19th century by western powers. Hechter, “Alien Rule and
Its Discontents,” 296. This is an interesting argument, however, I do not think that is completely accurate
because this is a Eurocentric perspective or westerncentric. This would have been a factor, but this not the
sole aspect of Chinese nationalism, for Chinese nationalism has significant base in identity, which is
Chinese or Han identity, and this has a bigger impact, which the other would fuel.
208 Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, “The Perils and Duty of the South. ...Speech Delivered in
Talladega, Alabama, November 26, 1860,” in Southern Pamphlets on Secession: November 1860 - April
1861, ed. Jon L. Wakelyn (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 47.
209 Rubin, A Shattered Nation, 87.
74
published in the October and November issue of De Bow’s Review in 1861. By
the time the article was published, the Confederacy had been formed and their
provisional government established.210 The author implied that the those in the
North were in fact barbarians, by asking why there was no Charlemagne or Homer
that rose among the ancient Germans and this was generally why, in the Northern
part of the world there was no civilization. The author then answered that the
reason was that those in the North were in a cold climate, which meant that the
cold made the men along with the animals “inert, inactive, indolent, torpid, stupid.
It affects body and mind alike.” Therefore, the “past or ancient history” of the
north is blank because “she would have no history at all, even for the last few
centuries, except for the infusion of Southern blood and of Southern population.”
The author believed that men of the South were of the more perfect race since the
heat stimulated and perfected all things.211
The Taiping like the South, did not mince words when stating their disdain
for their Northern counterpart. In a proclamation that Yang Xiuqing made in 1853
he declared “I, Commander-in-chief, am like you a man of the great Han
[Chinese] race, who reads the books of the great sages. How could you accept rank
or office from the Manchu barbarians?”212 Yang used the principle of imagined
community to express that he is Chinese therefore, Chinese should stick together.
210 James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1988), 234-237; Rubin, A Shattered Nation,11.
211 “Superiority of Southern Races – Review of Count De Gobineaus Work” De Bow’s Review
XXXI (October/November 1861); 373, 374. Quote from 374.
212 Yang Hsiu-ch’ing, “Proclamation” (beginning 1853), in Chinese Sources for the Taiping
Rebellion 1850-1864, ed. J.C. Cheng (Hong Kong University Press: Oxford University Press, 1963),
63.Yang Hsiu-ch’ing in pinyin Yang Xiuqing.
75
He tells them in a form of a question not to work or aid the Manchus who were not
Han-Chinese and therefore were barbarians and inferior.213
Upon the death of Xianfeng in 1861, Hong Rengan published two
proclamations. The first proclamation aroused the hatred of the Chinese against
the Manchus based on race.214 Hong Rengan stated
you who are all descendants of Chinese are all members of the Chinese race;
all being sons and daughters of heaven, none is not a brother of the same
kinship. Why then exert your efforts for the demon Manchus and the demons
suckling, why do you not offer your cities to your own country and your own
province? The willingness of the dignified Chinese of the heavenly kingdoms
to bend their knees and bow their heads, none of them considering the shame
of domination of eighteen provinces by three Manchu provinces or
humiliation of the subjugation of five hundred million people by about three
million Manchu demons, has indeed made China detestable, pitiable,
lamentable, and tragic, and unworthy of God above, as well as undeserving
of this leading role among nations.215
Hong Rengan believed that there was indeed a distinction between Chinese and
Manchu. He does this first by referring to the Chinese as his own race and making
a call for all Chinese to join and bond together in brotherhood because they were
all of the same race, not only superior to, but also more civilized than the
Manchus, or “demonic barbarians.”216 Rengan was raising the question of why
had it become acceptable for a minority, that was not only barbarian, but also
alien, to rule over the Chinese people. For the Chinese people not only had fifteen
provinces, but were also five hundred million in number. Rengan believed that the
213 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.
214 Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion vol III (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971),
859.
215 Hung Jen-kan, “Proclamations on the Extermination of Demons (Chu-yao chi-wen),” in The
Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol III, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1971), 861. Hung Jen-kan – Hong Rengan (pinyin)
216 Ibid., 859-860.
76
Chinese should join together and defeat these barbarians and rule China, which
rightfully belonged to them. Hong Rengan demanded an end to this humiliation,
and called the people to be a people deserving of the leading role, God had given
them.
Hong Rengan further stated that the Qing set up rules that were designed to
dominate the Chinese people while at the same time violate the Taiping moral
principles. He exclaimed that “this is why Wen T’ien-hsiang [Wen Tianxiang] and
Hsieh Fang-te [Xie Fangjang] preferred death to serving the Yuan, and Ch’u Shihssu [Chu Shisi] and Shih K’o-fa [Shi Kefa] vowed not to serve the [Manchu]
barbarians.”217 Hong Rengan argued that the Chinese people have been dominated
long enough and that the Taiping have a right to stand firm and fight against this.
He made this point by highlighting two Song dynasty officials Wen Tianxiang and
Xie Fangjang, both of whom refused to submit to the Yuan, who conquered the
Song. Both these men chose death instead. Rengan further pulled from China’s
rich history by also pointing to Chu Shisi and Shi Kefa, two Ming dynasty
officials who refused to surrender to the Manchus and died as well.218 By using
these examples in his argument, Rengan gave precedence and justified their
struggle against the Qing dynasty, which ties directly back to the last chapter
where we examined how the past and present collide.
Rengan beautifully reiterated this point in his Second Proclamation in
which he stated that China belonged to the Chinese and not to the Manchus,
therefore the throne belongs to the Chinese as well.
The people, the jade, and the silk belong to the Chinese, not to the Manchus.
It is to be lamented that when the Ming Dynasty declined, the Manchus
217 Ibid., 860-861. Hung Jen-kan is Hong Rengan.
218 Michael, The Taiping Rebellion, 861. The Yüan Dynasty set up in China by the Mongols.
77
seized the opportunity, became aggressive, and invaded China and stole the
throne. At the time the officials, soldiers, and people were not yet able to rise
together righteously and courageously to drive them out of our territory, and
wipe away their goat like stench. On the contrary they bowed their heads and
lowered their hearts and became servants and subjects of the invaders.219
Rengan stated that it was time to take China back for the Chinese and stop being
embarrassed, by being ruled by the Manchus, who smell no better than goats and
were inferior, potentially animal like, in comparison to the civilized Chinese.
Therefore, it was no surprise that Rengan believed in resistance to death, which he
saw as important. This resistance was beautifully articulated in the Taiping
confessions of Hong Rengan and Lai Wangguang, the Tsun Wang a leader of the
Taiping rebellion who was believed to be Hakka, and wrote his confession on
January 5, 1868.220 These confessions will be examined in detail in chapter 4.
Geography
Geography also played a role in ethnic nationalism of both the South and
the Taiping. The author of “The Huguenots of the South” demonstrated that the
South started to use geography to help explain why the South should be an
independent nation. The Taiping, similarly were geographically aware, in that not
only did they see the Manchus as foreign invaders they also saw them as northern
aggressors.221 Geography additionally had a role to play in terms of the ability to
219 Hung Jen-kan, “Proclamations on the Extermination of Demons (Chu-yao chi-wen),” 864.
220 Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion, vol. III, 1542-1543. Huang Wenying became the Chao
Wang or in pinyin the Zhao Wang and in his confession which he wrote in October 1864 he detailed how
he had joined the Taiping to repay the debt to his brother and how the title of Wang or king began to be
handed out indiscriminately and evidence of this is that there ended up being twenty-seven hundred Wangs.
What it boiled gown to was if you gave money or a family member was a Wang you could obtain the title.
Chao Wang, “The Confession of Huang Wen-Ying,” in The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol
III, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), 1534-1535.
221 Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom, 160. Ethnic nationalism – linked with cultural
dimension of nationalism, while geography also demonstrated the political nationalism in terms of
Manchus viewed as foreign invaders.
78
trade for both the South and China had “complementary products as to sustain
commerce with each other in raw materials and in manufactures,” for the South
and China found their valleys equally profitable be it the valley of the Mississippi
or the Yantze.222 This is an important facet in terms of political and economic
motives.
The South used its geography to advance Southern exceptionalism through
the idea of the South being like Rome, in what was termed the American
Mediterranean, which stretched from the Caribbean to the Mississippi.223 William
Trescot in the year of the Compromise of 1850, utilized geography to push his
belief in nature dividing nations. He stated that “mountain ranges rear their heads
in unbroken ruggedness - rivers roll their ceaseless currents, and oceans heave
their world of waters, in discharge, now as ever, of God’s great commission - to
divide the nations. It is almost impossible to conquer nature.”224 Trescot then
stated that if one was to look at a map of North America there are three divides,
which is the North, the South, and the West, and “not only has nature drawn these
lines, but history, in the action of its providential instinct, has followed their
guidance.”225 The role history played according to Trescot is evident in the two
colonizing centers of America, with Plymouth in the North and Jamestown in the
South.226 Trescot then exclaimed, “the growth of the two sections, radiated from
222 Yuan-chung Teng, American and The Taiping Rebellion: A Study of American-Chinese
Relationship 1847-1864 (China Academy, 1982), 63.
223 Matthew Pratt Guterl, ““I went to the West Indies”: Race, Place, and the Antebellum South,”
American Literary History 18, no. 3 (Autumn, 2006): 447, 464.
224 William Henry Trescot. “The Position and Course of the South” 1850, in Southern Pamphlets
on Secession: November 1860 - April 1861, ed. Jon L. Wakelyn (Chapel Hill: The University of North
Carolina Press, 1996), 18.
225 Ibid., 19.
226 Ibid., 19.
79
different centers, diverged in distant directions, were developed from differing
principles, and perfected through dissimilar experiences.”227 Trescot illustrated
how even geography played a role in identity and what made peoples different
from each other. Trescot saw geography as the reason why the South should be a
separate nation from their neighbors in the North who were separated from them
by the Alleghenies Mountains part of the Appalachian Mountain Range. He used
geography to reinforce Southern ethnocentric notions, which led to the North and
the South being different races. He further posited that geography dictated natural
barriers via mountains, rivers, and oceans, to divide the nations. As an example
Trescot declared that all you had to do is look at Europe, in that bridges across the
Rhine did nothing to “identify the Frenchman to the German.” Trescot also stated,
that Austrians and Italians could not be reconciled to each other, even if there were
tunnels through the Alps, for geography dictated the necessity of division.228
Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry argued from the geographical perspective that
the Republican party was completely a northern party, which led to geographical
discrimination in the United States. For the Northern states were able to out vote
the Southern states, which left the South according to Curry without a say in
government. Curry stated that the Northern party’s “fundamental idea is hostility
to the South and her peculiar property, and it arrays the eighteen northern against
the fifteen Southern States of the Confederacy.”229 Therefore, the South should
leave and protect itself from Northern hostility towards the South’s way of life.
227 Ibid., 19.
228 Ibid., 18.
229 Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry. “The Periled and Duty of the South. ...Speech Delivered in
Talladega, Alabama, November 26, 1860,” in Southern Pamphlets on Secession: November 1860 - April
1861, ed. Jon L. Wakelyn (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 38, 38-39. Quick
superficial note of similarity is that there were 15 Southern states and 15 Chinese provinces against a
northern enemy that both South and the Taiping deemed were unfit to rule.
80
In the late Ming, early Qing period the belief arose that Chinese and
barbarians were in fact “born under different geographic conditions… which led to
different customs, behaviors, and natures.”230 The Manchus and Chinese
recognized geographic difference as a part of ethnocentric difference. Thus, the
Taiping used geography, which led to the development of imperial ambitions that
went hand in hand with the “older rhetoric of the struggle of the Han against the
Manchu.”231 The leaders of the Taiping used not only their religious beliefs, but
also the ethnic differences between them and the Manchus, to further push the
belief that the Manchus were foreign invaders and northern barbarians. This is
evidenced in the celebratory essay on the Heavenly King capturing Nanjing and
turning into the Heavenly capital. Wu Rongkuan wrote “Consequently, the
Heavenly kingdom greatly prospered, and the Manchu barbarians were all
exterminated.”232 Meanwhile, Hu Renkui wrote that “Chin-ling is indeed by
nature a great Heavenly Capital....Surrounded by mountains and rivers, it is truly
the capital of the Heavenly Kingdom, so lofty that of the ten thousand states of the
world none can compare.”233 Lastly, another Taiping scholar or official saw the
geography of the capital as advantageous, which the author took as a good sign
230 Emma J. Teng, “On Not Looking Chinese – Does “Mixed Race” Decenter the Han from
Chineseness?” in Critical Han Studies: History, Presentation, and Identity of China’s Majority, eds.
Thomas S. Mullaney, James Leibold, Stephane Gras, and Eric Vanden Bussche (Berkeley: Global Area,
and International Archive University of California Press, 2012), 74.
231 Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation, 69.
232 Wu Jung-K’uan. “Treatises on the Establishment of the Heavenly Capital in Chin-Ling in The
Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol II, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1971), 254. Pinyin - Wu Rongkuan
233 Hu Jen-K’uei. “Treatises on the Establishment of the Heavenly Capital in Chin-Ling.” in The
Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol II, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1971), 265. Important Note Chin-ling is Nanjing which is also spelled Nanking. The author’s name
in Pinyin - Hu Renkui.
81
from the Heavenly Father and Heavenly Elder Brother.234 These scholars
understood the role that nature played in the protection of their Heavenly city,
which was lost to the Manchus in 1864.
The South’s and the Taiping’s use of geography can be linked back to
Anderson and his tenets of nationalism. This section spoke specifically to what
Anderson had to say about nations being inherently limited as a result of having
finite boundaries. Both the South and the Taiping expressed the imagined limited
in terms of physical geographical boundaries, which affected identity and ethnic
nationalism, as a result of nature being natural borders.235
Conclusion
This chapter has illustrated the sense of superiority on the part of the South
and the Taiping through ethnocentrism, which can be linked to Anderson’s
definition of nationalism, particularly the aspects of imagined community and
imagined limited. Anderson stated that the concept of an imagined community
comes about “regardless of the inequality and exploitation that may prevail in
each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.”236
Through ethnocentrism both the South and the Taiping attempted to establish
234 Anonymous. “Treatises on the Establishment of the Heavenly Capital in Chin-Ling.” in The
Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol II, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1971), 269. The Heavenly Father is God and the Heavenly Elder Brother is Jesus Christ, more on
this will be covered later. Furthermore, there is evidence that in the organization of the Taiping leadership
geography may have played a part. According to Franz Michael, “the titles of the other Kings taken from
the four cardinal directions had their traditional symbolic meanings and were used in the Chinese order of
precedence but may have had additional meaning as an implied promise of a future geographical division
of conquered territory. The fifth king had to be added to mark Shih Ta-K’ai’s leading position.” Franz
Michael, The Taiping Rebellion V. I (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966), 55-56.
235 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.
236 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.
82
these imagined communities by saying you are Southern or you are Chinese, thus,
we must stick together.
Through examining identity, we have been able to gain a fuller
understanding of the ethnocentrism involved in Southern nationalism. The South
was extremely ethnocentrically aware, which went beyond the ethnocentric
notions involved in slavery. By examining ethnic differences that the South
perceived and believed to exist between the North and the South, and immigrants,
only then can we fully begin to understand Southern identity and how much
ethnicity was at the core of their identity and nationalism. The Confederates
realized that while “building their republic,” they had been thrust onto a global
stage, and realized their deep desire for recognition internationally be it politically
or otherwise.237
In both the United States and China during 1850-1865 tensions between the
North and the South were present. The Taiping emerged out of the South and the
South by the North was viewed as “wild” while the South views the North as
“backward.” 238 However, ethnic studies have rarely investigated the Taiping, who
are part of the history of China. They used ethnocentrism for nationalistic
purposes and justification, which needs to be explored as Stephen Platt has
argued.239 Therefore, Taiping ethnocentrism should be brought to the foreground
and discussed.
237 Hutchison, Apples and Ashes, 12.
238 Thomas S. Mullaney, “Critical Han Studies: Introduction and Prolegomenon,” in Critical Han
Studies: History, Presentation, and Identity of China’s Majority, eds. Thomas S. Mullaney, James Leibold,
Stephane Gras, and Eric Vanden Bussche (Berkeley: Global Area, and International Archive University of
California Press, 2012), 6.
239 Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom, xxvii.
83
Ethnicity in China is further complicated as a result of this Han identity,
which in more recent years has become more complicated and was complicated
during the Taiping period. Part of what makes it complicated is that the internal
composition of the Han also raises questions as to its coherence as a single, unified
category. Han encompasses eight immense speech communities – Guan
(mandarin), Wu, Yue, Xiang, Hakka, Gan, Southern Min, and Northern Min –
which, although referred to as “dialects” (fangyan) in Chinese parlance, exhibit
levels of mutual unintelligibility that would likely be treated as differences of
language were they observed in European context.240 Finally, this Han identity has
“the power to name and shape identities.”241 This is why ethnocentrism in the
Taiping Civil War should be studied in relation to the rise of nationalism. It was
this use of ethnocentrism in which they justified and derived their right to rule,
which made their form of nationalism ethnocentric just like the
South/Confederacy.242
240 Thomas S. Mullaney, “Critical Han Studies: Introduction and Prolegomenon,” 1.
241 Ibid., 3.
242 Ibid., 3.
CHAPTER 4: CHRISTIANITY – GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE
The death of the Xianfeng Emperor on August 22nd 1861, signaled to Hong
Rengan not only Heaven’s abandonment of the Qing dynasty, but also that the
dynasty was rejected by men. It was time to rid China of the humiliation that they
have suffered for hundreds of years. In doing so they would avenge their
forefathers and rid their shame of being ruled by three Manchu provinces, for the
Chinese were fifteen provinces strong. Rengan went on to ask why help the
Manchus? Instead help your fellow Chinese for all descendants of the Chinese
were one race and all were part of the family of Heaven as sons and daughters.
Rengan believed that this was the Chinese people’s chance to end their
subjugation, and if they failed they would not be able to explain why to future
generations.243 Hong Rengan in this proclamation, demonstrated the link that
existed between history, ethnocentrism and religion, for they were used to support
each other. The religious aspect often overshadowed the ethnocentric notions, both
of which were important to Taiping nationalism since it was ethnocentric
nationalism. By discussing both of these equally the goal is for both to be given
equal attention and importance in Taiping identity, and by extension Taiping
nationalism.244
Across the world in that same year of 1861, Alexander Stephens, Vice
President of the Confederacy declared that the Confederacy was “the first
Government ever instituted upon principles in strict conformity to nature, and the
243 Hung Jen-kan, “Proclamations on the Extermination of Demons (Chu-yao chi-wen),” in, The
Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol III, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1971), 861.
244 Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom. In agreement with Platt that much more work needs
to be done on the ethnocentrism in the Taiping and how they used it.
85
ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society.” Stephens
further stated that the system of the Confederacy does not violate the laws of
nature, for “the negro by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, [note: A reference
to Genesis, 9:20-27, which was used as justification for slavery] is fitted for that
condition which he occupies in our system.” Stephens also declared that their
system conforms to that set out by the creator for both the superior and inferior
races. Stephens concluded that “it is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His
ordinances or question them. For His own purposes He has made one race to differ
from another, as He has made ‘one star to differ from another in glory.’”245
Alexander Stephens expressed these sentiments in his famous “Cornerstone
Speech.” In the South, as in China with the Taiping, we observe that
ethnocentrism of identity and belief in God are inextricably linked. Again, we
glimpse the important role that slavery did in fact play as well as the overarching
theme of difference in races which can be taken beyond that of slavery in the
South. Stephen’s expressed that this inferiority of races was God’s will, therefore,
who is man to question God.
For the South and the Taiping, Christianity like ethnocentrism, was an
important component of the creation of their respective nations. The South and the
Confederates clung tightly to religion so much so that it was central not only to
their national identity but also their morale. This led to the clergymen feeling
“newly empowered to take leadership roles and to redefine the terms of their
participation in the creation of Confederate nationalism.”246 Rev. Benjamin
245 Alexander Stephens, “Cornerstone Speech,” March 21, 1861,
http://www.csaconstitution.com/p/alexander-h.html [Accessed January 2016].
246 Drew Gilpin Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the
Civil War South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 81.
86
Morgan Palmer, from Charleston, South Carolina and one of the founders of The
Southern Presbyterian Review, viewed slavery as something to be conserved and
transmitted, he also expressed that “my own conviction is that we should at once
lift ourselves intelligently to the highest moral ground and proclaim to all the
world that we hold this trust from God, and in its occupancy we are prepared to
stand or fall as God may appoint.”247 According to Palmer, whatever happens,
happens because it is God’s will.
What gave life to the Taiping movement was the religious element that was
brought to China by foreign missionaries, yet Yung Wing also noted that “neither
Christianity nor religious persecution was the immediate and logical cause of the
rebellion of 1850.” The Chinese system had been long plagued with bribery and
exploitation of the people, so that the officials could accumulate wealth all of
which added up to a system “of fraud and falsehood.”248 This helped to fuel the
Taiping Civil War. Furthermore, both the South and the Taiping used the Christian
elements in similar ways, and some key uses or themes have emerged. These key
themes are: Saviors, Divine Providence, and the use of scripture in the justification
of their respective causes.
The South and the Taiping as Saviors
The belief of both the South/Confederacy and the Taiping that they were
Saviors, comes as no surprise since they believed that they were superior. Their
247 Rev. Benjamin Morgan Palmer, “The South: Her Peril and Her Duty,” (New Orleans: Office
of True Witness &Sentinel, 1860), in Southern Pamphlets on Secession: November 1860 - April 1861, ed.
Jon L. Wakelyn (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 63.
248 Yung Wing, My Life in China and America (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1909),
114, 118-119.
87
Christian beliefs led both to believe that they were God’s chosen people sent to not
only save their peoples and/or nation, but the world.
The South believed that they were a savior civilization and this idea was
advanced by George Fitzhugh. Fitzhugh did this in his “messianic doctrine of
Southern Culture” in which he described the South as a Savior civilization.249 This
was achieved through turning negatives into positives. Instead of being on the
defensive, the South went on the offensive. They turned what was deemed inferior
and made it superior, as well as turned their civilization from one which was just
trying to survive to a saving civilization.250
The South and the Confederacy, like the Taiping, saw themselves in a
unique position and believed that they were there to save the world. Both of the
Southern rebellions thought they could not only save their own societies, but all
people. In the Southern United States Reverend Benjamin Morgan Palmer, from
Charleston, South Carolina and “one of the South’s most brilliant religious
leaders,”251 stated that he was speaking for both the North and the South. Palmer
then exclaimed that “for upon our United and determined resistance at this
moment depends the salvation of the whole country – in sewing ourselves we shall
save the North from the ruin she is madly drawing upon her head.”252 Thus,
according to Palmer, the South must understand her position because if she
recognized “her hour she will save herself, the country, and the world.”253 The
249 Michael O’Brien, “The Lineaments of Antebellum Southern Romanticism,” Journal of
American Studies 20, no.2 (Aug, 1986):183.
250 Ibid., 183.
251 Jon L. Wakelyn, ed., Southern Pamphlets on Secession: November 1860 - April 1861 (Chapel
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 63.
252 Palmer, “The South: Her Peril and Her Duty,” 76-77.
253 Palmer, “The South: Her Peril and Her Duty,” 77.
88
South, as Palmer stated, would be saving the North from the trouble that they had
gotten themselves into, as well as their Southern society, and the world at large.
Historian Anne Sarah Rubin reiterated the importance of Christianity in
Confederate nationalism’s foundation, for they believed that they were chosen by
God, thus creating a new and “more perfect nation.”254 Additionally, their new
national identity was connected to their belief of being God’s chosen people. They
believed that they were “chastised when they did wrong but protected and shielded
when they did right. God was an integral part of Confederate society and ideology,
but the reverse was also true.”255 In other words the secular also had its part to
play, as ethnocentric nationalism defined by Doyle states.256
The Confederacy faced significant dilemmas during the war and especially
in 1861. They faced the reality that “the cultural borders between the North and
the South,” were unstable, and the boundaries of the the new nation-state, were
constantly in flux not only in 1861, but “throughout the war.”257 Southerners tied
religion to their historical justifications for their cause, which is evident in
“Superiority of Southern Races – Review of Count De Gobineau’s Work,”
published that year in the October and November issue of De Bow’s Review. The
author wrote that the North had turned their backs on God, by asserting that “all
men are equal, disputes all human authority, and invokes anarchy and moral
chaos.” The author then specified that history had shown that when a society
254 Anne Sarah Rubin, A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy 1861-1868
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2005), 34.
255 Ibid., 42.
256 Don H. Doyle, Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the Southern Question (Athens: The
University of Georgia Press, 2002), xiv.
257 Paul Quigley, Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848-1865 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012), 130-131.
89
turned its back on God they became like the North and fell prey to being
conquered by other societies or peoples. The author cited Greece’s fall to
Alexander, Rome to Caesar, France to Bonaparte. Thus, “look at the North, where
infidelity is talked in the streets, … not one human right is secure. The brutal mob
reigns supreme.” Therefore, the North should desire a Caesar or a Bonaparte
because any type of despotism is preferred to the anarchy that already existed in
the North. The author reiterated “we repeat, then, that they who believe not in
God, will not believe in, respect or obey human authority.”258 The author believed
the North was in a state of anarchy and the evidence was that they turned their
back on God just like Greece, Rome, and France have done and the South is
comparable to Alexander, Caesar and Bonaparte. The author believed that any
form of despotism was preferable to the state of the North. This decay of the North
and the South’s secession to form the Confederacy indirectly demonstrated the
South’s view of being Saviors. For they saw the North as comparable to the fallen
countries from the past. This article as has been discussed in chapter three,
expressed the Southern view that they were not only a different race, but also
ethnically superior therefore, we can also infer that the South saw themselves as
the Saviors of this anarchical society since the South believed and followed God.
The Taiping likewise believed that they were Saviors, specifically of the
Chinese people. This was evident in “The Ten Commandments,” published by
Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King, in 1852. The second commandment stated you
are to not worship corrupt spirits, and by spirits Hong Xiuquan meant Gods.259 He
258 “Superiority of Southern Races – Review of Count De Gobineaus Work” De Bow’s Review
vol XXXI (October/November 1861): 371.
259 Hong Xiuquan, “The Ten Commandments,” in The Search for Modern China: A
Documentary Collection, eds. Cheng, Pei-kai, Michael Lestz, and Jonathan D. Spence (New York: W.W.
Norton and Company, 1999), 140.
90
remarked that all other spirits apart from “the great God” were corrupt and will not
only deceive but also destroy mankind. The Heavenly King continued “we exhort
you all, brave people, to awake from your lethargy.”260 The Taiping did not want
the Chinese people to go to hell as a result of worshiping a false god in the
Confucian temples, thus the Taiping destroyed these temples. It is important to
note that the Taiping did not have a problem with Confucian philosophy itself.261
They wanted to save as many Chinese people as possible from the corrupt rule of
the Manchus, who they deemed as unfit to rule the Chinese people.
In a dramatic departure from the South, the Taiping and Hong Xiuquan
himself believed that he was sent by God to fight against the worship of demons
and was given a sword to fight them, for he was a Savior sent by God.262 Hong
Xiuquan reached this conclusion some years after having his visions in 1837. It
was in these later years that Hong made a connection between his visions and
God, via the Christian tracts. Hong discovered that these tracts “correspond in a
striking manner with his former visions; and this remarkable coincidence
convinced him fully as to their truth and that he was appointed by God to restore
the world, that is, China, to the worship of the true God.”263 Furthermore, Hong
Xiuquan believed he was the younger brother of Jesus and had descended down
into this earthly world and was born “to save the people of the world. Therefore,
260 Ibid., 140-141.
261 Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom: China, The West, And The Epic Story of
the Taiping Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 161.
262 Theodore Hamberg, The Vision of Hung-Siu-Tshuen, and Origin of the Kwang-Si Insurrection
(Hong Kong: China mail office, 1854), 10.
263 Theodore Hamberg, The Vision of Hung-Siu-Tshuen, and Origin of the Kwang-Si Insurrection
(Hong Kong: China mail office, 1854), 21.
91
he is called the Saviour.”264 This not only demonstrated the Taiping belief that
they were Saviors of the Chinese by virtue of their Heavenly King, but were also
Saviors to all people of the world.
The Taiping civil service examinations further reiterated that Hong
Xiuquan was Savior. An example of this was the ninth – year examination of the
Taiping Heavenly kingdom, which expressed that “since it is difficult for men to
understand what is good and to ascend to heaven, how are they to acquire
salvation? The Decision is solely, up to the Heavenly Father, the Heavenly Elder
Brother, and the T’ien Wang, who shine upon men as do the stars and the sun and
save the famished as does good grain.”265 The ruler of the Taiping Heavenly
kingdom had the power to decide whether or not you are saved. The theme of the
examination also expressed that the Tian Wang, who was Hong Xiuquan, was the
true sacred sovereign and thus the Savior of China, for God had sent him to save
the Chinese people and the world.266
264 “Notification Announcing the Taiping Campaign,” in The Taiping Rebellion: History and
Documents vol II, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), 183. Hong Xiuquan
believed that he was the younger brother of Jesus. It is true that in Christianity, Christians call themselves
brothers and sisters, however it is brothers and sisters in Christ because it is the belief that Jesus died on the
cross to save all people, who believe that Jesus died for their sins and then rose from the dead 3 days later.
It is also true that Confucianism, which also had a role to play, has a familial hierarchy, gave significant
meaning to older brother and younger brother relationship. Finally, it is also true that the Chinese people
believed that dynasties were ruled by heavenly mandate and that the rulers were considered to be sons of
heaven. I have come to the conclusion that Hong Xiuquan quite possibly blended Confucianism, this
heavenly mandate, with the Christian understanding of being brothers and sisters. William T. Rowe,
China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2009); Platt,
Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom; Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run
the World (New York: Harper One, 2010), 103-130.
265 Hung Jen-kan, “Theme for The Chi-Wei Ninth-Year Metropolitan Examination (Chi-wei
chiu-nien hu-shih-t’i),” in The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol III, ed. Franz Michael
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), 730.
266 Ibid., 731.
92
The Eastern (Yang Xiuqing) and Western (Xiao Chaogui) Kings, in the
year of the Western king’s death, wrote three proclamations, in 1852. In the first
proclamation they communicated that
Even though the demons number the millions and their nefarious schemes in
the thousands, how can they contend with Heaven? But to execute without
attempting to convert – how can the heart bear it? To sit and look and not
attempt to save – this a human hearted man would not do. We therefore
earnestly issue a special edict so that all you common people may
immediately repent and worship the true Spirit, cast out the evil spirits,
restore mankind and cast out the demons; thus may you all enter upon the
road to eternal life and enjoy Heaven’s favor.267
In this example we get a different perspective on this idea of being saviors. They
expressed that it was their obligation to help others, for if you were truly human
and had a heart you would not be able to bear not helping others by telling them
something that could save them. They continued on with this theme in their third
proclamation in which they stated that “we proclaim our desire to save all the
Chinese people who formerly did not understand the great principle, and
mistakenly aided the demon Manchus and harmed China.”268 We explicitly see
the desire to save all Chinese people.
Both the South and the Taiping envisioned themselves as Saviors, the South
in more general terms of saving civilization, while the Taiping as the Saviors of
the Chinese people from the Manchus, and eventually of all people. Though used
in different ways both societies viewed themselves as Saviors of their people. This
belief in being Saviors on the part of the South, and the Taiping, relates back to
Anderson and his definition of nationalism in that both the South and the Taiping
267 Yang Hsiu-ch’ing and Xiao Chaogui, “Proclamations by Imperial Sanction” in The Taiping
Rebellion: History and Documents vol II, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1971), 144.
268 Ibid., 149.
93
were seeking to create a nation that was sovereign. This means a nation that will
not only be free but also only having to answer to God.269
The Divine Providence of the Confederacy and
Taiping Dynasty
The South and the Taiping believed in Divine Providence. For the South
they learned it through ideas such as Manifest Destiny, which led the South to
believe that they were a gift to the earth. This was exemplified in the Poetry of
Henry Timrod, who wrote that the earth should rejoice over the South’s southern
snow which was cotton for it is soft and warm.270 In “Ethnogenesis,” Henry
Timrod eloquently wrote:
Not for the glories which a hundred years
Shall bring us; not for lands from sea to sea,
And Wealth, and power, and peace, though these shall be;
But for the distant people we shall bless,
And the hushed murmurs of a world’s distress:
For, to give labor to the poor,
The whole sad planet o’er,
And save from want and crime the humblest door,
Is one among the many end for which
God makes us great and rich!
The hour perchance is not yet wholly ripe
When all shall own it, but the type
Whereby we shall be known in every land
Is that vast gulf which laves our Southern Strand,
And through the cold, untempered ocean pours
Its genial streams, that far off Arctic shores
May sometimes catch upon the softened breeze
Strange tropic warmth and hints of summer seas!271
269 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, (London: Verso, 2006), 7.
270 Henry Timrod, “Ethnogenesis,” in The Collected Poems of Henry Timrod: A Variorum
Edition eds. Edd Winfield Parks and Aileen Wells Parks (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1965),
93.
271 Ibid., 94-95.
94
Timrod articulated this idea that the South is ordained by God to bless the world
for the South is a blessing to the world and is chosen by God to lead. The South
was also the land of cotton, which was the South’s biggest trade good, for God had
made them not only great but also rich.
William Henry Trescot wrote that the South was under God and he
therefore believed that the South was “indebted to a prosperous agriculture, an
exulting commerce, a free people, and a firm government. And where God has
placed us, there is without argument, are we resolved to remain, between the
braves of our father and the homes of our children.”272 Trescot conveyed Divine
Providence through the position that the South has been given everything it has, by
God and so without argument there they will remain as the bridge between the past
and the hope of the future.
Trescot also remarked that God used nature to divide nations through the
creation of mountains, oceans, and rivers to divide the lands. He then notes that “it
is almost impossible to conquer nature,” and that even if or when one does the
reality was that “it is idle to suppose that the more speed and facility of
communication between distant geographical sections, will entirely counteract
those national peculiarities, which it is an unerring law of Providence that those
divisions shall of necessity develope [sic].”273 As discussed in the identity chapter,
Trescot stated in Geographical terms that the North and South, were separated by
nature and it was God’s way via Divine Providence, that the South should be its
own separate nation. He also believed that the South and the North were in fact
culturally different as dictated by the law of providence, which was from God.
272 William Henry Trescot. “The Position and Course of the South” 1850, in Southern Pamphlets
on Secession: November 1860 - April 1861, ed. Jon L. Wakelyn (Chapel Hill: The University of North
Carolina Press, 1996), 16.
273 Ibid., 18.
95
For the South and the Confederates Divine Providence was part of the duty,
which God had assigned to them. A good example of this is from Rev. Benjamin
Morgan Palmer, who insisted that servants were like children, for the master was
the father and guardian appointed by God to care for them. In addition, Palmer
stated that the slave “lean[s] upon me for protection, for counsel and for blessing;
and so long as the relation continues no power, but the power of the Almighty
God, shall come between him and me.” There was nothing that could stand in the
way of this “providential duty of preserving the relation that we may save him
from a doom worse than death.”274 Palmer believed that God had given them this
duty, and it is a relationship sanctioned by God, thus no one can get in the way of
this and if we do not preserve the relationship then we doom the slaves to a worse
fate.
In 1860 the year of Abraham Lincoln’s election as president, and South
Carolina’s secession from the Union in December, that same month, Howell Cobb
wrote an open letter to his Georgia Constituents. Cobb was from a prominent
political family in Georgia, he was a successful lawyer and politician, serving in
the United States House of Representatives and as Governor of Georgia. He
chaired the convention for the forming of the Confederacy in Montgomery. Cobb
also fought in the Civil War as as Brigadier General and Major General of the
Confederate Army.275 He penned to his constituents that “unfortunately, however,
Black Republicanism has buried brotherhood in the same grave with the
Constitution. We are no longer “brethren dwelling together in unity.”” Cobb
further expressed that there is nothing but bitterness and hatred, and all that was
274 Palmer, “The South: Her Peril and Her Duty,” 69.
275 Jon L. Wakelyn ed., Southern Pamphlets on Secession: November 1860 – April 1861 (Chapel
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 88.
96
left was cold formalities. Therefore, “Heaven has pronounced the decree of
divorce, and it will be accepted by the South as the only solution which gives to
her any promise of future peace and safety.”276 Cobb believed that the North and
the South should be divorced or separated from each other and that this was
Divine Providence. He further articulated that if this is God’s will then we the
South will except it.
The South’s faith in God was important in that they believed that God was
on their side, therefore no matter what setbacks they faced they would be able to
perceiver and emerge victorious, however this also meant that “what God gave,
some Confederates feared, he could also take away.”277 In addition, a link to the
concept of the Mandate of Heaven or Divine Providence can be made because this
was something that both the South and the Taiping believed. Consequently, the
South believed that “their fate was in God’s hands but that they could influence
it.” They also believed that God rewarded them “for their virtues and punished for
their sins, but in a sort of parental, or correcting, way.”278 The Taiping also
exemplified the idea in the poems above, such as “An Ode on the Hundred Correct
Things,” in that those who did sinful and bad things were either punished, killed,
or lost the right to rule. While those who were good were often rewarded.
In many ways the South and the Taiping similarly used Divine Providence.
With the Taiping we see that Lai Wenguang, a Taiping leader, stated that though
he was captured by the Qing it was not the Qing who had defeated him, rather it
276 Howell Cobb, “Letter …to the People of Georgia (Washington: Lemuel Towers, 1860),” in
Southern Pamphlets on Secession: November 1860 – April 1861, ed. Jon L. Wakelyn (Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 88.
277 Rubin, A Shattered Nation, 34.
278 Ibid., 35.
97
was God.279 In the early years of the war one of the explanations for failure in
battle, was the Taiping’s failure to adhere “to the religious precepts especially the
rules of chastity.” For in the early years even a husband and wife were to remain
separated from each other as they pursued their cause against the Qing.280
In the year that Hong Xiuquan was declared Heavenly King, in August of
1851, Yang Xiuqing and Xiao Chaogui wrote down a revelation from God, though
it is unclear which one of them in fact had this revelation, what is known is that
both claimed to have direct communication with God. Yang Xiuqing, the Eastern
King who would be assassinated in 1856, claimed that he was the Holy Spirit
incarnate.281 Xiao Chaogui, the West King and brother in-law to Hong Xiuquan,
claimed to speak for Jesus, he would die in battle in 1852.282 In this revelation the
questions that were posed were: “on whose account has your Heavenly Father
come down into the world? For what reason has Jesus laid down his life? Heaven
has sent down your king to be the true Sovereign. Why must you be troubled and
let your courage fly?”283 What was indicated in these questions was this idea of
Divine Providence, or the Mandate of Heaven, because they believed that the will
of Heaven was sovereign. This also links back to Benedict Anderson’s tenants of
nationalism through the imagined Sovereign because they were directly under
God, the Taiping thus ruled according to His will.284
279 Lai Wen-kuang, “The Confession of Lai Wen-kuang,” in The Taiping Rebellion vol III, ed.
Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), 1546.
280 Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion vol I (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966),
50.
281 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 197.
282 Jonathan Spence, God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan
(New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1996), 163-164.
283 “The Book of Heavenly Decrees and Proclamations,” in The Taiping Rebellion: History and
Documents vol II, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), 101.
284 Anderson, Imagined Community, 7.
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The Taiping brilliantly demonstrated how the right to rule was linked with
Divine Providence. For the Taiping it was an individual invoking ancestral ties
and declaring divine right. First, we see Hong Xiuquan provide legitimacy to his
rule, as well as the right of two of the other Taiping leaders. Hong Xiuquan
declared that Jesus was his “uterine elder brother,” and that Yang Xiuqing was his
“uterine younger brother.” Xiuquan then goes on to state that God came down and
commissioned Xiao Chaogui to have divine powers as well.285 Though there are
other leaders in the Taiping Civil War who had divine status Hong Xiuquan
reigned supreme. This was evidenced by Yang Xiuqing being placed as a younger
brother, which puts him in the inferior position, while Xiao was merely
commissioned by God and not born of God like Jesus, Xiuquan and Xiuqing.
Hong Xiuquan then established that “The Father and the Elder Brother led me to
rule the Taiping [dynasty].”286
Even in defeat, the Taiping believed it boiled down to them failing God, not
Manchu victory. Lai Wenguang stated he experienced the slander of the Sovereign
(Hong Xiuquan) and the ruin of the Taiping Kingdom, which resulted in the
breaking up of the family. In spite of this Lai declared “I stood alone here for
several years and in no battle was I not victorious. I endured frost and marched in
the snow, in the hope of recovering the country in a short time.” In autumn 1866
Lai tried to ally with the Muslims in China, in hopes they could come together to
285 Hung Hsiu-ch’üan, “The T’ien Wang’s Manifesto to the Foreign Brothers 1858,” in The
Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol II, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1971), 716.
286 Ibid., 717. Though Hong Xiuquan reigned supreme he almost lost his position in 1856, do to
infighting that was occurring and the big blow up was settled in that year. By and large most historians are
in agreement that the Taiping were never quite able to recover from the loss it did experience in the Taiping
leadership and as well as the numbers that died to being supporters or family of certain Taiping leaders.
Rowe, China’s Last Empire; Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom; Jonathan D. Spence, Search for
Modern China 3rd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2013); Michael, The Taiping Rebellion.
99
fight for a common purpose. 287 In the end, however, Lai Wenguang was captured
and executed, he closed his confession:
But Heaven did not protect me, and I arrived at my present state. What more
can I say? In the case of the chün-tzu [superior men] of old, when the country
perished the family disappeared, and when the emperor was slandered the
ministers died. This great principle is obvious, now my army’s morale has
collapsed by itself, and it is really heaven who has defeated me; so what have
I to regret? I cannot but die in order to show my gratitude to my country and
preserve the integrity of a minister. I only pray this will be considered and an
early decision made.288
Lai Wenguang made clear that his loyalty was to God and the Taiping Heavenly
Kingdom and the defeat was God’s judgment upon him thus, the defeat was from
God rather than Qing victory. Lai then stated that he had done what he felt was
right and to die like ministers of old was honorable. This is an example of Divine
Providence because the success and failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was
all attributed to God and not to the success of the Qing dynasty.
Hong Rengan, one of the Taiping leaders, expressed Divine Providence
through omens against the Qing dynasty. Rengan believed that the Taiping
Heavenly Kingdom arose amongst many favorable omens, because “Heaven is
resolved to exterminate the Manchu slaves, for it has killed Hsien-feng
[Xianfeng], who is now buried under the yellow earth.”289 Xianfeng was the Qing
Emperor, and in this statement, we also see that not only are Manchus inferior,
287 Lai Wen-kuang, “The Confession of Lai Wen-kuang” in The Taiping Rebellion vol III ed.
Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), 1546. Lai Wen-kuang – in pinyin Lai
Wenguang
288 Lai Wen-kuang, “The Confession of Lai Wen-kuang” in The Taiping Rebellion vol III ed.
Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), 1546. Lai Wen-kuang – in pinyin Lai
Wenguang
289 Hung Jen-kan, “Proclamations on the Extermination of Demons (Chu-yao chi-wen),” in The
Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents vol III, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1971), 859-860.
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they are being exterminated by God, because they had displeased Him, and were
demon barbarians. This demonstrated Divine Providence because God is in favor
of the Taping, and there had been omens, which was an important part of Chinese
culture.
Hong Xiuquan further believed that he had received the divine right to rule
and he made annotations on the bible. In The Revelation of St. John the divine,
Hong noted on chapter twenty-one verse nineteen, that God and Jesus had
“descend upon earth to guide Myself and the junior Lord as Lords. The myriad
nations have turned towards us. God and Christ guide Myself and the Junior Lord
to govern them one generation after another.”290 We see the divine right to rule in
that Hong was being guided to rule as Lord just as the Junior Lord was as well.
Southern, Confederate, and Taiping Uses of Scripture
in the Justification of their Cause
The South/Confederacy and the Taiping sought and used scripture and
biblical references in the justification of their respective causes. In the South these
justifications were expressed through pamphlets, speeches, and poetry. In Henry
Timrod’s poem “Ethnogenesis,” he wrote:
In their own treachery caught,
By their own fears made bold,
And leagued with him of old,
Who long since in the limits of the North
Set up his evil throne, and warred with God –
What if, both mad and blinded in their rage,
Our foes should fling us down their mortal gage,
And with a hostile step profane our sod!
We Shall not shrink, my brothers, but go forth
290 Hung Hsiu-ch’üan, “Hung’s Annotations on the New Testament,” in Chinese Sources for the
Taiping Rebellion 1850-1864, ed. J.C. Cheng (Hong Kong University Press, Oxford University Press,
1963), 90.
101
To meet them, marshaled by the Lord of Hosts,
And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts
Of Moultrie and of Eutaw – who shall foil Auxiliars such as these?291
Timrod expressed Southern justification for their cause by stating that the North
had committed treachery not just against the South but against God for the North
according to Timrod, had aligned themselves with the devil.292 The Taiping also
expressed this similar view by referring to the Manchus as demons most
commonly, but also called them devils. An example of this will be examined when
The Book of Heavenly Commandments is discussed.
Alexander Stephens in his “Cornerstone Speech” used the powerful
imagery of Jesus as the stone that was rejected, but made the Cornerstone by God.
Stephens applied this to the Confederacy, with the belief that to best attain
anything one must live by the decrees and laws God has laid out. Therefore, “our
Confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This
stone which was rejected by the first builders “is become the chief stone of the
corner” in our new edifice.”293 Stephens has taken scripture referring to Jesus and
changed the wording to meet the needs of the Confederacy.294 For the Southern
ideologues and politicians, it was necessary to devote time and recognize the nonslaveholding part of Southern society, for their support was also necessary for this
291 Timrod, “Ethnogenesis,” 93.
292 John Budd, “Henry Timrod: Poetic Voice of Southern Nationalism,” Southern Studies 20, iss.
4 (1981): 441.
293 Stephens, “Cornerstone Speech” March 21, 1861.
294 There are several parts of scripture that refer to the cornerstone, both in the Old and the New
Testaments it is always in reference to Jesus being the cornerstone. A few examples are: “The stone the
builders rejected has become the cornerstone” Psalm 118:22 NIV (Old Testament). “Haven’t you read this
passage of scripture: “’The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.’” Mark 12:10 NIV
(New Testament) and the last example is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ
Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” Ephesians 2:20 NIV (New Testament)
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proslavery republic. Thus, going beyond the slavery aspect, will help to better
understand the how and the who of the wider southern public.295
“Superiority of Southern Races – review of Count De Gobineaus work”
appeared in the 1861 October/November issue of De Bow’s Review, in the midst
of the months old Civil War. The author stated that
There is no infidelity in our Confederacy. Religion is universal. It binds us
together, and makes us one patriotic and moral people. If the pockets of our
soldiers slain in battle were searched, prayer books and hymn books would
often be found; in none free-love epistles. We start under good auspices. A
religious people ourselves, we are represented by an executive that unites
with wisdom, foresight and courage a pure morality and becoming piety.296
The author illustrated that the Southern people were a good and moral people who
were in communion with God through prayer books, and hymns thus, they were
constantly in the word of God. Even fallen soldiers understood the importance of
fidelity to God, therefore, as a result of them being in the word, having prayer, and
hymn books they were justified. In the eyes of the Southerners they were fighting
the good, moral, and pious cause.
The South used Christianity to justify their slave based society. This can be
gleaned from the Southern belief that “God makes social forms for men
[which]…human contrivance may modify, but cannot permanently dispense with
them.” Consequently, the North was a failure for dispensing “with domestic
slavery, an essential natural God-ordained element of Society.”297 What the author
believed and argued, was that the South was in the right, because their society is
the way that God has ordained it and wanted it to be. There were slaves in the
295 Drew Gilpin Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the
Civil War South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 72.
296 “Superiority of Southern Races,” 372.
297 “Horace Greeley and His Lost Book,” Southern Literary Messenger (September, 1860): 216.
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bible, thus slavery was a legitimate institution, while negating the rules that God
had given his chosen people in terms of slaves.
Like the Taiping, the South made arguments based on the sword and not
necessarily on peace. William Henry Trescot wrote
this world is not one of peace – its wisest and highest teacher brought into its
troubled life “not peace but a sword,” and nothing of national greatness or
individual good has been achieved without sacrifice and sorrow. It is a truth
of history untouched by an exception, that no nation has ever yet matured its
political growth without the stern scarring experience of civil war. The God
of this world’s history is indeed the God of Hosts and he who shrinks, in the
plain path of duty from the last appeal to arms, is not more holy than he is
wise.298
What Trescot was saying was that if it is necessary for the South to go to war to
become its own nation, then the South/Confederacy is justified for God has given
them a sword to fight. We see Anderson’s tenet imagined sovereign in this
example because we observe Trescot’s belief that under God alone, and by God,
the South is called to fight and to achieve the nationhood they are slowly
beginning to desire in 1850, which has already been discussed, came to fruition
though they ultimately failed in 1865.
In an Edict released by the Young Monarch, who was the son of Hong
Xiuquan, in August of 1861 used scripture to explain and affirm the Taiping
position. The Young Monarch expressed that the floods and the rain, had been sent
by Grandfather (God) in order to establish a covenant. The rainbow was the
promise “that Hung, the Sun, would preside over heaven and earth.” The Young
Monarch then articulated that “the Grandfather creates and the Uncle shapes; let
all officials therefore be meritorious. If all had obeyed Heaven and the Sun, how
298 Trescot. “The Position and Course of the South” 1850, 27-28.
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could the flood have come?”299 Thus, if you loyally follow, all will be well, for
Hong Xiuquan is the one we have been waiting for, and therefore, one should join
the Taiping in their cause.
Hong Xiuquan in The Book of Heavenly Commandments wrote about the
creation of earth and all living things. He then discussed that “both China and
barbarian nations” followed God yet “within the most recent one or two thousand
years, China has erroneously followed the devil’s path thus being captured by the
demon of hell.” The Lord God, however by his grace continued to show
compassion, and he still chose “to save the people of the world, and deliver them
from the devil’s grasp, and lead them out to walk again in the original great
way.”300 Through referencing creation, Hong Xiuquan expressed that God was
using them, the Taiping to save the world and the Chinese people. This was Hong
Xiuquan’s justification for the Taiping’s cause. This can be linked to the similarity
mentioned earlier between the South and the Taiping in terms of Timrod’s poem
“Ethnogenesis” and the Taiping seeing their counterparts as devils or the Chinese
as working for the devil rather than for God.
In A Hero’s Return to the Truth we see this idea of light and darkness
which was demonstrated when a Chinese official stated that
“Now I this ignorant younger brother, have returned, and am in truth
fortunate in having left the dark to enter the light and in having thrown off
the devil’s garb become human. Henceforth it is my desire to become a hero
299 “An Edict of the True Sacred Young Monarch, The Savior of the World. Chiu-shih Chensheng Chao-chih,” in The Taiping Rebellion vol III, ed.Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1971), 986. Hung is referring to Hong Xiuquan the Young Monarch’s father.
300 “The Book of Heavenly Commandments” in Sources of Chinese Tradition 2nd ed. vol II, eds
Wm. Theodore de Barry and Richard Lufrano (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 219-220.
105
and a man of courage, so that I need not be ashamed as a man of China
proper and a man of the Heavenly Dynasty.”301
The Taiping referred to the Qing dynasty as the Devil, and believed them to not
only be in the dark, but also unhuman. Hence, to be on the side of the Taiping was
not only to be in the light, where Jesus and God are, but it will also make you
human again. This will allow a man to be a hero, have courage, and he will no
longer experience shame, for he is a man of China and of the Heavenly Dynasty.
Conclusion
Westerners of the 1850s and 1860s, Westerners since, and Western
scholars, have failed to completely appreciate that the Christianity of the Taiping
is in fact different, because it has eastern influences. The Taiping combined the
Chinese classical God known as Shangdi with the Christian God, “who existed as
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” to rule over the people. “Although the Taipings’
religious publications contained only few explicit references to the classics, their
descriptions of God’s activities in the world…reflected those of the classical
Shangdi no less than those of the biblical Father.” This combining occurred
because in their discourse they claimed to be restoring the ancient Chinese God
Shangdi, thus the Christian God then had to assume attributes of Shangdi.
Furthermore, “the Taipings’ restorationist vision of world salvation inclined them,
in short, to view Shangdi/Shen (the terms used by missionaries and Liang to
designate the Trinitarian God) as a singular deity consisting of the Heavenly
Father alone.” This meant that God the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to the
301 Hung Jen-kan, A Hero’s Return to The Truth, in The Taiping Rebellion: History and
Documents vol III, ed. Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), 804. Note Hung
Jen-kan is Hong Rengan.
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Chinese, became a singular God that was more in line with the ancient Chinese
God Shangdi. 302
According to Drew Gilpin Faust, “the most fundamental source of
legitimation for the Confederacy was Christianity. Religion provided a
transcendent framework for southern nationalism.”303 The Confederacy through
Christianity “sought to strengthen their cause before the world and their own
people. Yet the prominence of Christianity in Confederate culture and identity
ultimately worked in unforeseen and contradictory ways.”304 Therefore, the clergy
in the South then argued that the American nation “had neglected God” in the
“national political life.” 305 In looking at how the South used Christianity in their
quest for nationalism and in their daily life we begin to see the other parts of the
picture that make up the Southern and Confederate identity and therefore
nationalism.
Furthermore, to better understand the complexity of Taiping nationalism,
one needs to remember that like with the South and the Confederacy
ethnocentrism and religion went hand in hand. For as Franz Michael stated, that
the religious was in fact combined with the “Chinese racist hatred of the
Manchus.”306 Thus, as Platt has mentioned, much more work needs to be done as
well as more attention to the ethnocentrism of the Taiping, who used Christianity
as a catalyst, and away to express their hatred for the Manchus. For both the South
302 Carl S. Kilcourse, “Son of God, Brother of Jesus; Interpreting the Theological Claims of the
Chinese Revolutionary Hong Xiuquan,” Studies in World Christianity 20, iss. 2 (2014): 134.
303 Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism, 22.
304 Ibid., 23.
305 Ibid., 31.
306 Michael, The Taiping Rebellion, 58-59.
107
and the Taiping formed their respective “nations” through using ethnocentric
nationalism as their means.
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION – SOUTHERN LEGACIES
The Taiping Civil War officially ended in 1864, because the main leaders
were all dead by the end of the year even though fighting continued. Hong
Xiuquan died by suicide or illness and his cousin Hong Rengan was captured
along with Hong Xiuquan’s son, the Young Monarch in October of 1864. Both
were executed by the end of November. All those still carrying the torch and
fighting, despite the fall of Nanjing, and the death of Hong Xiuquan, did so until
1868 when the last of the Taiping leaders were captured and executed. The
American Civil War ended the year after the Taiping Civil War, in 1865 when
General Robert E. Lee surrendered at the Appomattox Courthouse in April.
Even in defeat the South and the Confederacy believed that they were
emulating their revolutionary fathers, by restoring that which the South perceived
the North had destroyed. The South lost the Civil War on the military front, but
they won it on the cultural and memory front, which historians today are tackling
by removing the Lost Cause myth, brick by brick. The Lost Cause myth started
before the Civil War even began, in the belief that the North and the South were
two different cultures. This was cemented as a result of, four years of bloody
conflict, in which “identities were crafted, and the memory of the war first took
shape.”307 As a result of the dead, and in Reconstruction (1865-1877) the battle
over “ideas, interests, and memory” had begun. It was not just a battle over the
meaning of the dead, but also “a fierce political fight to determine just what was
alive or dead in the new order born from the war.”308
307 Caroline E. Janney, Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 11.
308 David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge: The
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), 51, 52.
109
Southerners were able to turn their defeat through memory into a triumph in
two ways: First, through the belief that regardless of what side you fought on, you
fought nobly. Second, the death and the battles were more easily remembered than
the ideology behind it.309 Therefore, the Civil War came to be seen as “the good
war, a necessary sacrifice, a noble mutual experience that in the long run solidified
the nation.” 310 Consequently, the North embraced the rhetoric that emphasized
bravery and valor on the battlefield, which has allowed the Lost Cause myth to
persist. 311 The reality is that Civil War memory and the Lost Cause still have a
role, though it has decreased in recent years in part due to great historical
scholarship in this field. However, as David Blight has noted, it has become
“deeply embedded in an American mythology of mission and serving as a mother
lode of nostalgia for antimodernists and military history buffs, the Civil War
remains very difficult to shuck from its shell of sentimentalism.”312 We see
aspects of the Lost Cause myth played out today in the current debates over
monuments, and with the Confederate battle flag removed from the grounds of the
South Carolina State House in 2015.313
For the Taiping, emulation of their forefathers was the restoration of
Chinese rule. They believed it would bring back the glory of the Song and Ming
dynasties, while also establishing a dynasty that was different from previous ones.
Their dynasty would be one that worshipped God, placing the Chinese as the
309 Ibid., 31, 40.
310 Ibid., 383.
311 Janney, Remembering the Civil War, 9.
312 Blight, Race and Reunion, 4.
313 Stephanie McCrummen and Elahe Izadi, “Confederate flag Comes down on Soth Carolina’s
Statehouse Grounds,” Washington Post, July 10, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/postnation/wp/2015/07/10/watch-live-as-the-confederate-flag-comes-down-in-south-carolina/. [Accessed:
March 23, 2016].
110
chosen people of the world. This also, reconnected them with their ancient God
Shangdi.314 The Taiping Civil War was considered a serious threat to the Qing
dynasty, once the Taiping were defeated, “for decades afterwards, soldiers,
officials, historians, and families of the fallen depicted the events of the periods as
a cataclysmic tragedy.” As a result, “the dominant vision of the Taiping was one
of unmitigated catastrophe.”315 The Taiping, however, were studied by Chinese
revolutionaries who looked to them for inspiration. Sun Yatsen was one such
revolutionary, who was called “Hong Xiuquan” in his youth. Thus, those like Sun
who sought to overthrow the Qing dynasty “downplayed the Taiping movements
particular form of Christianity.” Instead they stressed the Taiping’s denunciation
of the Manchus as well as emphasized the Taiping’s land programs, “a common
treasury, and new opportunities for women.”316 As William Rowe has noted, no
event in the history of the Qing dynasty, not even the opium war or the revolution
of 1911, has attracted as much attention as the Taiping Civil War from historians.
From the 1950s well into the 1970s the Taiping became the substitute for the
Chinese communists during the Cold War.317 Both the South and the Taiping
looked into their historical memory to establish their respective nation-states, just
like those in America and China today, look into the past to shape and reshape
their understanding of their nation.
314 Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 55-56.
315 Chuck Wooldridge, “What Literati Talked About When They Talked about Memory:
Commemorating Resistance to the Taiping in Nanjing’s Yu Garden, 1900-1911,” Twentieth-century China
40, no. 1 (January 2015): 4.
316 Ibid., 4.
317 William T. Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University, 2009), 185.
111
In comparing the rise of nationalism in the South with Taiping nationalism
in China we have been able to gain a better understanding of both Southern
identity and Taiping identity. Through looking globally, a better understanding of
the local has been reached be it in the United States or in China. In studying how
they used history to justify their respective causes we saw that the South looked
not only to their American Revolution but also to world history, while the Taiping
looked strictly to Chinese history for their justification. Furthermore, both used
history to establish their right to rule. Through examining ethnocentric notions, we
begin to see and understand just how ethnocentrically aware the South was beyond
slavery and White and Black race relations, which is important in and of itself.
With the Taiping we begin to gain a better understanding of Chinese identity,
which in part demonstrated the complexity of the Han-Chinese identity. In
studying the ethnicity of the Taiping we gain a fuller picture of their nationalism
that is not purely blanketed by Christianity. Rather we begin to grasp how
nationalism was balanced between ethnocentric notions and Christian notions. In
addition, both the South and the Taiping used Christianity to justify their “nation”
and cause upon which they were fighting for. Both believed themselves to be
Saviors, not only to their people but to the world. Finally, in terms of nationalism
we observed that whether the country was Western or Eastern, dynastic or a
democratic republic, it did not matter, both sought to legitimize their rights and
justified their causes using the similar themes of history, ethnocentrism, and
Christianity. This helps to further demonstrate that the nineteenth-century world
was truly the “Age of Nationalities.”318
318 The Author, “Interchange: Nationalism and Internationalism in the Era of the Civil War,” The
Journal of American History, (September, 2011), 455.
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