Kucheng Massacre

Kucheng Massacre was a great massacre of Western Christians that took place at , Fujian, on August 1, 1895. At dawn of that day, in Gutian made a carefully arranged attack upon missionaries who were then taking summer holidays at Gutian Huashan, killing eleven people and destroying two houses. Kucheng Massacre is considered one of the worst outrages against foreigners in China prior to the Boxer Movement in 1899-1901, the only comparable event in being the Tianjin Massacre in 1871.

Background

The secret sect of Vegetarian in Gutian was set up in 1892. Within three years' time, the number increased to more than three thousand, most of which were deprived people drawn from the bottom of society. Dissatisfied with the reality, they banded themselves against the Qing government and for some time caused great uneasiness both to the governing authorities and to missionaries. In 1895, the humiliating defeat of China during the Jiawu War apparently fermented their fury and led to their brutal outrage against foreigners. The last letter from the murdered English missionary Robert Warren Stewart, dated April 8, describes the critical situation of affairs at Gutian:

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Events

On August 1, 1895, at the time of the initial outbreak, the family of Robert W. Stewart and the other ladies were still asleep in their hill village at Gutian Huashan . Entirely without provocation, the Vegetarian mob broke in, speared the victims to death, and burnt down the houses. Only five persons survived the attack, two of whom were Mr. Stewart's children: one had one knee broken, and the other, a baby, had an eye gouged out. Those murdered at Huashan were:

Aftermath

The Qing government had suppressed the news for three days before an official telegraph was sent out from Shanghai on August 4. Western countries strongly condemned China for its connivance with the brutality and indignantly urged the guilty be punished. Under the pressure of foreign military force, the Qing government appointed a Commission of Enquiry consisting of both Chinese officials and British diplomats. All principals were soon executed, and other accessories were either banished or sentenced to life imprisonment. The supervisor of Gutian county Wang Rulin was also dismissed from office.

Stephen Livingston Baldwin, Secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society in China, commented on the massacre in an interview from ''New York Times'':
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The bodies of the victims were buried at the mission cemetery of Fuzhou.