| This dissertation explores social change in Chongqing, the main economic hub of Sichuan province, during the half century leading up to the 1911 Revolution. Drawing from a variety of sources, including communications by Chinese local officials and Westerners residing in Chongqing, I examine such forces as population growth, grain shortages, urbanization, bandit and secret society activity, and the presence of foreigners and foreign ideas. These many phenomena, in particular the legacy of anti-foreign activity, laid an important foundation for the revolutionary movement in 1911. Such an interpretation departs from standard works on the 1911 Revolution which focus narrowly on the elite political activities of Sun Yatsen or on political and economic factors unique to specific regions during the decade before 1911.; The urbanization of the Chongqing region over the course of the nineteenth century provided fertile soil for resistance movement of all kinds. The numerous people drawn to the city for a wide range of reasons, such as employment, theft, or illicit entertainment, fed into the vast and increasing web of secret societies. These secret societies in turn supplied the anti-foreign and revolutionary movements with a province-wide organization of networks.; The increasingly obtrusive presence of foreign missionaries, diplomats and merchants during the second half of the nineteenth century also contributed in a critical way to tensions in the region. From the 1860s to 1911, Sichuan province experienced one of the highest rates of anti-Christian movements (jiaoan) in the country. After the turn of the century this anti-foreign activity shifted from violent attacks on foreigners and Chinese Christians to more politically sophisticated strategies of excluding foreigners from Sichuan's economic ventures. In particular, the Sichuanese struggled for nearly a decade to retain provincial control over their railroad project. When the central government decreed in May, 1911, that all railroads would be nationalized and financed with foreign loans, the Sichuanese objected vehemently to the notion of foreign intervention. When letters and petitions failed to change this Qing edict, Sichuanese tactics turned to revolution: in November, 1911, Sichuan was declared independent of Qing rule. |
