Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sat Jan 04, 2020 3:46 am

Fredrik Franson
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/3/20

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Fredrik Franson, Swedish-American Preacher

Fredrik Franson (17 June 1852 – 2 August 1908), founder of The Evangelical Alliance Mission, of Chicago, Illinois, was born in Pershyttan, Västmanland, Sweden. In 1869 he came to America to join two brothers, Frans and Eric. He was accompanied by his parents, a brother August, and a half-sister Anna. They settled in Saunders County, Nebraska, where the family established a home, later known as the Roland Nelson farm, three miles north of Mead.

In 1875, he united with a little Baptist Church near his home in Estina, Nebraska, and was baptised. He preached his first sermon in that school house where the Baptist Church held its services. The building still stands on a farm property and a marker placed on the spot where the church stood.

Founding TEAM

His next years were spent traveling to many countries teaching and preaching. Sensing the need for more training, Franson went to Chicago in 1876 hoping to meet the famous evangelist D.L. Moody. He became a part of the church founded by Moody and was trained by the evangelist as a counselor.

Franson eventually returned to Nebraska to minister to Scandinavian immigrants, but in 1879 he felt led to go to Utah Territory to minister to some 30,000 Swedish immigrants who had gone there for inexpensive land. Franson's evangelistic endeavors were broadened to include members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who had recently settled in Utah Territory.

Two years later Franson left for his homeland. While carrying on an extensive ministry in Europe, he heard the well-known missionary statesman, Hudson Taylor, challenge people to go to China with the gospel. From that encounter, Franson got a vision to form missionary sending agencies in various European countries, and before he left the continent, six such organizations had come into being: Danish Mission Confederation, Swiss Alliance Mission, German Alliance Mission, Finnish Alliance Mission, Swedish Evangelical Mission in Japan, and Swedish Alliance Mission. All six agencies continue to send out missionaries to this day.

After arriving back in America, Franson continued to preach. His desire to motivate others for cross-cultural missions led him to form a training class in Brooklyn, New York. In 1890 he founded the Scandinavian Alliance Mission in Chicago, later known as The Evangelical Alliance Mission, also several missions in Sweden.

His first class on October 14, 1890, is recognized as the "birthday" of TEAM, although the early name for the agency was "The Scandinavian Alliance Mission." This name reflected Franson's vision to bring churches together into an alliance enabling even small congregations to have a part in sending out missionaries. Classes were also initiated in Chicago, Minneapolis and Omaha. Soon a formal board of directors came into being, and on January 17, 1891, the first band of 35 missionaries boarded a train for the West Coast and eventually China.

Photographs of these early missionaries depict a dedicated group of people who chose to live and dress as the Chinese did. Other groups soon joined the first recruits, and Franson fervently challenged still more to go. In order to get to China, the early missionaries had to pass through Japan, and that soon became a new field for the mission. In a similar manner, by 1892, a small group also went to Swaziland.
In 1906 T.J. Bach and his wife left for Venezuela. Bach would later become TEAM's third General Director. In 1908, following one of his lengthy trips to the fields, Franson took several days off to rest at the home of some friends in Idaho Springs, Colorado. One morning his host tried to wake him for breakfast, but he had died during the night.

Death and legacy

Fredrik Franson died August 2, 1908, in Idaho Springs, Colorado, where he had gone for some much needed rest. His age was 56. Services were held at the Presbyterian Church in Colon, Nebraska and burial was in Estina Cemetery, south of Leshara. His body was later moved to Chicago into the Franson Memorial Building.

The Mission which Franson founded with 1 field and 50 missionaries has grown under the guidance and blessings of God until today has well over 1000 missionaries in over 20 fields.

His motto was "Forward 'Till Upward."

Two great-nephews remain in this area to keep his memory alive, Wallace Anderson, Colon, Nebraska and Robert Franson, Springfield, Missouri.

Franson left behind no family or estate. His legacy was a group of dedicated people whose desire was to take the gospel to all people. Franson's two passions -- evangelism and church planting -- continue to be the focus of TEAM's worldwide ministry.

See also

• List of the Martyred Protestant Missionaries during the Boxer Crisis of 1900

Bibliography

• Edward P. Torjesen, Fredrik Franson, Pasadena:William Carey Library, 1983

External links

• Works by Fredrik Franson at Project Gutenberg
• TEAM History
• Daniel Heinz (2000). "Franson, Frederick (auch: Fransson, Fedrick)". In Bautz, Traugott (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). 17. Herzberg: Bautz. cols. 399–404. ISBN 3-88309-080-8.
• 1983 Saunders County History - Family Stories
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sat Jan 04, 2020 4:12 am

Dwight L. Moody
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/3/20

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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Dwight L. Moody
Preacher, evangelist and publisher
Born: Dwight Lyman Moody, February 5, 1837, Northfield, Massachusetts, US
Died: December 22, 1899 (aged 62), Northfield, Massachusetts, US

Dwight Lyman Moody (February 5, 1837 – December 22, 1899), also known as D. L. Moody, was an American evangelist and publisher connected with the Holiness Movement, who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts (now Northfield Mount Hermon School), Moody Bible Institute and Moody Publishers. One of his most famous quotes was “Faith makes all things possible... Love makes all things easy.“ Moody gave up his lucrative boot and shoe business to devote his life to revivalism, working first in the Civil War with union troops through YMCA in the United States Christian commission. In Chicago, he built one of the major evangelical centers in the nation, which it is still active. Working with singer Ira Sankey, he toured the country and Britain Europe, drawing large crowds with a dynamic speaking style that preached God's love and friendship, kindness and forgiveness rather than hellfire and condemnation.

Early life

Dwight Moody was born in Northfield, Massachusetts, as the seventh child in a large family. His father, Edwin J. Moody (1800–1841), was a small farmer and stonemason. His mother was Betsey Moody (née Holton; 1805–1896). They had five sons and a daughter before Dwight's birth. His father died when Dwight was age four; fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, were born one month after the father's death. Their mother struggled to support the nine children, but had to send some off to work for their room and board. Dwight too was sent off, where he received cornmeal, porridge, and milk three times a day.[1] He complained to his mother, but when she learned that he was getting all he wanted to eat, she sent him back. During this time, she continued to send the children to church. Together with his eight siblings, Dwight was raised in the Unitarian church. His oldest brother ran away and was not heard from by the family until many years later.[2]

When Moody turned 17, he moved to Boston to work (after receiving many job rejections locally) in an uncle's shoe store. One of the uncle's requirements was that Moody attend the Congregational Church of Mount Vernon, where Dr. Edward Norris Kirk served as the pastor. In April 1855 Moody was converted to evangelical Christianity when his Sunday school teacher, Edward Kimball, talked to him about how much God loved him. His conversion sparked the start of his career as an evangelist. Moody was not received by the church when he first applied in May 1855. He was not received as a church member until May 4, 1856.

According to Moody's memoir, his teacher, Edward Kimball, said:

I can truly say, and in saying it I magnify the infinite grace of God as bestowed upon him, that I have seen few persons whose minds were spiritually darker than was his when he came into my Sunday School class; and I think that the committee of the Mount Vernon Church seldom met an applicant for membership more unlikely ever to become a Christian of clear and decided views of Gospel truth, still less to fill any extended sphere of public usefulness.[3]


Civil War

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Dwight Lyman Moody c.1870

The first meeting I ever saw him at was in a little old shanty that had been abandoned by a saloon-keeper. Mr. Moody had got the place to hold the meetings in at night. I went there a little late; and the first thing I saw was a man standing up with a few tallow candles around him, holding a negro boy, and trying to read to him the story of the Prodigal Son and a great many words he could not read out, and had to skip. I thought, 'If the Lord can ever use such an instrument as that for His honor and glory, it will astonish me. As a result of his tireless labor, within a year the average attendance at his school was 650, while 60 volunteers from various churches served as teachers. It became so well known that the just-elected President Lincoln visited and spoke at a Sunday School meeting on November 25, 1860.[4]


D. L. Moody "could not conscientiously enlist" in the Union Army during the Civil War, later describing himself as "a Quaker" in this respect.[5] After the Civil War started, he became involved with the United States Christian Commission of YMCA. He paid nine visits to the battlefront, being present among the Union soldiers after the Battle of Shiloh (a.k.a. Pittsburg Landing) and the Battle of Stones River; he also entered Richmond, Virginia, with the troops of General Grant.

On August 28, 1862, Moody married Emma C. Revell, with whom he had a daughter, Emma Reynolds Moody, and two sons, William Revell Moody and Paul Dwight Moody.

Chicago and the postwar years

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Moody's first Sunday school class, North Market Hall, Chicago, 1876

The growing Sunday School congregation needed a permanent home, so Moody started a church in Chicago, the Illinois Street Church.[6]

In June 1871 at an International Sunday School Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, Dwight Moody met Ira D. Sankey. He was a gospel singer, with whom Moody soon began to cooperate and collaborate.[7] \

Sankey was born in Edinburg, Pennsylvania, on August 28, 1840,[1] one of nine children of David Sankey and his wife Mary Leeper Sankey. The family's ancestry was English on the father's side and a mix of Scottish and Irish on the mother's.[2] David Sankey was a banker, a former state senator and a Methodist lay preacher.[3][4] As a young boy Ira displayed a love of music that was encouraged by his parents, who typically spent evenings with him at home, singing hymns. At the age of eight he began attending Sunday school.[5]

When he was 16, Ira underwent an experience of religious conversion at a revivalist meeting held at a nearby church, King's Chapel.[6] A year later the family moved to New Castle, where the young Sankey joined the local Methodist Episcopal Church. His enthusiasm and talents were quickly recognized and led to his appointment as Sunday school superintendent and choirmaster.[2][5]

In 1861, at the start of the American Civil War, Sankey answered President Lincoln's call for volunteers and joined the Twelfth Pennsylvania Regiment.[2] He served between 1861 and 1863.[7] In the army he continued his religious and singing activities, forming a choir and assisting the chaplain. When his period of enlistment was over he returned to New Castle, where his father had been appointed by Lincoln as a Collector of Internal Revenue. In 1863 Sankey joined his father in government service and, that same year, married Fanny Edwards, a member of his choir.[2]

Back in New Castle, Sankey developed a local reputation as a singer, much in demand in churches and revival meetings. In 1867, when a local branch of YMCA was formed, Sankey became its secretary and later its president.[8] As president, in 1870 he was a delegate at a national conference held in Indianapolis, where he encountered the noted preacher Dwight L. Moody for the first time. Moody was instantly impressed as Sankey demonstrated his ability to enliven an audience rendered soporific by inactivity and overlong prayers by giving an impromptu rendering of the hymn "There is a fountain filled with blood".[1] Meeting Sankey at the end of the session, Moody demanded that the young man join him in his mission work: "I have been looking for you for the last eight years".[5] Unable to decide on the spur of the moment, Sankey returned to New Castle and pondered Moody's challenge for six months before deciding to return to Chicago for a week's trial with Moody. Before the week was up he resigned his government post and threw in his lot with Moody's mission, thus beginning their lifelong partnership.[2][5]

-- Ira D. Sankey, by Wikipedia


Four months later, in October 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed Moody's church building, as well as his house and those of most of his congregation. Many had to flee the flames, saving only their lives, and ending up completely destitute. Moody, reporting on the disaster, said about his own situation that: "... he saved nothing but his reputation and his Bible."[8]

In the years after the fire, Moody's wealthy Chicago patron John V. Farwell tried to persuade him to make his permanent home in the city, offering to build a new house for Moody and his family. But the newly famous Moody, also sought by supporters in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, chose a tranquil farm he had purchased near his birthplace in Northfield, Massachusetts. He felt he could better recover in a rural setting from his lengthy preaching trips.[1]

Northfield became an important location in evangelical Christian history in the late 19th century as Moody organized summer conferences. These were led and attended by prominent Christian preachers and evangelists from around the world. Western Massachusetts has had a rich evangelical tradition including Jonathan Edwards preaching in colonial Northampton and C.I. Scofield preaching in Northfield. A protégé of Moody founded Moores Corner Church, in Leverett, Massachusetts, and it continues to be evangelical.

Moody founded two schools here: Northfield School for Girls, founded in 1879, and the Mount Hermon School for Boys, founded in 1881. In the late 20th century, these merged, forming today's co-educational, nondenominational Northfield Mount Hermon School.[9]

Evangelical travels

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Dwight Lyman Moody, Vanity Fair, 3 April 1875

During a trip to the United Kingdom in the spring of 1872, Moody became well known as an evangelist. Literary works published by the Moody Bible Institute claim that he was the greatest evangelist of the 19th century.[10] He preached almost a hundred times and came into communion with the Plymouth Brethren. On several occasions, he filled stadia of a capacity of 2,000 to 4,000. According to his memoir, in the Botanic Gardens Palace, he attracted an audience estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000.[11]

That turnout continued throughout 1874 and 1875, with crowds of thousands at all of his meetings. During his visit to Scotland, Moody was helped and encouraged by Andrew A. Bonar. The famous London Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, invited him to speak, and he promoted the American as well. When Moody returned to the US, he was said to frequently attract crowds of 12,000 to 20,000 were as common as they had been in England.[12] President Grant and some of his cabinet officials attended a Moody meeting on January 19, 1876. He held evangelistic meetings from Boston to New York, throughout New England, and as far west as San Francisco, also visiting other West Coast towns from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to San Diego.[13]

Moody aided the work of cross-cultural evangelism by promoting "The Wordless Book," a teaching tool developed in 1866 by Charles Spurgeon. In 1875, Moody added a fourth color to the design of the three-color evangelistic device: gold — to "represent heaven." This "book" has been and is still used to teach uncounted thousands of illiterate people, young and old, around the globe about the gospel message.[14]

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Missionary preaching in China using Moody's version of The Wordless Book

Moody visited Britain with Ira D. Sankey, with Moody preaching and Sankey singing at meetings. Together they published books of Christian hymns. In 1883 they visited Edinburgh and raised £10,000 for the building of a new home for the Carrubbers Close Mission. Moody later preached at the laying of the foundation stone for what is now called the Carrubbers Christian Centre, one of the few buildings on the Royal Mile which continues to be used for its original purpose.[12]

Moody greatly influenced the cause of cross-cultural Christian missions after he met Hudson Taylor, a pioneer missionary to China. He actively supported the China Inland Mission and encouraged many of his congregation to volunteer for service overseas.[15]

International acclaim

His influence was felt among Swedes. Being of English heritage, never visiting Sweden or any other Scandinavian country, and never speaking a word of Swedish, nonetheless he became a hero revivalist among Swedish Mission Friends in Sweden and America.[16]

News of Moody's large revival campaigns in Great Britain from 1873 through 1875 traveled quickly to Sweden, making "Mr. Moody" a household name in homes of many Mission Friends. Moody's sermons published in Sweden were distributed in books, newspapers, and colporteur tracts, and they led to the spread of Sweden's "Moody fever" from 1875 through 1880.[17]

He preached his last sermon on November 16, 1899, in Kansas City, Missouri. Becoming ill, he returned home by train to Northfield. During the preceding several months, friends had observed he had added some 30 pounds (14 kg) to his already ample frame. Although his illness was never diagnosed, it has been speculated that he suffered from congestive heart failure. He died on December 22, 1899, surrounded by his family. Already installed as the leader of his Chicago Bible Institute. R. A. Torrey succeeded Moody as its pastor.

Works

• Heaven Diggory Press ISBN 978-1-84685-812-3
• Prevailing Prayer—What Hinders it? Diggory Press ISBN 978-1-84685-803-1
• Secret Power Diggory Press ISBN 978-1-84685-802-4
• The Ten Commandments[18]
• Also, A Life for Christ—What a Normal Christian Life Looks Like.

Legacy and honors

Religious historian James Findlay says that:

Speaking before thousands in the dark business suit, bearded, rotund Dwight L. Moody seemed the epitome of the "businessman in clerical garb"who typified popular religion in late 19th-century America.... Earthy, unlettered, a dynamo of energy, the revivalist was very much a man of his times.... Moody adapted revivalism, one of the major institutions of evangelical Protestantism, to the urban context. ... His organizational ability, demonstrated in the great revivals he conducted in England, combined to fashion his spectacular career as the creator of modern mass revivalism. [19]


Ten years after Moody's death the Chicago Avenue Church was renamed the Moody Church in his honor, and the Chicago Bible Institute was likewise renamed the Moody Bible Institute.[20]

During World War II the Liberty ship SS Dwight L. Moody was built in Panama City, Florida, and named in his honor.[21]

See also

• Biography portal
• Horatio Spafford, a friend of Moody who wrote the words to the hymn It Is Well With My Soul
• Northfield Mount Hermon School

References

1. Johnson, George (2011). What Will A Man Give In Exchange For His Soul?. Xlibris Corporation. pp. 113–115. ISBN 1465380981.
2. Johnson, George D. (26 October 2011). "What Will A Man Give In Exchange For His Soul?". Xlibris Corporation – via Google Books.
3. Moody (1900), 21
4. Johnson, George D. (26 October 2011). "What Will A Man Give In Exchange For His Soul?". Xlibris – via Google Books.
5. Donald W. Dayton, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), 134.
6. Billy Graham Center Archives. "SELECT LIST OF EVENTS FROM MOODY CHURCH HISTORY". Records of The Moody Church - Collection 330. Wheaton, IL: Wheaton College. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
7. OBrien, Glen (1 June 2015). "Christian Worship: A Theological and Historical Introduction". Wipf and Stock Publishers – via Google Books.
8. Johnson, George D. (26 October 2011). "What Will A Man Give In Exchange For His Soul?". Xlibris Corporation – via Google Books.
9. "NMH's History - Northfield Mount Hermon". Archived from the original on 2016-10-09. Retrieved 2016-10-06.
10. Bailey, Faith (1987) [1959]. D. L Moody. The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. p. Cover. ISBN 0-8024-0039-6.
11. Johnson, George D. What Will A Man Give In Exchange For His Soul?. Xlibris Corporation. p. 115. ISBN 9781465380982.
12. "D.L. Moody -". Worthy Christian Library.
13. Moody, William Revell (1 June 2001). "The Life of Dwight L. Moody". The Minerva Group, Inc. – via Google Books.
14. Austin (2007), 1-10
15. Johnson, George D. (26 October 2011). "What Will A Man Give In Exchange For His Soul?". Xlibris Corporation – via Google Books.
16. Gustafson (2008)
17. Johnson, George D. (26 October 2011). "What Will A Man Give In Exchange For His Soul?". Xlibris Corporation – via Google Books.
18. "THE TEN COMMANDMENTS text by D. L. Moody". Archived from the original on 2009-04-09. Retrieved 2009-09-19.
19. James F. Findlay, "Moody, Dwight Lyman," and John A. Garraty, Encyclopedia of American Biography(1974) pp 772-773.
20. Timothy J. Demy and Paul R. Shockley (2017). Evangelical America: An Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Religious Culture. ABC-CLIO. pp. 286–290.
21. Williams, Greg H. (25 July 2014). The Liberty Ships of World War II: A Record of the 2,710 Vessels and Their Builders, Operators and Namesakes, with a History of the Jeremiah O'Brien. McFarland. ISBN 1476617546. Retrieved 7 December 2017.

Sources

• "Dwight Moody: evangelist with a common touch" Christianity Today, 8 August 2008.
• Christian Biography Resources
• Dorsett, L. W. A Passion for Souls: The Life of D. L. Moody. 1997
• Findlay, J. F. Jr. Dwight L. Moody: American Evangelist 1837–1899. 1969
• Gundry, S. N. Love them in: The Proclamation Theology of D. L. Moody. 1976
• Evensen, B. J. God's Man for Gilded Age: D. L. Moody and the Rise of Mass Evangelism. 2003
• Gloege, Timothy. Guaranteed Pure: The Moody Bible Institute, Business, and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism (2017)
• Gustafson, David M. "D.L. Moody and the Swedish-American Evangelical Free." Swedish-American Historical Quarterly 55 (2004): 107-135. online]
• Hamilton, Michael S. "The Interdenominational Evangelicalism of D.L. Moody and the Problem of Fundamentalism" in Darren Dochuk et al. eds. American Evangelicalism: George Marsden and the State of American Religious History (2014) ch 11.
• Moody, Paul Dwight. The Shorter Life of D. L. Moody. 1900 online

External links

• Recording of Moody reading the Beatitudes
• Sample sermons by D. L. Moody
• "Shall I enter the Army?" Moody said, "No."
• Works by Dwight L. Moody at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Dwight L. Moody at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Works by or about Dwight L. Moody at Internet Archive
o Glad Tidings, sermons by D. L. Moody
o The Gospel Awakening, sermons by D. L. Moody
• books by D. L. Moody
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sat Jan 04, 2020 4:31 am

John V. Farwell
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/3/20

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


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John Villiers Farwell Sr.
Born: July 25, 1825, Mead's Creek, New York
Died: August 20, 1908 (aged 83), Lake Forest, Illinois
Occupation: Senior partner of John V. Farwell & Co., joint partner - Farwell, Field & Co., (1862-1865)
Spouse(s): Abigail G. Taylor, Emeret C. Cooley
Parent(s): Henry Farwell and Nancy Jackson

John Villiers Farwell Sr. (July 29, 1825 – August 20, 1908) was an American merchant and philanthropist from New York City. Moving to Chicago, Illinois at a young age, he joined Wadsworth & Phelps, eventually rising to be senior partner as John V. Farwell & Co.. He was also a mentor and brief joint partner with Marshall Field, (1834-1906), in the firm Farwell, Field & Co. from 1862-1865, before Field moved on with other partners to eventually establish his own famous prototype of the modern department store at Marshall Field and Company. Farwell was a leader in several Christian philanthropic efforts including YMCA, the United States Christian Commission during the American Civil War, and was a believer and supporter of the evangelical works of Dwight L. Moody. Later, he served as an Indian agent and had large land holdings in Texas. He and his brother, Senator Charles B. Farwell, of Illinois, are the namesake of Farwell, Texas.

Biography

John Villiers Farwell was born on July 29, 1825 in Mead's Creek, Steuben County, New York. He was the brother of Charles B. Farwell, who would go on to become a United States Senator. When he was thirteen, his father moved the family to a farm in Ogle County, Illinois. Farwell attended Mount Morris Seminary and graduated in 1844. Farwell decided to head to Chicago, Illinois to seek employment. He worked in the office of the City Clerk of Chicago then joined the dry goods house of Hamilton & White as a bookkeeper. Farwell then took a position at Wadsworth & Phelps. Farwell trained several of Chicago's future prominent businessmen, including Marshall Field and Levi Leiter.[1] Farwell married Abigail G. Taylor, the daughter of Ogle County farmer John G. Taylor, in 1851, but she died after two years.[1]

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Farwell was named a partner in the firm, then known as Cooley, Wadsworth & Co., in 1850. He married Emeret C. Cooley in 1854; they had three sons and a daughter. In 1863, Farwell was named senior partner of the firm following the retirement of E. S. Wadsworth.[1] In 1864, the company was restyled Farwell, Field & Co. after Marshall Field and Levi Leiter were admitted to the partnership.[2] However, the next year, Field and Leiter left to join Potter Palmer in what would become Marshall Field & Co.[3][4] Farwell's dry goods house then became known as John V. Farwell & Co.[1] The company survived the 1871 Great Chicago Fire and was officially incorporated in 1891, when charge of the company was turned over to his sons.[1]

Farwell was an early leader in the history of YMCA, rising to become president of the Chicago chapter. Farwell probably met Dwight L. Moody through YMCA. He was named superintendent of Moody's Illinois Street Church in 1859, holding the position until 1867. He built the first church building for Moody on the corner of Illinois and Wells Streets in 1864. Farwell provided Moody with the financial backing needed to support the institution; Moody even lived in one of Farwell's YMCAs. Farwell was named a trustee of the Moody Bible Institute when it was founded in 1886.[5] During the Civil War, Farwell was President of the Chicago Branch of the United States Christian Commission. A Republican, Farwell was a delegate from Illinois to the 1864 presidential election, supporting Abraham Lincoln. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant named Farwell to the Board of Indian Commissioners[1]

A group led by Farwell, his brother Charles, Abner Taylor, and A. C. Babcock was named responsible for constructing the Texas State Capitol in 1879. In exchange for his service as builder, the Farwells were paid with the largest cattle ranch in the world, the 3,050,000-acre (1,230,000 ha) XIT Ranch. The Farwells oversaw a herd of over 150,000 cattle. The ranch proved relatively unprofitable, as cattle prices plunged in the late 1880s. By 1905, the land was mostly subdivided. Farwell was also a member of the Chicago Historical Society and the Union League Club.


He died at his home in Lake Forest, Illinois on August 20, 1908 following a six-month illness.[1] John V. Farwell & Co. maintained its name until it was purchased by Carson, Pirie & Co. in 1926.[6]

References

1. Bateman, Newton; Selby, Paul, eds. (1918). "Farwell, John Villiers". Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois. Chicago, IL: Munsell Publishing Company. pp. 162–163.
2. Stevenson, Andrew (November 1908). Torrey, R. A.; Gray, James M. (eds.). "John V. Farwell: Christian Merchant and Philanthropist". The Institute Tie: The Christian Workers' Magazine. Chicago, IL. IX: 246.
3. Andreas, Alfred Theodore. History of Chicago. II. Chicago, IL: The A. T. Andreas Company. p. 694.
4. Ditchett, Samuel Herbert (1922). Marshall Field and Company: The Life Story of a Great Concern (1st ed.). New York City, NY: Dry Goods Economist. p. 20.
5. Findlay, James F. (1969). Dwight L. Moody: American Evangelist, 1837-1899. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9781556356230.
6. Jaher, Frederic Cople (1982). The Urban Establishment: Upper Strata in Boston, New York, Charleston, Chicago, and Los Angeles. p. 541.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sat Jan 04, 2020 4:47 am

Charles B. Farwell
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/3/20

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Image
Charles B. Farwell
United States Senator from Illinois
In office: January 19, 1887 – March 3, 1891
Preceded by John A. Logan
Succeeded by John M. Palmer
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 1st district
In office: March 4, 1871 – March 3, 1873
Preceded by Norman B. Judd
Succeeded by John Blake Rice
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 3rd district
In office: March 4, 1873 – May 6, 1876
Preceded by Horatio C. Burchard
Succeeded by John V. Le Moyne
In office: March 4, 1881 – March 3, 1883
Preceded by Hiram Barber, Jr.
Succeeded by George R. Davis
Member of the Indiana House of Representatives
Personal details
Born: Charles Benjamin Farwell, July 1, 1823, Painted Post, New York
Died: September 23, 1903 (aged 80), Lake Forest, Illinois
Nationality American
Political party: Republican
Spouse(s) Mary Eveline Smith
Alma mater Elmira Academy

Charles Benjamin Farwell (July 1, 1823 – September 23, 1903) was a U.S. Representative and Senator from Illinois.

Life and career

Farwell was born in Painted Post, New York, and attended Elmira Academy before moving to Illinois in 1838. He first tried his hand at surveying and farming before moving to Chicago in 1844, when he went into banking. From 1853-1861, he served as the Clerk of Cook County. Farwell was "one of the principal builders in [Chicago's] business district" in the last quarter of the 19th century.[1] That he was able to amass a sizeable fortune can be proven by the fact that he owned one of the finest mansions on Chicago's North Side.[2]

Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives four times beginning in 1870, winning his first election to the House by a healthy margin over Chicago's "Long" John Wentworth (by some 5700 votes). Farwell went on to serve in the House of Representatives in the 42nd, 43rd, 44th and 47th Congresses. In 1876 the Democrat-controlled Congress accepted John V. Le Moyne's challenge to Farwell's election and removed Farwell from office; Farwell declined to run again at the time of the general election later on in 1876. In 1880, he was elected to another term in Congress (the 47th Congress). Upon the death of John A. Logan in 1887, Farwell was elected to serve out Logan's term in the U.S. Senate, but refused to run for re-election to a full term.
[3] Significantly, in Farwell's first term as Senator, he supported the introduction of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have granted women's suffrage rights (the right to vote) - simultaneously a landmark achievement of and a setback in the long struggle for voting rights for women that would not be overcome until the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920.[4]

In 1876, at his wife's urging, Farwell underwrote the construction of College Hall, North Hall and a gymnasium at Lake Forest College. The couple also donated additional land to the college which had been struggling since the end of the Civil War.[5] Part of their philanthropy was to ensure a co-ed liberal arts college near home for their daughter, Anna, who graduated from Lake Forest College in 1880. Anna later married the composer Reginald de Koven, and became a successful socialite, novelist and amateur historian. His daughter Rose was married to Hobart Chatfield-Taylor.[6]

A group led by [John V.] Farwell, his brother Charles, Abner Taylor, and A. C. Babcock was named responsible for constructing the Texas State Capitol in 1879. In exchange for his service as builder, the Farwells were paid with the largest cattle ranch in the world, the 3,050,000-acre (1,230,000 ha) XIT Ranch. The Farwells oversaw a herd of over 150,000 cattle. The ranch proved relatively unprofitable, as cattle prices plunged in the late 1880s. By 1905, the land was mostly subdivided.

-- John V. Farwell, by Wikipedia


1869: The John V. Farwell estate at 888 East Deerpath is constructed, using Portland cement, by an unknown designer.
The design of the house appears to have been influenced by English architect John Ruskin who called for a revival of the Gothic spirit in architecture (Coventry, Meyer, Miller 2003 p. 43).

1870: The Sen. Charles B. Farwell estate, Fairlawn, is constructed on a block bounded by Deerpath, Lake, and Mayflower Roads and Spring Lane. The house, modeled on the Tuscan villa form, is built in the Italianate style by an unknown architect. Farwell, who is a Congressman from a Chicago district, is chided in the November 2 Chicago Tribune by his opponent, John Wentworth, for living in Lake Forest, and not in his district.

1871: John V. Farwell becomes mayor of Lake Forest.

1873: There is a financial panic due to over-borrowing for railroads among other things, and a five-year recession follows, fought against by Congressman C. B. Farwell in Washington, for three terms from 1871 to 1877.

1880: Under sponsorship of the C. B. Farwells, the monthly Lake Forest University Review is launched in January, with Anna Farwell (Class of 1880) as editor. The monthly continues through 1883. North Hall, a gift from Charles B. Farwell, is built to house Lake Forest Academy.

1886: Chicago Haymarket Square Riot of May 4, 1886 takes place. Labor Union workers request 8 hour work days, and organize a strike on May 1 to gain attention. On May 3, a riot at McCormick Reaper Plant results in one death during a fight between workers and police. On May 4, a rally begins at Haymarket Square, on Randolph Street. Although a seemingly peaceful protest, a bomb explodes, and ignites a shoot-out between the protestors and policemen. The bomb kills a policeman. Thirty one anarchists and socialists are arrested, and it is deemed inconclusive as to who organized the bomb throwing. Judge Joseph E. Gary states, “inflammatory speeches and publications” presented by the eight prisoners ignited the sentiments of the mob.

1891: A gymnasium by H. I. Cobb is built on Lake Forest College campus and opens in April. Constructed at a cost of $30,000, this is one of the best equipped gymnasiums in the Midwest. It is the gift of Senator Charles B. Farwell.

1896: The Onwentsia Club opens on the grounds of the Henry Ives Cobb home, successor of the Lake Forest Golf Club. The Cobb home is turned into a clubhouse. Members of the Onwentsia Club include established Lake Forest families such as the Farwells, Holts and Durands and well known Chicago families such as a the Armours and McCormicks (Coventry, Meyer, Miller 2003 p. 68). Ardleigh, the John V. Farwell Jr. house, is constructed in the English traditional style. It is designed by Arthur Heun (Coventry, Meyer, Miller 2003).

1900: The first automobile, a black Winton, is introduced to Lake Forest by Arthur Farwell, son of J. V. Farwell.

1939-1945: Lake Foresters provide entertainment for Officers, their wives as well as enlisted men from Great Lakes. Mrs. Albert Farwell gives ‘Navy Waffle Parties’ for men recovering at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital. Around 4,000 men attended Mrs. Farwell’s parties over the course of the war (Arpee 1963 p.239).

1887: Fort Sheridan becomes a full-fledged military installation on November 11 in Highwood. The fort is built partially as a response to the Chicago Haymarket Square Riot of May 4, 1886 which showed the need for a military presence near Chicago. The Farwell brothers of Lake Forest were involved in the creation of the fort (Ebner 1988 p. 140-141).

-- Timeline of Lake Forest History, by the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society for the Community's Sesquicentennial, 2011


See also

XIT Ranch

References

1. Steffes, Patrick (31 December 2011). "Bertrand Goldberg in Tower Town Part 1: Bertrand Goldberg's Commune". forgottenchicago.com/. Forgotten Chicago. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
2. "Charles B. Farwell mansion, 120 E. Pearson St., Chicago, IL (1905)". http://www.memory.loc.gov. Library of Congress, courtesy Chicago History Museum. 1905. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
3. "FARWELL, Charles Benjamin". history.house.gov/. Offices of the Historian, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives. n.d. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
4. Steffes, Patrick (31 December 2011). "Bertrand Goldberg in Tower Town Part 1: Bertrand Goldberg's Commune". forgottenchicago.com/. Forgotten Chicago. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
5. Ebner, Michael H. (Summer 2007), "North Shore Town and Gown", Chicago History, p. 6
6. Bluff's Edge Estate Archived June 6, 2010, at the Wayback Machine

External links

• United States Congress. "Charles B. Farwell (id: F000037)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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XIT Ranch
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/3/20

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Image
XIT Ranch chuck wagon, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum

Image
Cowboys at the XIT Ranch in 1891

The XIT Ranch was a cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle which operated from 1885 to 1912. Comprising over 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km²) of land, it ran for 200 miles (300 km) along the border with New Mexico, varying in width from 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 km). The massive ranch stretched through ten counties in Texas, and at its peak regularly handled 150,000 head of cattle.

History

In 1879, the 16th Texas Legislature appropriated 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km²) of land to finance a new state capitol.[1] In 1882, in a special legislative session, the 17th Texas Legislature struck a bargain with Charles B. and John V. Farwell of Chicago, Illinois, under which a syndicate led by the Farwells, with mostly British investors, agreed to build a new Texas State Capitol in Austin and to accept the 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km²) of Panhandle land as payment.[2][3][4] The ranch stretched across all or portions of Dallam, Hartley, Oldham, Deaf Smith, Parmer, Castro, Bailey, Lamb, Cochran, and Hockley Counties.[1]

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines syndicate as a group of people or businesses that work together as a team. This may be a council or body or association of people or an association of concerns, officially authorized to undertake a duty or negotiate business with an office or jurisdiction. It may mean an association of racketeers in organized crime.

-- Syndicate, by Wikipedia


In 1879 the Sixteenth Texas Legislature appropriated three million acres of land to finance a new state capitol building and appointed a Capitol Board (composed of the governor, comptroller, treasurer, attorney general, and land commissioner) to give the land to a contractor in exchange for building the Capitol. In 1881, after a fire destroyed the limestone Capitol, in Austin, which served the Republic from 1839 to 1842 and the state from 1845 to 1852, the state government pushed forward its plans to build a new Capitol. First, the Capitol Board hired architect Elijah E. Myers for $12,000 after he won the building commission’s design competition in 1881. Next, Mathias Schnell accepted the contract in return for the land. Schnell later transferred three-fourths interest to Taylor, Babcock, and Company of Chicago, which organized the Capitol Syndicate. The land that the syndicate was to receive as payment was in the unsettled Panhandle, so the syndicate established the XIT Ranch to make the most of the land until it could be sold.

Myers modeled the Texas Capitol after the National Capitol, using a Renaissance Revival design. His plans called for native limestone, but Myers agreed to use red granite donated by the owners of Granite Mountain instead. Because red granite is harder than limestone, Myers modified his plans and eliminated the original design’s elaborate carvings. Myers, however, suffered from psychosomatic illnesses, which made him so difficult to work with that he was fired in 1886.

Construction began in 1882, and eventually Gustav Wilke, a Chicago builder, took over the massive project. Because the red granite was so expensive to transport and work with, the state stepped in, constructing a railroad from Granite Mountain to Burnet and providing convict labor. In 1885 union laborers—angry about the use of convict labor and the low wages Wilke offered—boycotted, and Wilke sent a representative to Scotland to contract granite cutters. The U.S. government indicted Wilke in 1886 for violating the Alien Contract Labor Law and fined him $64,000, which equaled $1,000 for each laborer imported.

-- Texas History 101: The Capitol Building's history is as colorful as its exterior, by TexasMonthly, June 30, 2003


Total expense for the Capitol building materials and labor amounted to $3,744,630.60, of which the Syndicate Company paid $3,224,593.45. In return, they received 3,000,000 acres.[5]:53

Though Mathias Schnell won the contract for constructing the new building in January 1882, by May he had assigned all interest to Taylor, Babcock and Company. This company was composed of Col. Abner Taylor of Chicago, Col. A.C. Babcock of Canton, and John V. and Charles B. Farwell of Chicago. Abner Taylor was assigned company representative in June. Babcock inspected the Capitol Tract that same year, setting out from Tascosa on 23 March and arriving at the Yellow Houses on 27 April. His inspection noted the 1880 J.T. Munson survey, used to define the capitol lands, used the northwest boundary of the state defined by John H. Clark's 1859 survey. Clark's line defining the 103rd meridian, approved by Congress in 1891, turned out to be about one half mile west of the true meridian. The issue was not settled until John V. Farwell and President Taft were instrumental in passing a 16 Feb. 1911 joint resolution by Congress honoring the Clark line. This action saved Texas a strip of land one half mile wide and 310 miles long.[5]:52,57,59–67

In order to raise the capital needed to fence the ranch, build houses and barns, provide water, and purchase the cattle, John V. Farwell formed the Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company, Limited, in London. The money was raised through the sale of debentures paying 5 percent interest. Directors of the company included John V. and Charles B. Farwell, Walter Potter, Henry Seton-Karr, Sir William Ewart, Edward M. Denny, Baron Thurlow, and the Marquis of Tweeddale, while the Earl of Aberdeen and Quintin Hogg were Trustees. The company existed until 1909, when all bonds had been redeemed,[5]:72–73

Company headquarters were located in the northern boundary of the ranch, at Buffalo Springs, with George Findlay directing business. Col. B.H. Campbell became general manager, and Berry Nations range foreman. The ranch started operations in 1885, purchasing cattle and moving them onto the ranch. By 1887, the herd was maintained at between 125,000 and 150,000, or about 20 acres per head. W.S. Mabry surveyed in the four-wire barbed wire fence line, and by 1886, 781 miles of fence were in place, including a 260 mile long west line and a 275 mile long east line. Cross fences were added by the late 1890s to make 94 pastures, bringing the total to 1500 miles of fence. A telephone line connected Tascosa to Alamocitos in 1888. Though the northern portion of the ranch had plenty of water near Buffalo Springs, the portion south of the Canadian River needed wells, which were also surveyed in by W.S. Mabry. By 1900, the ranch had 335 windmills averaging 34 feet high, with 12–18 foot wheels, producing water from an average depth of 125 feet. Additionally, 100 earthen dams were constructed. Trail driver Ab Blocker devised the XIT brand. The brand was simply made with a five inch long straight bar, applied five times. Yet, the XIT brand was not immune from "brand burning" by rustlers, which involved burning the original brand into another brand. Cowboy legends also kept alive the myth that the brand means "Ten In Texas." Each calf was branded with XIT on its side, the last numeral of the year on its shoulder, and the number of the division on its jaw.[5][2][1]

The ranch was initially divided into 7 division headquarters, located at (1) Buffalo Springs, (2) Middle Water, (3) Ojo Bravo, (4) Rito Blanco, (5) Escarbada, (6) Spring Lake, and (7) Yellow Houses, with (8) Bovina added later. Each was equipped with residences, cellars, bunkhouses, store rooms, barns, corrals, and two-wagon freight outfit. Large warehouses were maintained at Tascosa in 1887, after the introduction of the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad, and in Bovina, after it was connected to the J.J. Hagerman's Pecos Valley and Northeastern Railroad in 1898. General headquarters were moved to Channing in 1890. Each division wrote a monthly report and an annual report containing details about the cattle, range weather, and the men employed. Buffalo Springs became the steer ranch, Middle Water the cull ranch, while Ojo Bravo, Escarbada, Spring Lake and Yellow Houses became breeding ranges. The 10-12 cowboys working a division in the winter increased to 25-30 in the summer.[5]:97–98,147–150

Unfortunately, Campbell's management led to the ranch becoming a "stopping place and rendezvous for a large number of bad men and criminals," in the words of A.L. Matlock. Matlock was picked by John V. Farwell to run the ranch in 1887. Matlock chose A.G. Boyce as his general range manager.[5]:100–102,109

The Texas Trail was used for trail drives connecting Tascosa to Dodge City until 1885. Afterwards, the Northern Trail connected Buffalo Springs to the XIT range on Cedar Creek, 60 miles north of Miles City, Montana. That trail was used from 1886 until 1897. Over a period of 3 months, some 10,000 to 12,500 steers were moved from the Yellow Houses 1000 miles north to Cedar Creek. There they would graze for two years before being shipped to Chicago.[5]:126–128,136–137,141

Though the original stock consisted of Texas Longhorn cattle, in 1889, work started to improve the herd by introducing Hereford cattle and Polled Angus cattle. Registered herds were bought in 1892, and the Rito Blanco division bred the Angus, while the Escarbada, Spring Lake and Yellow Houses divisions bred the Herefords.[5]:182,187–190

Rules of the XIT Ranch

The XIT Ranch had 23 rules, on Abner Taylor's orders. They included prohibitions against carrying arms (No. 11); drinking alcohol (No. 15); and gambling (No. 12). Rule No. 22 stated the aim of the ranch was "sterling honesty and integrity".[1][5]:116,241–245

Sold off

The original plan of the Capitol Company was colonization, with ranching viewed as a temporary use of the land until farmers arrived. In 1890, Matlock began using an immigration agency, and 80,000 acres were prepared as farming tracts.[5]:71,205,211,224

Cattle prices crashed in 1886 and 1887, and in the fall of 1888, the ranch was unable to sell its cattle and make a profit. The ranch operated most years without showing any profit. Predators such as the Mexican wolf and cattle rustling led to further losses.[1]

In 1901, the ranch syndicate began selling off acreage to pay the Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company, Limited, bonds. Large tracts were sold to cattlemen such as George W. Littlefield, who bought 235,858.5 acres of Yellow Houses in 1901. In 1904, the ranch started using land and development companies for wholesale purchases, but in 1905, 800,000 acres were also divided up into 160-640 acre tracts. Finally, in 1905, to prevent speculation, the syndicate established a land commissioner, and in 1915, a real estate trust. This trust, Capitol Reservations Lands, operated until 31 Dec. 1950. Yet, Capitol Mineral Rights Company retained much of the mineral rights.[5]:218–225

The family of Minnie Lou Bradley, who went on to establish the Bradley 3 Ranch in Childress County east of Amarillo, made large purchases of XIT land. Other purchasers included Texas cattlemen William E. Halsell, and John M. Shelton.[1]

Lee Bivins bought 70,000 acres from XIT's Capitol Syndicate. Located near Channing, Texas, the purchase included XIT headquarters.[6]

The last of the XIT cattle were sold on 1 Nov. 1912.[1][5]:217

Recognizing that their earlier surveys exceeded the stipulated areas by 2-4 percent, the state of Texas sued the Syndicate in 1918, claiming the excess was 57,840.5 acres. As a consequence, the state recovered 27,613.6 acres in Dallam County, and 30,226.9 acres in Hartley County.[5]:216–217

Legacy

In remembrance of the massive ranch, the City of Dalhart hosts the XIT Museum and the annual XIT Rodeo and Reunion held the first Thursday through Sunday of August. The celebration includes three days of junior and professional (PRCA) rodeo events, the world’s largest free barbecue, three nights of live music, a mud bog competition, an antique tractor-pull, and other activities.

Several businesses in the Dalhart area use "XIT" in their names and styles.

In popular culture

The Charles Ives song, "Charlie Rutlage," is about a poor XIT ranch hand who is killed. Cowboy artist Red Steagall song “6000 miles of wire” is about the forming of the XIT ranch.

See also

• Ira Aten
• Patrick H. Landergin

References

1. XIT Ranch from the Handbook of Texas Online; retrieved April 13, 2005.
2. Thumbnail History of the XIT Ranch; The XIT Museum website; retrieved March 20, 2009
3. "Fairlawn: The Farwell/McGann Estate at 965 East Deerpath" Biography of Charles B. Farwell; retrieved March 17, 2011
4. History of XIT Ranch; "My Turn;" Hidden Ancestors ; retrieved March 17, 2011
5. Haley, J. Evetts (1929). The XIT Ranch of Texas: And the Early Days of the Llano Estacado. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 3, 75, 77, 83–88, 95–96, 106, 121–122, 149. ISBN 0806114282.
6. Archer, Jeanne; Taras, Stephanie (2009). Touching Lives: The Lasting Legacy of the Bivins Family. Tell Studios Inc. p. 41. ISBN 9780974914862.

Further reading

• Cordia Sloan Duke and Joe B. Frantz; 6,000 Miles of Fence: Life on the XIT Ranch of Texas; Austin: University of Texas Press; 1961.

External links

• The XIT Museum
• XIT Rodeo & Reunion
• Photos of the XIT Ranch hosted by the Portal to Texas History
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sat Jan 04, 2020 5:55 am

The Union-Bustin' Origins of the Texas State Capitol
by Andrew Weber
KUT.org, Austin's NPR Station
May 13, 2015

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A look at the construction site of what would become the Texas State Capitol. AUSTIN HISTORY CENTER, VIA PORTAL TO TEXAS HISTORY

This week marks the 127th anniversary of the Texas State Capitol’s dedication. Well, not necessarily. May 14 marked the completion of the Capitol, along with a week-long celebration to dedicate it, but the state didn’t accept Pomeranian builder Gustav Wilke’s granite-domed monument to Texas because of structural issues — chiefly, the copper roof leaked.

The building was officially dedicated seven months later, but Wilke’s architectural prowess wasn’t blamed for the building’s initial shoddiness — he would later go on to build some of the world’s first skyscrapers. Ultimately, the capitol building’s inconsistencies, exacerbated by a Chicago-based syndicate bankrolling Wilke’s operation, a years-long labor strike and a handful Texas convicts and Scottish strike-busters, contributed to the project’s hamstringing.

The Syndicate

The new Capitol project was approved by lawmakers in 1879 and was hastened after the state’s original building caught fire in 1881. Of the two plans submitted to revamp the Capitol, the state contracted Mattheas Schnell of Illinois for the gig in 1882. Twelve days later, Schnell transferred the project, which included a payment of more than three million acres of land in Texas, over to what the Southwestern Historical Quarterly called “the syndicate,” a company run by U.S. Senator Charles B. Farwell, his brother John Farwell and U.S. Rep. Abner Taylor, all from Illinois.

Taylor, the project head, requested the state acquire more limestone, the building’s initial component, from Illinois, as Texas’ supplies were thin. The state balked, as the Capitol was meant to be built with native materials. So it was decided the project would use red granite from Marble Falls, which tacked on an extra $613,865 to the budget.

To keep labor costs low, the state allowed Wilke to employ up to 500 convicts. Wilke was then subcontracted to oversee the project.

Convicts, Scottish Scabs and Cutters

Despite protests from Texans over using prison labor, Wilke continued the use of convicts on the Capitol project. The Austin chapter of the Granite Cutters of America said both Wilke and the syndicate “care for nothing but the almighty dollar and now seek to degrade our trade and fill their own pockets.” This was in response to Wilke’s proposal to pay granite cutters $3 a day, a dollar below the union’s wage.

Image
Builder Gustav Wilke imported workers to cut granite for the Capitol. They were promised up to $6 a day, but were paid less than a dollar a day upon arrival. CREDIT AUSTIN HISTORY CENTER VIA PORTAL TO TEXAS HISTORY

The project was boycotted by granite cutters nationally.

In April 1885 Wilke sent an associate to Aberdeen, Scotland — a town renowned for its granite cutters. More than 120 granite cutters and blacksmiths were recruited and were promised 18 months of labor, with wages ranging from $4 to $6 a day.

When 88 Scots arrived in New York City, Wilke’s agent George Berry failed to tell them that their work on the Capitol wasn’t legal, as it violated the Alien Contract Labor Law. Members of the Granite Cutters’ Union convinced 24 of them to abandon the work upon their arrival.

The remaining 64 began a seven-day journey to begin work at Marble Falls.

Holding the Bag

Wilke continued recruiting Scots, and by 1886 the Capitol’s walls, ornamental work and dome were nearing completion, but by May of 1887 only 15 of the Scots remained.

At least three had died and the others grew tired of less-than-promised wages — it’s estimated that the workers made less than a dollar a day. Some of those that left provided their contracts to the Cutters’ Union, which used them as evidence in a prosecution of the syndicate and Wilke, all of whom were indicted in July 1886.

Wilke swallowed the charges, admitting to violating the labor law and accepting a fine of $1,000 per worker for a total penalty of $64,000. The fine was eventually appealed and lowered to $8,000, along with a $500 fee to the Cutters’ Union.

When the project finished in May of 1888, it finished $520,000 under-budget. Of course, it showed. The dome, which was the final stage of construction, wasn’t up to standards, and it took another eight months to officially dedicate the now-iconic dome.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sat Jan 04, 2020 9:41 am

Emigrant Strikebreakers: Scottish Granite Cutters and the Texas Capitol Boycott
by Marjory Harper [Marjory Harper has a Ph.D. from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland where she is employed as a lecturer in history. Her main publications are two books on emigration, entitled "Emigration from NorthEast Scotland," volume I, "Willing Exiles," and volume II, "Beyond the Broad Atlantic" (1988). Her current research interests include interwar emigration from Scotland (1919-1939), the social welfare work of the Countess of Aberdeen, and computer-based research into the backgrounds, university experiences, and subsequent careers of students at Aberdeen University in the nineteenth century.]
The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 95, July 1991-April, 1992

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IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY NORTHEAST SCOTLAND, AND THE CITY OF Aberdeen in particular, came to enjoy an international reputation in the granite industry. This owed much to a flourishing export trade with the United States, particularly in tombstones and similar memorials. But Aberdeen did not export only its dressed and polished stone; many of the quarrymen and especially the masons responsible for these products also found their way to the U.S.A. The majority congregated in the easily accessible New England states, but some went further afield, to the Midwest, California, and Texas. Scots immigrants, settling singly or in small groups, had played an important part in the early history of Texas, but the best-known-and most notorious-influx occurred in 1886, when a large contingent of masons was brought out to cut stone for the new Texas State Capitol in Austin.1

Once the United States began to develop its own granite industry after the Civil War, it became interested in purchasing the well-known skills of quarrymen and masons from Scotland. American labor at this time was inadequate and expensive, and Scottish masons in particular were offered good wages to come over and train a native labor force. Although immigrants were also brought in from Cornwall, Devon, and Wales, the majority of the British workmen were Scots, probably mostly from Aberdeen, and it was by no means unusual for around two hundred granite tradesmen to be lured away from the city each spring to the American quarries and stoneyards.2 Some settled down permanently, perhaps establishing their own businesses after a time, while others preferred to invest the money they earned in the subsequent opening of a yard back in Aberdeen. But many continued to commute annually across the Atlantic, returning home temporarily in the winter, then re-emigrating in spring at the opening of each succeeding season.

Although the American employers wanted to exploit the Scots' skills in order to develop their own native granite industry, the arrival of these foreign tradesmen was not universally welcomed. Edmund Stevenson, one of the emigrant commissioners at New York, criticized the parasitic attitude of many transient immigrants when he wrote in 1890 that

hundreds and thousands of skilled mechanics -- stone-cutters, stone-masons, glass-blowers, locomotive engineers -- come regularly to this country every spring, year after year, and stay here until about November. They pay no taxes for our schools, they perform no jury duty, nor are they liable to; they do not perform any of the duties of citizenship, except the protection they get from the city or the stale wherever they reside. During all the working season, they are sending their money back home to their wives, their children, and their parents, and at the end of the working season they pack their grip sacks and go back to Europe, spend the winter, and the next year come back here again, and repeat the same thing over and over again. They come into direct competition with American labour; they drive out American labour by their coming here, skilled workmen that they are, and they generally work under the price of American labour. But they earn much more money here, and they can afford to go back there and live for a few months until the working season, and then come back here.3

The way in which employers used immigrants to repress wages, break strikes, and destroy attempts at union organization was most bitterly resented by many branches of American labor. In 1885 the growing hostility took legislative form when Congress, largely at the instigation of the Knights of Labor, passed the Alien Contract Labor Law. This act was designed to prevent the introduction into the U.S.A. of foreign contract workers to perform work that was the prerogative of native labor. As a result it became unlawful for any person, company, partnership or corporation, in any manner whatsoever to prepay the transportation or in any way assist or encourage the importation or migration of any alien or aliens, and any foreigner or foreigners into the United States, its Territories, or the District of Columbia, under contract or agreement ... made previous to the importation of such [people] to perform labour or service of any kind in the United States.4


Guilty parties were to be liable to a fine of $1,000 in respect of each immigrant illegally introduced, while ships' captains who knowingly transported them were to be fined $500 per immigrant and were also to bear the expense of returning them to their place of origin. In practice, however, the act was easily evaded and failed to eradicate the problems that it was meant to solve5 [Failure to define the precise categories to be excluded caused confusion in interpreting the act, successive court interpretations, and many loopholes. For instance, employers could have contract workers shipped to the U.S.A. as cabin passengers, since only steerage passengers were inspected under the law, or they could persuade members of their existing labor force to write home encouraging "friends and relatives" (who were exempt from the law) to come out on the assurance of work. Contract laborers could also be trained in advance to answer official questions in a way that would avoid detection at the port of arrival. See Charlotte Erickson, "American Industry and the European Immigrant," 1860-1885 (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1957), 170-171, 172 (quotation)]; since most immigrants did not enter the U.S.A. as contract laborers and did not therefore fall within the remit of the act, the use of aliens to break strikes and keep wages down continued almost unabated.6 [The act had been urged on the government primarily by a small union of skilled craftsmen within the Knights of Labor, the window-glass workers, whose position was threatened by the introduction of contract workers from Europe. They harnessed to their campaign the growing resentment of the American Labor movement in general against the misuse of imported labor, by suggesting -- erroneously -- that immigrant strikebreakers were generally brought in under contract. In this way the wider labor movement (which had not formulated precise proposals for dealing with its problems) was persuaded to support legislation that was much too narrow to meet its needs. The Contract Labor Law applied only to a small minority of highly skilled immigrants who were brought in to perform specific jobs, and failed to restrict the importation of undesirable immigrants to break strikes and lower wages. For further details on the act and its limitations, see Erickson, "American Industry and the European Immigrant," especially chapters 9 and 10.]

Until 1906 the American Granite Cutters' Union repeatedly rebuffed suggestions from its Aberdeen counterpart that it should agree to the interchangeability of union cards and benefits. These proposals were rejected on the grounds that since the emigrant traffic was one-sided, the concessions would benefit only the Scots. There was opposition to any proposal to exchange cards with a union whose entry fees were much lower than those of its American counterpart, and criticism of those emigrants who did not become citizens of the U.S.A., but who continued to send home the bulk of their earnings.7

On the whole, though, as far as the granite trade was concerned, emigrants from northeast Scotland seem to have worked fairly harmoniously alongside their American counterparts. A number of Aberdeen emigrants played an active part in the American Granite Cutters' Union, and opportunities for Scottish granite tradesmen in the U.S.A. were periodically publicized in the union's journal. It also regularly issued warnings against going to places where work was scarce or where there were industrial disputes, and immigrants were sometimes asked not to flood the American labor market too early in the season, before satisfactory agreements had been made between the employers and the union.8 Prospective emigrants were warned not to believe the false promises of agents who were sent to Aberdeen to recruit labor for strike-bound American quarries and yards. For much of 1887, for instance, the American Granite Cutlers' National Journal warned tradesmen to keep away from Boston, where union members had been locked out by their employers. When it became known that the employers had advertised in Aberdeen for men, offering inducements that, according to the union, they did not intend to fulfil, the American union made sure that notices appeared in the Aberdeen press reiterating the plea that granite workers should avoid Boston.9 In 1892 the Aberdeen Journal published the contents of a telegram from the secretary of the American Granite Cutlers' Union to his opposite number in Aberdeen, again warning Aberdonian tradesmen to keep away from the U.S.A. until a current lockout in the granite trade had ended.10 Similarly in 1904 the secretary of the union branch in Montreal asked assistance of his Aberdeen counterpart in preventing further local emigration to that city, after two Aberdeen men had arrived "not knowing the exact condition of affairs," and unaware that they had been recruited as strikebreakers.11

But although there is clear evidence of cooperation between granite workers' unions on either side of the Atlantic, on occasions the American warnings were not heeded, and the Aberdeen recruits then came into bitter conflict with the American trade unionists. Perhaps the most acrimonious incident was one that occurred in 1886 and had its origin not in one of the eastern granite centers in which the Aberdeen immigrants most commonly congregated, but in Texas. Since the incident provided the first real test of the Alien Contract Labor Act, it also attracted national attention in the United States.

In November 1875 the Texas legislature decided that a new State Capitol should be erected in Austin, through the appropriation of a large tract of public land. Since Texas, still recovering from the Civil War, had no funds to finance the project, it was specified that the building contract would be paid off solely in land, the state's one major asset. No further action was taken until February 1879, when 3,050,000 acres in the Texas Panhandle were set apart and a Capitol Board was appointed to administer the project.12 [Consisting of the state's governor, comptroller, attorney general, treasurer, and land commissioner. Fifty thousand acres of the land grant were to be sold to pay for the survey. Much of the following information about the early stages in the construction of the new Capitol has beend rawn from Frederick W. Rathjen, "The Texas State House: A Study of the Building of the Texas Capitol Based on the Reports of the Capitol Building Commissioners," in Southwestern Historical Quarterly, LX (Apr., 1957), 433-462.] In April 1879 an act to provide for building the Capitol was passed, and in November 1880 (after the land had been surveyed and valued at fifty cents per acre) the Capitol Board appointed a building superintendent and two building commissioners. Out of eleven sets of plans and specifications submitted to the commissioners by February 1881, the design of E. E. Myers of Detroit was accepted, and in July 1881 the commissioners advertised for tenders for construction, specifying that the entire payment would be made in land. The project assumed greater urgency when the old Capitol burned down on November 9, but only two bids were submitted, and on January 1, 1882, the contract for the new State Capitol was awarded to Mattheas Schnell of Rock Island, Illinois. Within twelve days he had assigned three-quarters of his interest in the project to Taylor, Babcock and Company of Chicago, and by the summer he had relinquished his entire interest to this same company.13 [J. Evetts Haley, "The XIT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado" (Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 1967), chap. IV, "The State Capitol and its builders," 49-57. See also Forrest Crissey, "The Vanishing Range," The Country Gentleman, LXXVIII, Mar. 1, 1913. Also included in the Chicago syndicate that took over responsibility for constructing the Capitol were United States Senator Charles B. Farwell of Illinois and his younger brother John Farwell. Col. Abner Taylor was the Representative to Congress from Illinois, and his father-in-law Amos Babcock, a large landholder in Illinois, made up the fourth member of the syndicate. Their original intention was to dispose of the Panhandle grant in some speculative scheme. It was only after their failure to sell the Land that they decided to operate it as a ranch until increased immigration would raise its value and enable them to sell at a profit. The XIT Ranch was accordingly launched with the aid of $15 million raised through the London-based Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company. For further details, see the Austin Daily Statesman, Mar. 4, 1959; and "The Texas Capitol. How it was built," The Cattleman, XLVI (Mar., 1960), 42-43, 68-70.]

The Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company, Limited, was incorporated in London, England, late in the fall of 1884 with an authorized capital of $15 million. It was organized by John V. Farwell to raise finances to stock the XIT Ranch and to meet its tremendous operating expenses. Wealthy English bond buyers like the Earl of Aberdeen and Henry Seton-Karr were shareholders in the investment company but not in the ranch, which was operated by the Capitol Syndicate under John and Charles B. Farwell, Amos C. Babcock, and Abner Taylor. By the late 1890s the British investors had begun clamoring for the redemption of their bonds, and the syndicate began its gradual selling of the XIT properties. The Farwell estate completed the redemption of most of these bonds to the Englishmen's satisfaction in 1909, and the investment company ceased to exist. The final account payment and dissolution of the company came in 1915. The remaining interest went to the Farwell heirs, who set up the Capitol Reservation Lands as a trust, and to shareholders in this country.

Bibliography: J. Evetts Haley, The XIT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado (Chicago: Lakeside, 1929; rpts., Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953, 1967). William D. Mauldin, History of Dallam County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1938). Lewis Nordyke, Cattle Empire: The Fabulous Story of the 3,000,000 Acre XIT (New York: Morrow, 1949. rpt., New York: Arno Press, 1977).

-- Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company, by Texas State Historical Association


Sir Henry Seton-Karr CMG DL (5 February 1853 – 29 May 1914) was an English explorer, hunter and author and a Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1906.

Seton-Karr was the son of George Berkeley Seton-Karr, of the Indian Civil Service; and his wife Eleanor, the daughter of Henry Usborne of Branches Park, Suffolk. He was educated at Harrow School and Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford gaining an MA in Law and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1879.[1] Seton-Karr owned a cattle ranch (Pick Ranch) in Wyoming, USA and was a director of Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Co.[2] He was an explorer, big game hunter and writer.

Seton-Karr was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for St Helens in the 1885 general election and held the seat until his defeat at the 1906 general election.[3] He did not stand again in St Helens, but at the January 1910 general election he stood unsuccessfully in Berwickshire.[4]

He became a Deputy Lieutenant of Roxburghshire in 1896,[5] and was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in October 1902.[6]

-- Henry Seton-Karr, by Wikipedia


John Campbell Hamilton-Gordon, 1st Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair KT KP GCMG GCVO PC (3 August 1847 – 7 March 1934), known as The Earl of Aberdeen from 1870 to 1916, was a Scottish politician. Born in Edinburgh, Hamilton-Gordon held office in several countries, serving twice as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1886; 1905–1915) and serving from 1893 to 1898 as the seventh Governor General of Canada.[1]....

Aberdeen entered the House of Lords following his succession to his brother's earldom. A Liberal, he was present for William Ewart Gladstone's first Midlothian campaign at Lord Rosebery's house in 1879. He became Lord Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire in 1880, served as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 1881 to 1885 (he held the position again in 1915), and was briefly appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1886.

The Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is the British Sovereign's personal representative to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (the Kirk), reflecting the Church's role as the national church of Scotland and the Sovereign's role as protector and member of that Church.

-- The Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is the British Sovereign's personal representative to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (the Kirk), reflecting the Church's role as the national church of Scotland and the Sovereign's role as protector and member of that Church.


He became a Privy Counsellor in the same year.[4] In 1884, he hosted a dinner at Haddo House honouring William Ewart Gladstone on his tour of Scotland. The occasion was captured by the painter Alfred Edward Emslie; the painting is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, given by the Marquess’ daughter, Marjorie Sinclair, Baroness Pentland, in 1953.[5]

In 1889 he was chosen as an alderman of the first Middlesex County Council, his address being given as Dollis Hill House, Kilburn, in that county.[6]

He served as Governor General of Canada from 1893 to 1898 during a period of political transition. He travelled extensively throughout the country and is described as having "transformed the role of Governor General from that of the aristocrat representing the King or Queen in Canada to a symbol representing the interests of all citizens".[7] In 1891, he bought the Coldstream Ranch in the northern Okanagan Valley in British Columbia and launched the first commercial orchard operations in that region, which gave birth to an industry and settlement colony as other Britons emigrated to the region because of his prestige and bought into the orcharding lifestyle.[8] The ranch is today part of the municipality of Coldstream, and various placenames in the area commemorate him and his family, such as Aberdeen Lake and Haddo Creek.[9][10]

He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1895.[11]

He was again appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1905, and served until 1915. During his tenure he also served as Lord Rector of the University of St Andrews (1913–1916), was created a Knight Companion of the Order of the Thistle (1906), and was created a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (1911).[12] Following his retirement, he was created Earl of Haddo, in the County of Aberdeen, and Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair, in the County of Aberdeen, in the County of Meath and in the County of Argyll, in January 1916.[13]

He had been appointed Honorary Colonel of the 1st Aberdeenshire Artillery Volunteers on 14 January 1888 and retained the position with its successors, the 1st Highland Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, until after World War I.[14]...

From 1883 until 1896, he was also an owner of and investor in the Rocking Chair Ranche located in Collingsworth County, Texas, together with his father-in-law, The 1st Baron Tweedmouth, and his brother-in-law Edward Marjoribanks, 2nd Baron Tweedmouth.[18]

-- John Hamilton-Gordon, 1st Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair, by Wikipedia


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The construction of a new Texas State Capitol was given greater urgency when the existing Capitol was destroyed by fire in November 1881. Courtesy Austin History Center, Austin Public Library

Excavations began in February 1882 and preparation of the foundation and basement occupied that year and most of 1883.14 It was intended that the superstructure should be built primarily of limestone, and by February 1884 about $100,000 had been spent in quarrying and dressing limestone boulders at the Oatmanville quarry near Austin. In March the railway for transporting the stone from the quarry to the building site was completed, and the first consignment -- about sixty tons of limestone -- was delivered, only to be rejected by the building commissioners on the grounds that it did not meet the required standard.15 [The Oatmanville stone contained too much iron pyrites, and exposure to the weather caused it to become discolored, with rusty-colored streaks. Rathjen, "The Texas State House," 442.] It subsequently became clear that Texas quarries alone could not supply enough limestone of the standard specified and contractor Abner Taylor suggested that limestone from Bedford, Indiana, be substituted for the Oatmanville product. This, however, would have required a major change in the terms of the contract and would go against the state's policy of using only Texas products. Reserves of red Texas granite near Burnet were then beginning to attract notice, and state governor John Ireland (who headed the Capitol Board) was strongly supported by public opinion when he recommended changing the specifications for the Capitol superstructure to granite. By early 1885 architect Myers had submitted an amended design plan incorporating the change to hard stone, a change whose cost was estimated at $613,865.16 Contractor Taylor was unwilling to incur these extra costs, particularly since the business depression of 1883-1885 had checked the sale to settlers of the three million acres of land awarded to his syndicate as payment for construction.17 [If immigration to Texas had continued at the rate expected when the contract was awarded, the syndicate would have benefited richly. American GCNJ, IX (Aug., 1885), 2. See also Ruth Allen, "The Capitol Boycott: A Study in Peaceful Labor Tactics, 1885-1889," in Chapters in the History of Organized Labor in Texas, University of Texas Publication No. 4142, Nov. 15, 1941 (Austin The University, 1941), 46. This paper draws not only on Allen's published work but also on many of the original sources used by Allen.]

While the controversy raged, work on the Capitol came to a halt during spring and summer 1885, but the building syndicate, faced with rising costs and impatient investors, could not afford to delay indefinitely. On July 16 Taylor agreed to construct the superstructure of granite, "provided the State will furnish me a granite quarry accessible and suitable for the building, free of cost, and furnish such number of convicts as I may require, not to exceed 1000, I to board, clothe and guard them."18 He also stipulated that various structural changes be made to the building, in order to reduce its cost by at least $100,000, and that the time allowed for its completion be extended by three years. The Capitol Board quickly agreed to Taylor's propositions, a supplemental contract was drawn up on July 25, and up to five hundred convicts from state penitentiaries were assigned to the building syndicate, which was to pay sixty-five cents a day to cover the cost of feeding, clothing, and guarding them.19 The convicts were put to work in the granite quarries at Marble Falls, fifteen miles south of Burnet, and also constructed a narrow gauge railway from the quarries to join the Austin and Northwest railroad at Burnet. (The quarry owners had agreed to supply, free of charge, all the granite needed to construct the Capitol.) Shortly after these revised plans had been agreed, the Capitol syndicate sublet the contract for construction of the entire building to a young German-born builder, Gus Wilke of Chicago. Wilke had initially been employed in 1882 to put in the basement of the Capitol, and having accomplished this work satisfactorily, his contract was renewed and extended in 1885.

The problems that had plagued the Capitol project in its early stages were as nothing to the controversy that was to break over the use of convict labor. The opposition of public opinion in Texas was made clear in the many protests sent to the Capitol Board when the revised plans were announced.20 But much more bitter and prolonged opposition came from the American Granite Cutters' Union. It had already opposed Wilke over the use of nonunion labor, and became even more enraged when its members' financial interests were threatened by the use of a convict work force.21 Any collaboration in teaching convicts to cut granite would reduce the wages of skilled tradesmen and impede the union's efforts to achieve better conditions within the industry. These dangers were explained in the monthly circular of the Granite Cutters' Union in September 1885:

If 200 granite cutters work with, and teach 100 convicts the trade the probability is that in twelve months time there would be but 100 granite cutters and the number of convicts would be increased to 200, and in two years time there would be 300 convicts and no free granite cutters whatever employed on the job, for after the first lot is taught they will be put to teach other convicts, and thus drive out free labor altogether, for we have been reliably informed that the state officials of Texas have agreed to supply the contractors with 500 convicts.22


In December 1884 the Austin branch of the union had fixed the wage rate for its members working on the Capitol project at $4.00 per day, but Wilke subsequently offered only from $2.75 to $3.00, and only if these terms were accepted would he cease employing convicts. But his conditions were unacceptable to the Granite Cutters' Union, which was further angered by a letter from Wilke to the union, in which he had threatened to "hire any good mechanic whether he be a scab as you call it or not. I will not permit you, nor any society, to dictate whom I shall employ, whether they be convicts or free labor."23 The union voted unanimously to boycott the Capitol project, and a circular to this effect was published in Austin in December 1885, warning cutters to keep away until Wilke had stopped hiring convict labor:

Granite Cutters of America, show ... Gus Wilke and his employers ... that free men will not submit to the introduction of slavery into our trade under the guise of contract convict labor, and that you will not teach convicts our trade to enrich these schemers, who care for nothing but the almighty dollar and now seek to degrade our trade to fill their own pockets.24


The union's injunction was not universally obeyed, according to the Graniteville (Missouri) branch secretary, who declared in the Granite Cutters' National Journal in February 1886:

Regarding the Austin job I [am] informed that there are a few of the brotherhood (although they are unworthy of the name now) working there at a bill of prices far below the Austin bill of prices. They have no shed, but Wilkie [sic] has fixed up an eight-foot fence with a line of barbed wire against the top of it, and no one is allowed inside but the workmen. Think of Gus Wilkie's fine promises when he is paying such a low bill of prices as will drive all his scabs out from his barbed wire fence as soon as spring comes, and what will they do then, poor things, as their names are all known and will soon be published for the information of square men.

The citizens of Burnet are indignant at the way Wilkie is acting, as they have subscribed about $1,500 and gave him [this] on his guarantee that the stone would all be cut there by free labor. They are expressing their opinions about Gus Wilkie and very hard words, but as is well known, hard words have no effect on him as long as he can get tools and fools to do his bidding.25


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Up to 500 convicts from Texas state penitentiaries were assigned to the Capitol building syndicate and employed as granite cutters in the quarries at Marble Falls, Texas. Courtesy Austin History Center, Austin Public Library.

On the whole, however, the boycott was well supported, and soon caused Wilke to look abroad in search of the required skilled labor that the American union refused to supply. In April 1886 he sent his agent George Berry to Aberdeen in order to recruit 150 granite cutters and fifteen blacksmiths to complete the construction of the Capitol. For his services Berry was allegedly paid $600 and promised promotion to the post of an assistant foreman in the Burnet granite yard.26 He first advertised his requirements in the Aberdeen press, then on April 12 organized a meeting in the Northern Friendly Society Hall in the city.27 This gathering attracted an audience of 300, of whom 120 had already been recruited to go to Austin as a result of the earlier newspaper advertisement. The purpose of the meeting was to give particulars of the expedition to these recruits, as well as to invite applications for the remaining vacancies. Builder Robert Hall, presiding, drew on his own experience of four years spent in the U.S.A. to recommend the venture, particularly in view of the depression through which he said the Aberdeen granite trade was then passing.28 Details of wages and working conditions were explained by a Mr. Prescott of London, representing Gus Wilke. The recruits were promised at least eighteen months steady employment at wages of $4 to $6 per day, board and lodging at only $16 to $20 per month, and prepayment of a proportion or the whole of the £10 fare.29 [Although the men were engaged initially for only eighteen months, it was expected that their contracts would be renewed, as construction of the Capitol was expected to take another four years. Aberdeen Evening Gazette, Apr. 15, 1886.] Single men were 10 repay this advance out of their first month's wages, but married men were allowed to defer repayment until the second or third month. Recruits were required to prove their commitment to the bargain by paying "earnest money" of twenty-five shillings each, whereupon they were issued with their sailing tickets.30 [A dispute arose when two blacksmiths, having paid this sum, were then told their services were not required, since Berry had been unable to obtain his full complement of stonecutters. The two blacksmiths complained to the sheriff that they had been defrauded, whereupon Berry was arrested and held in custody for a short time until he had paid a fine of ten pounds. House Misc. Doc. No. 572, 50th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 146]

Approximately eighty-six recruits left Aberdeen with Berry on April 15 on the first stage of an eighteen-day journey to Austin, embarking the following day on the Anchor liner Circassia at Greenock.31 Under the original agreement they were to have been shipped direct to Galveston, Texas, but when Wilke found it was not only cheaper but also safer -- from his point of view -- to have them transported by coastal steamer to Norfolk, Virginia, and thence by train to Texas, the initial port of landing was changed to New York.32 On April 17 the Glasgow Weekly Mail reported (somewhat inaccurately as regards the emigrants' destination and employment) that

On Thursday afternoon 87 tradesmen arrived at Greenock by special train from Aberdeen .... The men include granite cutters and builders, who have been engaged on an 18 months' agreement to work at 4 dollars per day, in Texas, at the erection of the Court house in Galveston. The men state that their passage is to be paid out and home, and that they have a guarantee from a firm of standing in Aberdeen that they were not going out to work regarding which there is a dispute between contractors and workmen.33


Berry had thus neglected to tell his recruits that the need for their importation had arisen because of the boycott of the Austin contract by American native labor. He had admitted that convict labor was employed on the project, but declared that this had come about only because insufficient free labor was available in the U.S.A., and promised that once Wilke had secured the required number of free workers he would cease to employ prisoners.34 Given their limited understanding of the true state of affairs, it is likely that the Aberdeen recruits were totally unprepared for the reception given them on arriving at New York.

Informed by telegram of the embarkation of Berry and his recruits, three officials of the Granite Cutters' Union were sent to New York to intercept the party. In particular, they hoped to secure Berry's arrest for importing workers into the U.S.A. in violation of the Alien Contract Labor Law. Initial attempts to persuade the U.S. District Attorney at New York to have Berry arrested under this law failed for lack of immediate proof that a contract had in fact been made with the immigrants, but the union officials did manage to persuade twenty-four of the recruits not to proceed to Texas.

On returning to Castle Garden and going amongst the men and explaining matters, 24 of them decided not to go any further with Berry; but he, with the assistance of two ruffians, named Thom and Dawson, coaxed and coerced the remainder aboard the ferry-boat for the New Jersey side. Berry and his assistants dragged some of them in such a manner that the U.S. Deputy Marshal dared them to lay a linger on any of them or he would arrest them for assault and battery.35


While these men were boarding the steamer Comal for Newport News, Virginia, two of the American union representatives had discovered from the men who remained in New York that the recruits had in fact been given printed contracts by Berry, which, when they were shown to immigration officials at Castle Garden, were said to be in clear violation of the Contract Labor Law. The three documents in their possession covered the conditions of their employment, accommodation, and the prepayment of their passages, and included two certificates from Gus Wilke. One of these stated that he had authorized Berry to engage and bring to Austin the granite cutlers and blacksmiths required to work on the State Capitol, and stipulated that "the fare for passage advanced by me is expected to be returned, out of earnings made by cutting."36 His other certificate gave details of the wages and accommodation to be provided for the recruits at Burnet, while the third document, a ticket issued by the Anchor Line, gave proof of the prepayment of passage as far as Galveston. When these documents were put before the district attorney, along with the affidavits of two renegade recruits (Charles Falconer and Robert Maitland), he admitted that Wilke was in breach of the law, and so the way was cleared for the American Granite Cutters' Union to initiate the prosecution of Wilke and the syndicate he represented.

Having supplied the American union with ample proof of the existence of printed contracts, the renegade recruits, with that union's blessing, sought clean jobs in the granite centers of the East, ten ultimately finding work in Vermont.37 Meanwhile, the tradesmen who had elected to proceed to Texas arrived at Burnet on May 2, the union's attempts to head them off at Norfolk and Galveston having failed. In order to avoid confrontation, they had disembarked quietly at Newport News, from where they had traveled by train, first to Houston, and then to Austin. A telegram intimating their safe arrival was despatched by four of the men and appeared in the Aberdeen Daily Free Press on May 8. It made no reference to the substantial depletion of the party at New York, but merely stated that the men had "arrived all safe, and find the job everything as represented."38 An eyewitness at Houston had described them as a "hardy and robust set of men, with plenty of bone and muscle," whose arrival had given him "the best evidence I have yet had that the capitol would be completed."39 As the Austin Daily Statesman pointed out later, the recruits were not paupers. "but on the contrary are skilled artisans, evidently capable of paying their way anywhere ... they came of their own motion ... are paid the very highest price for their labor ... and are satisfied."10

One of the recruits, granite cutter Alexander Greig, writing home to his parents on May 3, spoke of the hearty welcome the party had received in Texas and refuted claims that they had been deceived. He painted a different picture of the New York incident from that described in the Granite Cutters' National Journal, which alleged that the men had been forced to continue and had been manhandled aboard the ferryboat.41 In Greig's words:

While we were at New York, there were several of the society met us, and tried all that was in their power to get us to stop at New York; and I am sorry to say that there was a few fools amongst us who listened to what they had to say, and stayed behind to their sorrow and shame, and there was a report got into the New York newspapers which said that we were detained in New York, and that Mr. Berry was arrested, and Mr. Wilkie [sic] fined a hundred dollars, which is the biggest falsehood that ever went into any newspaper. You can tell anybody that asks about us that everything is right, and that we have been treated well. I was told that I was growing fat upon it. I am first-class in health and intend to stick in. This is the most splendid country I have ever seen. I have seen nothing to equal it through all the States.42


But not all the recruits were of the same mind, particularly once work had actually begun. Perhaps Greig too became disillusioned, for his promise in his first letter that he would send home a weekly diary to his parents did not materialize.43 According to the Galveston Daily News of May 13, many of the men, already angry at the expense incurred during their unexpected seven-day journey from New York, were soon disappointed in their expectations of high wages. It estimated that about half the recruits had had no previous experience of granite cutting, and were unable to earn even a dollar a day. In fact, the payroll vouchers for the period May 1886 to May 1887 indicate that the stonecutters earned an average wage of twenty-seven cents per hour, though individual payments varied from only four cents to fifty cents per hour.44 The blacksmiths were paid forty cents per hour, though the Galveston Daily News (May 13) alleged that these men, employed as tool sharpeners, were particularly inept. Genuine granite cutters on piece work therefore became impatient at time and money unnecessarily lost in waiting for their implements to be sharpened. Most of the men were accommodated and employed at "Wilkeville," a fenced enclosure on the southeast side of Burnet adjacent to the railway line. All but two recruits were initially boarded at a monthly charge of approximately seventeen dollars each. After May 1886, however, only a few Scots were billed for accommodation, and in September 1886 and March 1887 no deductions were made for board. According to the Galveston Daily News, the Scots soon became dissatisfied with their working conditions and accommodation:

Bitter feelings and homesickness are cropping out everywhere. Working out in the sun with the thermometer standing at 80 or 90°, and four to six men packed in a lodging room, ten feet square, along with indifferent food, is something that was not calculated on.45


This view was corroborated three months later in a circular issued by the Austin Assembly of the Knights of Labor, which alleged (in direct contradiction of the claims made by the Austin Daily Statesman) that "The work is hard, and prices and wages low, and as a consequence the stone cutters are leaving and seeking employment in other places."46 By the end of October 1886 at least three of the Scots had died, and by May 1887 the payroll vouchers show that only fifteen of the original recruits were still employed at Burnet.47 [They were George Mutch (23), died June 13, John Smith (27), drowned June 27, and George Moir (22), died October 15. Before the Scots dispersed, they commemorated these deaths by preparing and erecting a granite memorial in the cemetery at Burnet.] It had soon become evident that Wilke had no intention of keeping his promise to diminish the convict labor force once he had secured sufficient free labor. On the contrary, he almost doubled the number of convicts employed, according to one Aberdeen recruit, blacksmith David Dawson, who left the job early and who subsequently testified to Wilke's misdemeanors before the Congressional Enquiry into violations of the Contract Labor Law in 1888.48 According to the Austin Daily Statesman of July 23, 1886, Wilke at that time had 200 convicts employed at quarrying and 100 at cutting stone, in addition to 148 "free" stonecutters, making a total of 448 men at work in Marble Falls and Burnet preparing granite for use in Austin. By October 5 the number of convicts employed had risen to 350, and the newspaper predicted that by the following April all the rock required for the Capitol would have been quarried.

Before disillusionment set in, David Dawson had, at Wilke's request and on his behalf, secured a further contingent of Aberdonians to go to Austin, perhaps to replace those who had defected at New York.49 Dawson contacted a friend in Aberdeen, granite merchant John Petrie, who then advertised in the Aberdeen Journal for thirty cutters and two masons to go to Austin.50 As a result of his appeal, fifteen extra recruits left Aberdeen on June 17 to embark on the Anchor liner Turnissa at Glasgow.51 Wilke subsequently paid Petrie $15.60 for his services, but did not make use of him again, for when more stonecutting vacancies at Austin were advertised in the Aberdeen Journal on October 9, interested parties were told to apply to the newspaper office, not to Petrie. Work on the Capitol proceeded quickly during 1886 and 1887: by November 1886 Wilke's monthly payroll was almost $50,000, and by the following summer the walls and most ornamental work were finished, and the dome was taking shape.52 The Aberdeen recruits' work was coming to an end, and many of them were preparing to leave Texas.

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The Aberdeen recruits soon discovered that the high wages and utopian working conditions promised by Berry did not materialize, and dissatisfaction rapidly set in. Courtesy Austin History Center, Austin Public Library.

Meanwhile, however, the American Granite Cutters' Union was pursuing the prosecution of the Capitol syndicate through the Austin courts. Papers provided by the renegade recruits at New York, which clearly indicated the existence of an illegal contract involving Wilke, Berry, and the immigrants, were forwarded to Austin. In July 1886 Wilke, the Farwell Brothers, Taylor, and Babcock were accordingly indicted in the Federal District Court in Austin, charged with having violated the one-year-old Contract Labor Law. Hearing of the case was postponed until August 1887, and during the interval the union campaigned for funds to finance its prosecution, securing a grant of $5,000 from the General Assembly of the Knights of Labor.53 In March 1887 several Aberdeen recruits who expected to leave Austin before August testified on behalf of the prosecution before a Circuit Court clerk in Austin. They included George Edwards, Alexander Gregg, and James Taylor, who all intended to return to Aberdeen, Thomas Kesson from Stonehaven (bound for Georgia), Alexander Gibbs from Aberdeen (going to St. Louis), Alexander Steel from Wartle (also going to Missouri in the hope of finding work at St. Louis or Graniteville) and William Porter, one of the blacksmiths (going to Wisconsin). George Kelman, who had been in the U.S.A. on four previous occasions, hoped to find work in Texas. All the witnesses claimed that they had come to Austin on the strength of a promise of employment made to them by George Berry in Aberdeen in April 1886. Berry had shown them a letter from Gus Wilke authorizing him to recruit 150 granite cutters, whose passage money would be prepaid on condition that they subsequently repaid the sums advanced ($38-$40) out of their wages. According to Alexander Steele:

George Berry told me all about the job and about the climate, and about there being good water here and that there was shade going to be put up, and that Gus Wilke had a steam traveler that there was labourers there to turn those rocks and that we would have a big pile of rocks there which we would never have to wait for and that the quarry was fifteen miles distant and that there was a large number of convicts there some quarrying and some cutting rock and that if we would agree to come with him our passage money would be advanced all excepting one pound five shillings, which we had to pay part of it as a security that we would come when the expedition started and part of the money went for our ship kit and to transfer our baggage from Greenock station to the boat. Also that it would require at least 18 months steady granite cutting to complete cutting stone for the building and that we had to pay back our advanced fares ... I asked him [Berry] why the job was scabbed and he told me that the National Granite Cutters Union scabbed the job unjustly and that it was scabbed nearly three months before they commenced to cut rock, or before there was convicts employed but that the convicts would be discharged when we arrived at Burnet, Texas, and that was the only fault the Stone Cutters Union had against it, and that we could get board and lodging from 16 to 18 and 20 dollars per month.54


On this basis the men had made verbal agreements with Berry to work for Wilke (whom they first met in Houston on May 2). But on July 30, 1886, those still at Burnet were asked to sign a statement to the effect that they had made "no contract of any character whatsoever with Gus Wilke or with any other person for Gus Wilke to perform any service ... for Wilke previous to ... becoming a resident of the USA."55 In their testimony Steele and another witness, Andrew Durno, both admitted that they had signed this document knowing it to be false. Durno had been ill at the time and Steele had feared that refusal to sign would have meant dismissal and great hardship; "at that time I was without money and understood from others in the public papers that every union and trade organization wanted to see us starve."56

Hearing of the case was again postponed in August 1887, and when it eventually came to court two years later Wilke stood alone, the names of the members of the Capitol Syndicate having been dropped from the prosecution.57 Wilke admitted the charge of violating the Contract Labor Law and was fined the statutory penalty of $1,000 for each illegally imported worker, together with $1,000 costs, making a total penalty of $64,000. But he was given up to eighteen months' stay of execution in order to appeal to Washington, and when judgment was finally executed in 1893 he was fined only $8,000 and costs. This clemency infuriated the Granite Cutters' Union, which claimed that Wilke had pleaded guilty in order to shield the Capitol Syndicate, and that the syndicate had then used its political influence in Washington to nullify the sentence passed on its scapegoat and thus defeat the law.58 [Why, for instance, did a North Dakota senator with no obvious interest in the case request the district attorney at Austin to grant a stay of execution on his judgment against Wilke? See Federal Court, Austin District, letter of Aug. 29, 1890, from F.A. Reeve, Acting Solicitor, U.S. Department of Justice, to A.J. Evans, U.S. District Attorney, Austin District, authorizing a stay of execution on the judgment against Wilke at the request of Senator G.A. Pierce of North Dakota, in Allen, "The Capital Boycott," 82. See also American Federation of Labor, Convention Proceedings, 1889, pp. 24-25, in ibid., 85-86. The Granite Cutters' Union persuaded the American Federation of Labor to protest to President Harrison against what it saw as an evasion of the law.]

The American Granite Cutters' Union was interested not only in prosecuting the contractors but in punishing the Aberdeen tradesmen who had worked at Burnet, and throughout 1886 it mounted a sustained attack on them through its trade journal. The action of the strikebreakers was condemned as "despicable" at a time when the union was striving to secure higher wages and shorter hours within the granite industry.59 though one correspondent did observe that the ill wind that had blown the Scots to Texas had at least relieved Aberdeen of the dregs of its granite workers.60 A circular issued by the Austin Assembly of the Knights of Labor in August 1886 published the names of the strikebreakers with the warning

Mark these men, Knights of Labor, and union men of all classes. Do not work with them and have no dealings with them whatever. It is only by uniting that we can stop the working of convicts on public works. Men who work on jobs with convicts ought to be blacklisted, as they are no good to any job.

If any of these men, or men who say they have been working on the capitol building at Austin, or at Burnet or Oatmanville. come near you, let them take a walk; give them no work, and see that they get no work in your neighborhood.61


When the Austin contract ended in summer 1887, and the workmen prepared to disperse throughout the U.S.A., the Granite Cutters' National Journal reissued the list of Aberdeen recruits, along with the names of other strikebreakers not recruited by George Berry. This was again done in the hope that any of these men who sought work in other American granite centers would be remembered and cold-shouldered by the union.62

While it is not known what became of the blacklisted labor force, Wilke and Berry both made their peace with the Granite Cutters' Union in 1890, on payment of a penalty of a mere $500 each imposed by the union before it would deal with them again.63 Perhaps the protracted litigation and opposition of powerful business and political leaders had simply proved too much for the union, exhausting its funds and forcing it to drop its prosecution of the syndicate. The union certainly regarded its achievement as a rather hollow, cosmetic victory, for it had always maintained that Wilke was just the agent of the much more powerful Capitol Syndicate, and it felt that failure to secure the conviction of the syndicate itself really constituted defeat.64 [Ibid. (Allen, "The Capitol Boycott," 54.) See also San Antonio Daily Express, Aug. 2, 1888, which published a declaration by Abner Taylor that, though he had opposed the importation of the Scottish stonecutters, neither he nor any other member of the Syndicate had had the authority to prevent it.]

Nevertheless. the ramifications of the Capitol boycott extended beyond Texas and beyond the confines of the Granite Cutters' Union, to Washington itself. Since the incident provided the first real test of the Contract Labor Law, it attracted national attention and was largely responsible for an enquiry by a committee of the House of Representatives into violations of this legislation. The committee began its hearings in July 1888 (over a year before the case against Wilke finally came to trial) and the activities of the Capitol Syndicate were included in its lengthy investigations. Testimony against the contractors was led by Josiah Dyer, an English immigrant and secretary of the American Granite Cutters' Union since 1877. In "support of his claim that the Aberdeen tradesmen had been imported illegally under contract, he produced affidavits from four recruits, two of whom had left the party at New York and had not proceeded to Texas."65 Their written evidence was corroborated by two more recruits who appeared before the enquiry in person. James Anderson (who had left the party at New York) and David Dawson (who in June 1886 had acted as Wilke's agent in importing a further batch of Aberdeen tradesmen) had both since found lucrative employment in Vermont and had no intention of returning to Scotland.66

Meanwhile in Austin the troubles that had plagued the construction of the Capitol since its inception were not yet over. Building costs had doubled from the original estimate of $1,500.000 to $3,000.000.67 In 1887, drastic alterations had to be made to the design of the half-built dome, when it became clear that the original structure was likely to be dangerously heavy. Following the dedication of the Capitol on May 18, 1888, a gala and ball were under way inside the new building, when the celebrations were (quite literally) dampened by the roof leaking during a rainstorm. Allegations by W. P. Hardeman, the superintendent of building and grounds, that there were major structural defects in the roof and drains, were hotly denied by the building commissioners and the contractors.68 [Rathjen, "The Texas State House," 458-459. The commissioners claimed that Hardeman was unfamiliar with the specifications and was therefore not competent to judge the structure. Wilke pointed out to the Capitol Board that he had warned of problems with a copper roof, but having registered his protest, he had then used the materials specified in the contract. Although he insisted he was not to blame for the defective roof, he felt that any fault in the structure would damage his reputation. For this reason, together with his desire to see the contract finally settled, he himself offered to bear the cost of either replacing the copper roof with a tin one, or guaranteeing to maintain the existing roof for a period of three years.] In August 1888 contractor Abner Taylor and sub-contractor Gus Wilke tendered the building for acceptance and asked for the final settlement of their account; but Hardeman enlisted the support of the state's attorney general, Jim Hogg, to ensure that payment of the residue of the land due to the contractors would be withheld until all defects had been repaired to his satisfaction.69 Taylor, desperate to conclude the contract, offered to have independent experts inspect the building and promised to correct any faults that were pointed out to him. The Capitol Board accordingly secured the services of Washington architect Edward Miller, who examined the structure and reported a number of problems of a fairly minor nature. By December 1888 these faults had been rectified to Miller's satisfaction, and on December 8, on his recommendation, the state unanimously agreed to accept the building, thus closing the first troubled chapter in the history of the Texas State Capitol.

What was the main significance of the Capitol boycott of 1886 and the consequent introduction of strikebreakers from Aberdeen? The importation of the Scottish tradesmen did not hinder the completion of the building; indeed their skills, together with the continuing labor of numerous convicts, perhaps expedited its construction. Nor did the ill-feeling generated have any permanent impact on the continuing flow of granite tradesmen from northeast Scotland to the United States. The American Granite Cutters' Union certainly used the incident to make a stand against unfair competition from convict and nonunion labor. But its real significance lay in the way in which (through the ensuing court case and congressional enquiry) the dispute focused national attention on the one-year-old Contract Labor Law and exposed the inadequacy of that legislation.70 The Capitol boycott provided the first test for legislation that, despite being rewritten by Congress on at least six occasions between 1887 and 1907, remained founded on a misconception and therefore never succeeded in its aim of preventing the immigration of undesirable aliens.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/4/20

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The Royal Banner of Scotland is also the banner of the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

The Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is the British Sovereign's personal representative to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (the Kirk), reflecting the Church's role as the national church of Scotland and the Sovereign's role as protector and member of that Church.

History

Lord High Commissioners were appointed to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland between 1603 and 1707 as the Sovereign's personal representative. The Act of Union 1707 made this function redundant, but a Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has been appointed each year, as the Sovereign's personal representative, since 1690.

Prior to 1929, the General Assembly was held in the former Tolbooth Highland St John's Church on Edinburgh's Royal Mile (this building is no longer used as a church, instead being converted into "The Hub" for the Edinburgh International Festival society), where a Throne was provided for the use of the Lord High Commissioner. The union of the Church of Scotland and the (non-established) United Free Church of Scotland took place in 1929. Since 1930 the General Assembly has always met in the former United Free Church Assembly Hall on The Mound, Edinburgh. The Lord High Commissioner sits on the Throne in the Royal Gallery, which is technically "outside" the Assembly Hall—symbolising the independence of the Church in matters spiritual from state interference. The first Assembly of the newly united church in 1929 was held in halls in Annandale Street, Edinburgh (now a bus garage), the only building large enough. Difficulty in accessing the Royal Gallery in this temporary location led to a seemingly trivial but nevertheless embarrassing dispute over protocol, whereby the Lord High Commissioner (the Duke of York, later King George VI) would have had to enter through the Assembly Hall itself—an act of symbolic state interference in the hard-won spiritual independence of the church. The Moderator, Dr John White, was adamant that this would be unacceptable, even suggesting that the post of Lord High Commissioner could be dispensed with. Eventually a suitable arrangement was agreed upon and the office of Lord High Commissioner has survived.

Functions

The office has always been largely ceremonial. The person appointed invariably has a distinguished record of public service in Scotland as well as having close connections with the church, often being an Elder of the Church of Scotland.

On behalf of the Sovereign, the Lord High Commissioner attends the General Assembly, makes opening and closing addresses to the Assembly, and carries out a number of official visits and ceremonial functions (not all related to the Church of Scotland). At the formal opening of the General Assembly, the Principal Clerk reads out the Royal Warrant appointing the Lord High Commissioner, who is then invited to address the Assembly. All ministers, elders and deacons appointed by Presbyteries to attend the General Assembly are known as "Commissioners" and have voting powers; the Lord High Commissioner, however, has no vote, nor may he/she intervene in debates.

Apart from his/her opening and closing addresses, the Lord High Commissioner makes no further intervention in Assembly debates but will be in daily attendance for at least part of each day's business. Following the Assembly, the Lord High Commissioner personally informs The Queen about the business of the week.

Form of address

While the General Assembly is meeting, the Lord High Commissioner is treated as if a regent. By custom, he or she is addressed as "Your Grace" and is greeted with a bow or curtsey. When the Princess Royal was appointed in 1996, she was styled as "Her Grace" for the duration rather than her normal dynastic style "Her Royal Highness" because the Lord High Commissioner is ranked higher in the order of precedence.

If a woman is appointed to the office, the alternative title "Her Majesty's High Commissioner" may, if requested, be used. Margaret Herbison was the first woman to hold the post (1970 & 1971).

Residence

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-- Holyrood Palace, by Wikipedia


Since 1834 the Lord High Commissioner has resided at the Palace of Holyroodhouse and gave a garden party for Commissioners to the General Assembly on the Saturday afternoon of Assembly week and other hospitality. He or she is entitled to use the Scottish Royal Banner, and has precedence immediately after the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and before the rest of the Royal Family. Even his or her official car receives special treatment and, except for the Queen's, is the only vehicle in the country not to have number plates. However, the plates are re-attached during the closing speech of the Assembly, and the Lord High Commissioner returns to his royal but temporary residence as an ordinary citizen. In recent years, the garden party has been replaced by the "Heart and Soul" event, held in Princes Street Gardens and attended by the Lord High Commissioner.[1]

Household

There is a Household of His Grace the Lord High Commissioner. This includes the Purse Bearer (who is the head of the Household), Chaplain, Aides-de-Camp (three in 1949), a Lady-in-Waiting, Extra Lady-in-Waiting, and Maids of Honour (three in 1949). The Macebearer bears the Lord President's Mace or the Old Exchequer Mace. The Master of the Horse is no longer appointed. The subordinate staff further includes the Assistant to the Purse Bearer, and a Lady's Maid. The Household make no financial demands on the funds of the Church of Scotland, which are devoted exclusively to the Parish and Mission work of the Kirk.

List of Purse Bearers

• 1930–1958: Lt Col Sir Edward Daymonde-Stevenson KCVO MC
• 1959–1960: David Charles Scott-Moncrieff CVO TD WS
• 1961–1969: Sir Alastair Blair KCVO TD JP WS
• 1969–1988: Sir Charles Fraser KCVO
• 1988–2001: Robin Blair LVO WS
• 2001–present: Tom Murray WS

List of Lords High Commissioner

• 1580: The Laird of Lundie & Sir James Balfour of Pittendreich or James Halyburton
• 1581: William Cunningham, 4th Laird of Caprington
• April 1582: Ralph Kerr
• October 1582: James Halyburton & Colonel William Stewart of Houston
• incomplete
• 1639: The Earl of Traquair
• 1640: none
• 1641: The Earl of Wemyss
• 1642: The Earl of Dunfermline
• 1643: Sir Thomas Hope
• 1644–1645: none
• 1646: Letter from the King regretting that no Commissioner could be sent
• 1647–1650: none
• 1651: The Earl of Balcarres
• 1652: none
• 1653: none
• 1653–1690: no General Assembly
• 1690: The Lord Carmichael
• 1692: The Earl of Lothian
• 1694–1699: The Lord Carmichael
• 1700: The Viscount Seafield (became an earl before serving again in 1703)
• 1701: The Earl of Annandale (became a marquess before serving again in 1705 and 1711)
• 1702: The Earl of Marchmont
• 1703: The Earl of Seafield (succeeded as Earl of Findlater before serving again in 1724)
• 1704: The Lord Ross
• 1705: The Marquess of Annandale
• 1706–1710: The 1st Earl of Glasgow
• 1711: The Marquess of Annandale
• 1712–1714: The 1st Duke of Atholl
• 1715–1721: The Earl of Rothes
• 1722: The Earl of Loudoun
• 1723: The 1st Earl of Hopetoun
• 1724: The Earl of Findlater
• 1725–1726: The Earl of Loudoun
• 1727: The Earl of Findlater
• 1728: The Earl of Loudoun
• 1729: The Earl of Buchan
• 1730–1731: The Earl of Loudoun
• 1732–1738: The Marquess of Lothian
• 1739–1740: The Earl of Hyndford
• 1741–1753: The 5th Earl of Leven
• 1754: The 2nd Earl of Hopetoun
• 1755–1763: The Lord Cathcart
• 1764–1772: The 3rd Earl of Glasgow
• 1773–1776: The Lord Cathcart
• 1777–1782: The Earl of Dalhousie
• 1783–1801: The 6th Earl of Leven
• 1802–1816: The Lord Napier
• 1817–1818: The Earl of Erroll
• 1819–1824: The Earl of Morton
• 1825–1830: The Lord Forbes
• 1831–1841: The Lord Belhaven and Stenton
• 1842–1846: The Marquess of Bute
• 1847–1851: The Lord Belhaven and Stenton
• 1852: The Earl of Mansfield and Mansfield
• 1853–1857: The Lord Belhaven and Stenton
• 1858–1859: The Earl of Mansfield and Mansfield
• 1860–1866: The Lord Belhaven and Stenton
• 1867–1868: The Earl of Haddington
• 1869–1871: The 10th Earl of Stair
• 1872–1873: The Earl of Airlie
• 1874–1875: The Earl of Rosslyn
• 1876–1877: The Earl of Galloway
• 1878–1880: The Earl of Rosslyn
• 1881–1885: The Earl of Aberdeen
• 1886: The Lord Thurlow
• 1887–1889: The 7th Earl of Hopetoun
• 1889–1892: The Marquess of Tweeddale
• 1893–1895: The Marquess of Breadalbane
• 1896–1897: The Marquess of Tweeddale
• 1898–1906: The 11th Earl of Leven[2][3]
• 1907–1909: The 11th Lord Kinnaird
• 1910: The 11th Earl of Stair
• 1911–1914: The Lord Glenconner
• 1915: The Earl of Aberdeen
• 1916–1917: The 5th Duke of Montrose
• 1918–1920: The 8th Duke of Atholl
• 1921–1922: The Duke of Sutherland
• 1923: The Lord Elphinstone
• 1924: James Brown MP (made a privy counsellor before serving again in 1930)
• 1925–1926: The 10th Earl of Elgin
• 1927–1928: The 12th Earl of Stair
• 1929: The Duke of York (later George VI)
• 1930–1931: James Brown MP
• 1932: Sir Iain Colquhoun
• 1933–1934: John Buchan
• 1935: The Duke of Kent
• 1936–1937: The 12th Lord Kinnaird
• 1938–1939: Lt Col Sir John Gilmour, 2nd Bt
• 1940–1941: Sir Iain Colquhoun
• 1942–1943: The 6th Duke of Montrose
• 1944–1945: The Marquess of Linlithgow
• 1946–1947: George Mathers MP (made a privy counsellor before serving again in 1948)
• 1948: George Mathers MP
• 1949: The Duke of Gloucester
• 1950: The Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope
• 1951: George Mathers MP
• 1952: The Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope
• 1953–1955: The Duke of Hamilton
• 1956–1957: Walter Elliot MP
• 1958: The Duke of Hamilton
• 1959–1960: The Earl of Wemyss and March
• 1961–1963: The Duke of Gloucester
• 1964: General Sir Richard O'Connor
• 1965–1966: Lord Birsay
• 1967–1968: The Lord Reith
• 1969: The Queen attended in person
• 1970: Peggy Herbison
• 1971–1972: The Lord Clydesmuir
• 1973–1974: The Lord Ballantrae
• 1975–1976: Sir Hector MacLennan
• 1977: The Earl of Wemyss and March
• 1978–1979: Willie Ross (former Secretary of State for Scotland)
• 1980–1981: The 11th Earl of Elgin
• 1982–1983: Col Sir John Gilmour, 3rd Bt
• 1984–1985: The Lord Maclean
• 1986–1987: The Viscount of Arbuthnott
• 1988–1989: Captain Sir Iain Tennant
• 1990–1991: Lord Ross, Lord Justice Clerk
• 1992–1993: The Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden
• 1994–1995: Lady Fraser
• 1996: The Princess Royal
• 1997: The Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden
• 1998–1999: The Lord Hogg of Cumbernauld
• 2000: The Prince Charles, Duke of Rothesay
• 2001: The Viscount Younger of Leckie (former Secretary of State for Scotland)
• 2002: The Queen attended in person
• 2003–2004: The Lord Steel of Aikwood (former Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament and former Leader of the Liberal Democrats)
• 2005–2006: The Lord Mackay of Clashfern (former Lord Chancellor)
• 2007: The Earl of Inverness
• 2008–2009:[4] George Reid (former Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament)
• 2010–2011: The Lord Wilson of Tillyorn (former Governor of Hong Kong)
• 2012–2013: The Lord Selkirk of Douglas
• 2014: The Earl of Wessex[5]
• 2015–2016: The Lord Hope of Craighead [6]
• 2017: The Princess Royal
• 2018–2019: The Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry

See also

• Supreme Governor of the Church of England
• List of Moderators of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
• Order of precedence in Scotland
• Lord Lieutenant
• Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland

References

1. Heart and Soul 2016.
2. "No. 27310". The London Gazette. 3 May 1901. p. 3033.
3. "No. 27428". The London Gazette. 25 April 1902. p. 2789.
4. Appointment of Lord High Commissioner for 2009 Archived 2008-12-09 at the UK Government Web Archive
5. Number 10 – Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2014 (Accessed 8 December 2013)
6. Queen Appoints senior judge as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly.
• Church of Scotland website
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Tue Jan 07, 2020 1:07 am

Part 1 of 2

First Sino-Japanese War
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/6/20

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


China’s loss of prestige in Tibet since the Japano-Chinese war owing to her inability to assert her power over the vassal state has much to do with this pro-Russian leaning. China is no longer respected, much less feared by the Tibetans. Previous to that war and before China’s internal incompetence had been laid bare by Japan, relations like those between master and vassal bound Tibet to China. The latter interfered with the internal affairs of Tibet and meted out punishments freely to the Tibetan dignitaries and even to the Grand Lama. Now she is entirely helpless. She could not even demand explanations from Tibet when that country was thrown into an unusual agitation about the Temo Rinpoche’s affair. The Tibetans are now conducting themselves in utter disregard or even in defiance of the wishes of China, for they are aware of the powerlessness of China to take any active steps against them. They know that their former suzerain is fallen and is therefore no longer to be depended upon. They are prejudiced against England on account of her subjugation of India, and so they have naturally concluded that they should establish friendly relations with Russia, which they knew was England’s bitter foe.

It is evident that the Dalai Lama himself favors this view, and it may safely be presumed that unless he was favorably disposed towards Russia he would never have[505] accepted the bishop’s garment from the Tsar. He is too intelligent a man to accept any present from a foreign sovereign as a mere compliment.

The Dalai Lama’s friendly inclination was clearly established when in December, 1900, he sent to Russia his grand Chamberlain as envoy with three followers. Leaving Lhasa on that date the party first proceeded towards the Tsan-ni Kenbo’s native place, whence they were taken by the Siberian railway, and in time reached S. Petersburg. The party was received with warm welcome by that court, to which it offered presents brought from Tibet. It is said that on that occasion a secret understanding was reached between the two Governments.


-- Three Years in Tibet, by Shramana Ekai Kawaguchi


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First Sino-Japanese War
First Sino-Japanese War, major battles and troop movements
Date 25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895
(8 months, 2 weeks and 2 days)
Location: Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan, Yellow Sea
Result: Japanese victory

Significant loss of prestige for the Qing Empire
Joseon removed from the Qing Empire's vassalage
Korean Peninsula transferred to Japanese sphere of influence
Treaty of Shimonoseki
Territorial
changes The Qing Empire cedes Taiwan, Penghu, and the Liaodong Peninsula to the Empire of Japan.
Belligerents: China Japan
Commanders and leaders:
Guangxu Emperor
Empress Dowager Cixi
Li Hongzhang
Liu Kunyi
Song Qing
Ding Ruchang †
Liu Buchan †
Ye Zhichao
Zuo Baogui †
Meiji Emperor
Itō Hirobumi
Yamagata Aritomo
Nozu Michitsura
Ōyama Iwao
Itō Sukeyuki
Strength
630,000 men 240,616 men
Casualties and losses
35,000 dead and wounded 1,132 dead
3,758 wounded
285 died of wounds
11,894 died of disease

Image
War of Jiawu – referring to the year 1894 under the traditional sexagenary system

The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895), also known as the Chino-Japanese War, was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea.[1] After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the port of Weihaiwei, the Qing government sued for peace in February 1895.

The war demonstrated the failure of the Qing dynasty's attempts to modernize its military and fend off threats to its sovereignty, especially when compared with Japan's successful Meiji Restoration. For the first time, regional dominance in East Asia shifted from China to Japan;[2] the prestige of the Qing Dynasty, along with the classical tradition in China, suffered a major blow. The humiliating loss of Korea as a tributary state sparked an unprecedented public outcry. Within China, the defeat was a catalyst for a series of political upheavals led by Sun Yat-sen and Kang Youwei, culminating in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution.

The war is commonly known in China as the War of Jiawu (Chinese: 甲午戰爭; pinyin: Jiǎwǔ Zhànzhēng), referring to the year (1894) as named under the traditional sexagenary system of years. In Japan, it is called the Japan–Qing War (Japanese: 日清戦争, Hepburn: Nisshin sensō). In Korea, where much of the war took place, it is called the Qing–Japan War (Korean: 청일전쟁; Hanja: 淸日戰爭).

Background

After two centuries, the Japanese policy of seclusion under the shōguns of the Edo period came to an end when the country was opened to trade by the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. In the years following the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and the fall of the shogunate, the newly formed Meiji government embarked on reforms to centralize and modernize Japan.[3] The Japanese had sent delegations and students around the world to learn and assimilate Western arts and sciences, with the intention of making Japan an equal to the Western powers.[4] These reforms transformed Japan from a feudal society into a modern industrial state.

The Qing Dynasty had also started to undergo reform in both military and political doctrine, but was far from successful.

Korean politics

In January 1864, Cheoljong of Joseon died without a male heir, and through Korean succession protocols Gojong of Korea ascended the throne at the age of 12. However, as King Gojong was too young to rule, the new king's father, Yi Ha-ŭng, became the Heungseon Daewongun, or lord of the great court, and ruled Korea in his son's name as regent.[5] Originally the term Daewongun referred to any person who was not actually the king but whose son took the throne.[5] With his ascendancy to power the Daewongun initiated a set of reforms designed to strengthen the monarchy at the expense of the Yangban class. He also pursued an isolationist policy and was determined to purge the kingdom of any foreign ideas that had infiltrated into the nation.[6] In Korean history, the king's in-laws enjoyed great power, consequently the Daewongun acknowledged that any future daughters-in-law might threaten his authority.[7] Therefore, he attempted to prevent any possible threat to his rule by selecting as a new queen for his son an orphaned girl from among the Yŏhŭng Min clan, which lacked powerful political connections.[8] With Empress Myeongseong as his daughter-in-law and the royal consort, the Daewongun felt secure in his power.[8] However, after she had become queen, Min recruited all her relatives and had them appointed to influential positions in the name of the king. The Queen also allied herself with political enemies of the Daewongun, so that by late 1873 she had mobilized enough influence to oust him from power.[8] In October 1873, when the Confucian scholar Choe Ik-hyeon submitted a memorial to King Gojong urging him to rule in his own right, Queen Min seized the opportunity to force her father-in-law's retirement as regent.[8] The departure of the Daewongun led to Korea's abandonment of its isolationist policy.[8]

Opening of Korea

On February 26, 1876, after confrontations between the Japanese and Koreans, the Ganghwa Treaty was signed, opening Korea to Japanese trade. In 1880, the King sent a mission to Japan that was headed by Kim Hong-jip, an enthusiastic observer of the reforms taking place there.[9] While in Japan, the Chinese diplomat Huang Zunxian presented him with a study called "Chaoxian Celue" (A Strategy for Korea).[9] It warned of the threat to Korea posed by the Russians and recommended that Korea maintain friendly relations with Japan, which was at the time too economically weak to be an immediate threat, to work closely with China, and seek an alliance with the United States as a counterweight to Russia.[10] After returning to Korea, Kim presented the document to King Gojong, who was so impressed with the document that he had copies made and distributed to his officials.[11]

In 1880, following Chinese advice and breaking with tradition, King Gojong decided to establish diplomatic ties with the United States.[12] After negotiations through Chinese mediation in Tianjin, the Treaty of Peace, Amity, Commerce, and Navigation was formally signed between the United States and Korea in Incheon on May 22, 1882.[12] However, there were two significant issues raised by the treaty, the first concerned Korea's status as an independent nation. During the talks with the Americans, the Chinese insisted that the treaty contain an article declaring that Korea was a dependency of China and argued that the country had long been a tributary state of China.[12] But the Americans firmly opposed such an article, arguing that a treaty with Korea should be based on the Treaty of Ganghwa, which stipulated that Korea was an independent state.[13] A compromise was finally reached, with Shufeldt and Li agreeing that the King of Korea would notify the U.S president in a letter that Korea had special status as a tributary state of China.[13] The treaty between the Korean government and the United States became the model for all treaties between it and other Western countries. Korea later signed similar trade and commerce treaties with Great Britain and Germany in 1883, with Italy and Russia in 1884, and with France in 1886. Subsequently, commercial treaties were concluded with other European countries.[14]

Korean reforms

After 1879, China's relations with Korea came under the authority of Li Hongzhang, who had emerged as one of the most influential figures in China after playing an important role during the Taiping Rebellion, and was also an advocate of the self-strengthening movement.[11] In 1879, Li was appointed as governor-general of Zhili Province and the imperial commissioner for the northern ports. He was in charge of China's Korea policy and urged Korean officials to adopt China's own self-strengthening program to strengthen their country in response to foreign threats, to which King Gojong was receptive.[11] The Korean government, immediately after opening of the country to the outside world, pursued a policy of enlightenment aimed at achieving national prosperity and military strength through the doctrine of tongdo sŏgi (Eastern ways and Western machines).[14] To modernize their country, the Koreans tried selectively to accept and master Western technology while preserving their country's cultural values and heritage.[14]

In January 1881, the government launched administrative reforms and established the T'ongni kimu amun (Office for Extraordinary State Affairs) which was modeled on Chinese administrative structures.[14] Under this overarching organization, 12 sa or agencies were created.[14] In 1881, a technical mission was sent to Japan to survey its modernized facilities.[15] Officials traveled all over Japan inspecting administrative, military, educational, and industrial facilities.[15] In October, another small group went to Tianjin to study modern weapons manufacturing, and Chinese technicians were invited to manufacture weapons in Seoul. Additionally, as part of their plan to modernize the country, the Koreans had invited the Japanese military attaché Lieutenant Horimoto Reizō to serve as an adviser in creating a modern army.[16] A new military formation called the Pyŏlgigun (Special Skills Force) was established, in which eighty to one hundred young men[17] of the aristocracy were to be given Japanese military training.[18] The following year, in January 1882, the government also reorganized the existing five-army garrison structure into the Muwiyŏng (Palace Guards Garrison) and the Changŏyŏng (Capital Guards Garrison).[14]

Japanese insecurities over Korea

During the 1880s, discussions in Japan about national security focused on the issue of Korean reform. The political discourse over the two were interlinked, as the German military adviser Major Jacob Meckel stated, Korea was "a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan".[19] What made Korea of strategic concern was not merely its proximity to Japan but its inability to defend itself against outsiders. If Korea were truly independent, it posed no strategic problem to Japan's national security but if the country remained backward and uncivilized it would remain weak and consequently would be inviting prey for foreign domination.[20] The political consensus in Japan was that Korean independence lay, as it had been for Meiji Japan, through the importation of "civilization" from the West.[19] Korea required a program of self-strengthening like the post-Restoration reforms that were enacted in Japan.[20] The Japanese interest in the reform of Korea was not purely altruistic. Not only would these reforms enable Korea to resist foreign intrusion, which was in Japan's direct interest, but through being a conduit of change they would also have opportunity to play a larger role on the peninsula.[19] To Meiji leaders, the issue was not whether Korea should be reformed but how these reforms might be implemented. There was a choice of adopting a passive role which required the cultivation of reformist elements within Korean society and rendering them assistance whenever possible, or adopting a more aggressive policy, actively interfering in Korean politics to assure that reform took place.[21] Many Japanese advocates of Korean reform swung between these two positions.

Japan in the early 1880s was weak, as a result of internal peasant uprisings and samurai rebellions during the previous decade. The country was also struggling financially, with inflation as a result of these internal factors. Subsequently, the Meiji government adopted a passive policy, encouraging the Korean court to follow the Japanese model but offering little concrete assistance except for the dispatch of the small military mission headed by Lieutenant Horimoto Reizo to train the Pyŏlgigun.[21] What worried the Japanese was the Chinese, who had loosened their hold over Korea in 1876 when the Japanese succeeded in establishing a legal basis for Korean independence by ending its tributary status.[22] Chinese actions appeared to be thwarting the forces of reform in Korea and re-asserting their influence over the country.[22]

1882 crisis

Main article: Imo Incident

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Woodblock print depicting the flight of the Japanese legation in 1882

In 1882, the Korean Peninsula experienced a severe drought which led to food shortages, causing much hardship and discord among the population. Korea was on the verge of bankruptcy, even falling months behind on military pay, causing deep resentment among the soldiers. There was also resentment towards the Pyŏlgigun on the part of the soldiers of the regular Korean army, as the formation was better equipped and treated.[16] Additionally, more than 1000 soldiers had been discharged in the process of overhauling the army, most of them were either old or disabled and the rest had not been given their pay in rice for thirteen months.[18]

In June of that year, King Gojong, being informed of the situation, ordered that a month's allowance of rice be given to the soldiers.[18] He directed Min Gyeom-ho, the overseer of government finances and the Queen Min's nephew,[23] to handle the matter. Min in turn handed the matter over to his steward who sold the good rice he had been given and used the money to buy millet which he mixed with sand and bran.[18] As a result, the rice became rotten and inedible. The distribution of the alleged rice infuriated the soldiers. On July 23, a military mutiny and riot broke out in Seoul. Enraged soldiers headed for the residence of Min Gyeom-ho, who they had suspected of having swindled them out of their rice.[18] Min, on hearing word of the revolt, ordered the police to arrest some of the ringleaders and announced that they would be executed the next morning. He had assumed that this would serve as a warning to the other agitators. However, after learning what had transpired, the rioters broke into Min's house to take vengeance; as he was not at his residence the rioters vented their frustrations by destroying his furniture and other possessions.[18]

The rioters then moved on to an armory from which they stole weapons and ammunition, and then headed for the prison. After overpowering the guards, they released not only the men who had been arrested that day by Min Gyeom-ho but also many political prisoners as well.[18] Min then summoned the army to quell the rebellion but it had become too late to suppress the mutiny. The original body of mutineers had been swelled by the poor and disaffected citizenry of the city, as a result the revolt had assumed major proportions.[18] The rioters now turned their attention to the Japanese. One group headed to Lieutenant Horimoto's quarters and killed him.[18] Another group, some 3,000 strong headed for the Japanese legation, where Hanabusa Yoshitada the minister to Korea and twenty seven members of the legation resided.[18] The mob surrounded the legation shouting its intention of killing all the Japanese inside.[18] Hanabusa gave orders to burn the legation and important documents were set on fire. As the flames quickly spread, the members of the legation escaped through a rear gate, where they fled to the harbor and boarded a boat which took them down the Han River to Chemulpo. Taking refuge with the Incheon commandant, they were again forced to flee after word arrived of the events in Seoul and the attitude of their hosts changed. They escaped to the harbor during heavy rain and were pursued by Korean soldiers. Six Japanese were killed, while another five were seriously wounded.[18] The survivors carrying the wounded, then boarded a small boat and headed for the open sea where three days later they were rescued by a British survey ship, HMS Flying Fish,[24] which took them to Nagasaki. The following day, after the attack on the Japanese legation, the rioters forced their way into the royal palace where they found and killed Min Gyeom-ho, as well as a dozen other high-ranking officers.[24] They also searched for Queen Min. The queen narrowly escaped, however, dressed as an ordinary lady of the court and was carried on the back of a faithful guard who claimed she was his sister.[24] The Daewongun used the incident to reassert his power.

The Chinese then deployed about 4,500 troops to Korea, under General Wu Changqing, which effectively regained control and quelled the rebellion.[25] In response, the Japanese also sent four warships and a battalion of troops to Seoul to safeguard Japanese interests and demand reparations. However, tensions subsided with the Treaty of Chemulpo, signed on the evening of August 30, 1882. The agreement specified that the Korean conspirators would be punished and ¥50,000 would be paid to the families of slain Japanese. The Japanese government would also receive ¥500,000, a formal apology, and permission to station troops at their diplomatic legation in Seoul. In the aftermath of rebellion, the Daewongun was accused of fomenting the rebellion and its violence, and was arrested by Chinese and taken to Tianjin.[26] He was later carried off to a town about sixty miles southwest of Beijing, where for three years he was confined to one room and kept under strict surveillance.[27]

Re-assertion of Chinese influence

After the Imo Incident, early reform efforts in Korea suffered a major setback.[28] In the aftermath of the incident, the Chinese reasserted their influence over the peninsula, where they began to directly interfere in Korean internal affairs.[28] After stationing troops at strategic points in the capital Seoul, the Chinese undertook several initiatives to gain significant influence over the Korean government.[29] Two special advisers on foreign affairs representing Chinese interests were dispatched to Korea: the German Paul Georg von Möllendorff, a close confidant of Li Hongzhang, and the Chinese diplomat Ma Jianzhong.[30] A staff of Chinese officers also took over the training of the army, providing the Koreans with 1,000 rifles, two cannons, and 10,000 rounds of ammunition.[31] Furthermore, the Chingunyeong (Capital Guards Command), a new Korean military formation, was created and trained along Chinese lines by Yuan Shikai.[30]

In October, the two countries signed a treaty stipulating that Korea was a dependency of China and granted Chinese merchants the right to conduct overland and maritime business freely within its borders. It also gave the Chinese substantial advantages over the Japanese and Westerners and also granted them unilateral extraterritoriality privileges in civil and criminal cases.[31] Under the treaty the number of Chinese merchants and traders greatly increased, a severe blow to Korean merchants.[30] Although it allowed Koreans reciprocally to trade in Beijing the agreement was not a treaty but was in effect issued as a regulation for a vassal.[28] Additionally, during the following year, the Chinese supervised the creation of a Korean Maritime Customs Service, headed by von Möllendorff.[28] Korea was reduced to a semi-colonial tributary state of China with King Gojong unable to appoint diplomats without Chinese approval,[32] and with troops stationed in the country to protect Chinese interests.[nb 1]

Factional rivalry and ascendancy of the Min clan

During the 1880s two rival factions emerged in Korea. One was a small group of reformers that had centered around the Gaehwadang, (Enlightenment Party) which had become frustrated at the limited scale and arbitrary pace of reforms.[28] The members who constituted the Enlightenment Party were youthful, well-educated Koreans and most were from the yangban class.[28] They were impressed by the developments in Meiji Japan and were eager to emulate them.[28] Its members included Kim Ok-gyun, Pak Yung-hio, Hong Yeong-sik, Seo Gwang-beom, and Soh Jaipil.[33] The group was also relatively young; Pak Yung-hio came from a prestigious lineage related to the royal family, was 23, Hong was 29, Seo Gwang-beom was 25, and Soh Jaipil was 20; with Kim Ok-gyun being the oldest at 33.[33] All had spent some time in Japan, Pak Yung-hio had been part of a mission sent to Japan to apologize for the Imo incident in 1882.[28] He had been accompanied by Seo Gwang-beom and by Kim Ok-gyun, who later come under the influence of Japanese modernizers such as Fukuzawa Yukichi. Kim Ok-gyun, while studying in Japan, had also cultivated friendships with influential Japanese figures and became the de facto leader of the group.[33] They were also strongly nationalistic and desired to make their country truly independent by ending Chinese interference in Korea's internal affairs.[30]

The Sadaedang was a group of conservatives, which included not only Min Yeong-ik from the Min family but also other prominent Korean political figures that wanted to maintain power with China's help. Although the members of the Sadaedang supported the enlightenment policy, they favored gradual changes based on the Chinese model.[30] After the Imo incident, the Min clan pursued a pro-Chinese policy. This was also partly a matter of opportunism as the intervention by Chinese troops led to subsequent exile of the rival Daewongun in Tianjin and the expansion of Chinese influence in Korea, but it also reflected an ideological disposition also shared by many Koreans toward the more comfortable and traditional relationship as a tributary of China.[33] Consequently, the Min clan became advocates of the "dongdo seogi" (Adopting Western knowledge while keeping Eastern values) philosophy, this had originated from the ideas of moderate Chinese reformers who had emphasized the need to maintain the perceived superior cultural values and heritage[14] of the Sino-centric world while recognizing the importance of acquiring and adopting Western technology, particularly military technology, in order to preserve autonomy. Hence, rather than the major institutional reforms such as the adaptation of new values such as legal equality or introducing modern education like in Meiji Japan, the advocates of this school of thought sought piecemeal adoptions of institutions that would strengthen the state while preserving the basic social, political, and cultural order.[33] Through the ascendancy of Queen Min to the throne, the Min clan had also been able to use the newly created institutions by the government as bases for political power, subsequently with their growing monopoly of key positions they frustrated the ambitions of the Enlightenment Party.[33]

Gapsin Coup

Main article: Gapsin Coup

In the two years proceeding the Imo incident, the members of the Gaehwadang had failed to secure appointments to vital offices in the government and were unable to implement their reform plans.[34] As a consequence they were prepared to seize power by all means necessary. In 1884, an opportunity to seize power by staging a coup d'état against the Sadaedang presented itself. In August, as hostilities between France and China erupted over Annam, half of the Chinese troops stationed in Korea were withdrawn.[34] On December 4, 1884, with the help of the Japanese minister Takezoe Shinichiro who promised to mobilize Japanese legation guards to provide assistance, the reformers staged their coup under the guise of a banquet hosted by Hong Yeong-sik, the director of the General Postal Administration. The banquet was to celebrate the opening of the new national post office.[34] King Gojong was expected to attend together with several foreign diplomats and high-ranking officials, most of whom were members of the pro-Chinese Sadaedang faction. Kim Ok-gyun and his comrades approached King Gojong falsely stating that Chinese troops had created a disturbance and escorted him to the small Gyoengu Palace, where they placed him in the custody of Japanese legation guards. They then proceeded to kill and wound several senior officials of the Sadaedang faction.[34]

After the coup, the Gaehwadang members formed a new government and devised a program of reform. The radical 14-point reform proposal stated that the following conditions be met: an end to Korea's tributary relationship with China; the abolition of ruling-class privilege and the establishment of equal rights for all; the reorganization of the government as virtually a constitutional monarchy; the revision of land tax laws; cancellation of the grain loan system; the unification of all internal fiscal administrations under the jurisdiction of the Ho-jo; the suppression of privileged merchants and the development of free commerce and trade, the creation of a modern police system including police patrols and royal guards; and severe punishment of corrupt officials.[34]

However, the new government lasted no longer than a few days.[34] Particularly, as the reformers were supported by no more than 140 Japanese troops who faced at least 1,500 Chinese garrisoned in Seoul,[34] under the command of General Yuan Shikai. With the reform measures being a threat to her clans' power, Queen Min secretly requested military intervention from the Chinese. Consequently, within three days, even before the reform measures were made public, the coup was suppressed by the Chinese troops who attacked and defeated the Japanese forces and restored power to the pro-Chinese Sadaedang faction.[34] During the ensuing melee Hong Yeong-sik was killed, the Japanese legation building was burned down and forty Japanese were killed. The surviving Korean coup leaders including Kim Ok-gyun escaped to the port of Chemulpo under escort of the Japanese minister Takezoe. From there they boarded a Japanese ship for exile in Japan.[35]

In January 1885, with a show of force the Japanese dispatched two battalions and seven warships to Korea,[36] which resulted in the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1885, signed on 9 January 1885. The treaty restored diplomatic relations between Japan and Korea. The Koreans also agreed to pay the Japanese ¥100,000 for damages to their legation[36] and to provide a site for the building of a new legation. Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi, in order to overcome Japan's disadvantageous position in Korea followed by the abortive coup, visited China to discuss the matter with his Chinese counterpart, Li Hongzhang. The two parties succeeded in concluding the Convention of Tianjin on May 31, 1885. They also pledged to withdraw their troops from Korea within four months, with prior notification to the other if troops were to be sent to Korea in the future.[36] After both countries withdrew their forces they left behind a precarious balance of power on the Korean Peninsula between the two nations.[36] Meanwhile, Yuan Shikai remained in Seoul, appointed as the Chinese Resident and continued to interfere with Korean domestic politics.[36] The failure of the coup also marked a dramatic decline in Japanese influence over Korea.[37]

Nagasaki incident

Main article: Nagasaki incident

The Nagasaki incident was a riot that took place in the Japanese port city of Nagasaki in 1886. Four warships from the Qing Empire's navy, the Beiyang Fleet, stopped at Nagasaki, apparently to carry out repairs. Some Chinese sailors caused trouble in the city and started the riot. Several Japanese policemen confronting the rioters were killed. The Qing government did not apologize after the incident, which resulted in a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan.

Bean controversy

A poor harvest in 1889 led the governor of Korea's Hamgyong Province to prohibit soybean exports to Japan. Japan requested and received compensation in 1893 for their importers. The incident highlighted the growing dependence Japan felt on Korean food imports.[38]

Prelude to War

Kim Ok-gyun affair


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Kim Ok-gyun photographed in Nagasaki in 1882. His assassination in China would contribute to tensions leading to the First Sino-Japanese War.

On March 28, 1894, a pro-Japanese Korean revolutionary, Kim Ok-gyun, was assassinated in Shanghai. Kim had fled to Japan after his involvement in the 1884 coup and the Japanese had turned down Korean demands that he be extradited.[39] Many Japanese activists saw in him potential for a future role in Korean modernization, however, Meiji government leaders were more cautious; after some reservations they exiled him to the Bonin (Ogasawara) Islands. Ultimately, he was lured to Shanghai, where he was killed by a Korean, Hong Jong-u, in his room at a Japanese inn in the international settlement. After some hesitation, the British authorities in Shanghai concluded that rules against extradition did not apply to a corpse and turned his body over to Chinese authorities. His body was then taken aboard a Chinese warship and sent back to Korea, where it was cut up, quartered and displayed in all Korean provinces as a warning to other purported rebels and traitors.[39]

In Tokyo, the Japanese government took this as an outrageous affront.[39] Kim Ok-gyun's brutal murder was portrayed as a betrayal by Li Hongzhang and a setback for Japan's stature and dignity.[39] Not only did the Chinese authorities refuse to press charges against the assassin, but he was even allowed to accompany Kim's mutilated body back to Korea, where he was showered with rewards and honors.[40] Kim's assassination had also called Japan's commitment to its Korean supporters into question. The police in Tokyo had foiled an earlier attempt during the same year to assassinate Pak Yung-hio, one of the other Korean leaders of the 1884 uprising. When two suspected Korean assassins received asylum at the Korean legation, it had also instigated a diplomatic outrage.[40] Although the Japanese government could have immediately used Kim's assassination to its advantage, it concluded that since Kim died on Chinese territory the treatment of the corpse was outside its authority.[40] But the shocking murder of the Korean inflamed Japanese opinion, many in the country considered the Chinese supported actions as also being directed against Japan. To the Japanese, the Chinese had also showed their contempt for international law, when they set free the suspected assassin, who had been arrested by British authorities in Shanghai and then in accordance with treaty obligations turned over to the Chinese for trial. Nationalistic groups immediately began to call for war with China.[40]

Donghak Rebellion

Main article: Donghak Peasant Revolution

Tension ran high between China and Japan by June 1894 but war was not yet inevitable. On June 4, the Korean king, Gojong, requested aid from the Qing government in suppressing the Donghak Rebellion. Although the rebellion was not as serious as it initially seemed and hence Qing reinforcements were not necessary, the Qing government still sent the general Yuan Shikai as its plenipotentiary to lead 2,800 troops to Korea.[41] According to the Japanese, the Qing government had violated the Convention of Tientsin by not informing the Japanese government of its decision to send troops, but the Qing claimed that Japan had approved this.[42] The Japanese countered by sending an 8,000-troop expeditionary force (the Oshima Composite Brigade) to Korea. The first 400 troops arrived on June 9 en route to Seoul, and 3,000 landed at Incheon on June 12.[43]

However, Japanese officials denied any intention to intervene. As a result, the Qing viceroy Li Hongzhang "was lured into believing that Japan would not wage war, but the Japanese were fully prepared to act".[attribution needed][44] The Qing government turned down Japan's suggestion for Japan and China to cooperate to reform the Korean government. When Korea demanded that Japan withdraw its troops from Korea, the Japanese refused.

In early June 1894, the 8,000 Japanese troops captured the Korean king Gojong, occupied the Gyeongbokgung in Seoul and, by June 25, replaced the existing Korean government with members of the pro-Japanese faction.[43] Even though Qing forces were already leaving Korea after finding themselves unneeded there, the new pro-Japanese Korean government granted Japan the right to expel Qing forces while Japan dispatched more troops to Korea. The Qing Empire rejected the new Korean government as illegitimate.

Status of combatants

Japan


Japanese reforms under the Meiji government gave significant priority to the creation of an effective modern national army and navy, especially naval construction. Japan sent numerous military officials abroad for training and evaluation of the relative strengths and tactics of Western armies and navies.

Imperial Japanese Navy

Image
Itō Sukeyuki, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet

Image
The French-built Matsushima, flagship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Sino-Japanese conflict

The Imperial Japanese Navy was modeled after the British Royal Navy,[45] at the time the foremost naval power. British advisors were sent to Japan to train the naval establishment, while Japanese students were in turn sent to Britain to study and observe the Royal Navy. Through drilling and tuition by Royal Navy instructors, Japan developed naval officers expert in the arts of gunnery and seamanship.[46] At the start of hostilities, the Imperial Japanese Navy comprised a fleet of 12 modern warships, (the protected cruiser Izumi being added during the war), eight corvettes, one ironclad warship, 26 torpedo boats, and numerous auxiliary/armed merchant cruisers and converted liners. During peacetime, the warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy were divided among three main naval bases at Yokosuka, Kure and Sasebo and following mobilization, the navy was composed of five divisions of seagoing warships and three flotillas of torpedo boats with a fourth being formed at the beginning of hostilities.[47] The Japanese also had a relatively large merchant navy, which at the beginning of 1894 consisted of 288 vessels. Of these, 66 belonged to the Nippon Yusen Kaisha shipping company, which received national subsidies from the Japanese government to maintain the vessels for use by the navy in time of war. As a consequence, the navy could call on a sufficient number of auxiliaries and transports.[47]

Japan did not yet have the resources to acquire battleships and so planned to employ the Jeune École doctrine, which favoured small, fast warships, especially cruisers and torpedo boats, with the offensive capability to destroy larger craft. The Japanese naval leadership, on the eve of hostilities, was generally cautious and even apprehensive,[48] as the navy had not yet received the warships ordered in February 1893, particularly the battleships Fuji and Yashima and the protected cruiser Akashi.[49] Hence, initiating hostilities at the time was not ideal, and the navy was far less confident than the army about the outcome of a war with China.[48]

Many of Japan's major warships were built in British and French shipyards (eight British, three French and two Japanese-built) and 16 of the torpedo boats were known to have been built in France and assembled in Japan.

Imperial Japanese Army

The Meiji government at first modeled their army after the French Army. French advisers had been sent to Japan with two military missions (in 1872–1880 and 1884), in addition to one mission under the shogunate. Nationwide conscription was enforced in 1873 and a Western-style conscript army[50] was established; military schools and arsenals were also built. In 1886, Japan turned toward the German-Prussian model as the basis for its army,[50] adopting German doctrines and the German military system and organisation. In 1885 Klemens Meckel, a German adviser, implemented new measures, such as the reorganization of the command structure into divisions and regiments; the strengthening of army logistics, transportation, and structures (thereby increasing mobility); and the establishment of artillery and engineering regiments as independent commands. It was also an army that was equal to European armed forces in every respect.[50]

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Japanese troops during the Sino-Japanese War

On the eve of the outbreak of the war with China all men between the ages of 17 and 40 years were eligible for conscription, but only those who turned 20 were to be drafted while those who had turned 17 could volunteer.[50] All men between the ages of 17 and 40, even those who had not received military training or were physically unfit, were considered part of the territorial militia or national guard (kokumin).[50] Following the period of active military service (gen-eki), which lasted for three years, the soldiers became part of the first Reserve (yōbi) and then the second Reserve (kōbi). All young and able-bodied men who did not receive basic military training due to exceptions and those conscripts who had not fully met the physical requirements of military service, became third Reserve (hojū).[50] In the time of war, the first Reserve (yōbi) were to be called up first and they were intended to fill in the ranks of the regular army units. Next to be called up were the kōbi reserve who were to be either used to further fill in the ranks of line units or to be formed into new ones. The hojū reserve members were to be called up only in exceptional circumstances, and the territorial militia or national guard would only be called up in case of an immediate enemy attack on or invasion of Japan.[50]

The country was divided into six military districts, (headquarters Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai, Hiroshima and Kumamoto) with each being a recruitment area for a square infantry division consisting of two brigades of two regiments.[50] Each of these divisions contained approximately 18,600 troops and 36 artillery pieces when mobilized.[51] There was also an Imperial Guard division which recruited nationally, from all around Japan. This division was also composed of two brigades but had instead two-battalion, not three-battalion, regiments, consequently its numerical strength after mobilization was 12,500 troops and 24 artillery pieces.[51] In addition, there were fortress troops consisting of approximately six battalions, the Colonial Corps of about 4,000 troops which was stationed on Hokkaido and the Ryukyu Islands, and a battalion of military police in each of the districts. In peacetime the regular army had a total of fewer than 70,000 men, while after mobilization the numbers rose to over 220,000.[51] Moreover, the army still had a trained reserve, which, following the mobilization of the first-line divisions, could be formed into reserve brigades. These reserve brigades each consisted of four battalions, a cavalry unit, a company of engineers, an artillery battery and rear-echelon units. They were to serve as recruiting bases for their front-line divisions and could also perform secondary combat operations, and if necessary they could be expanded into full divisions with a total of 24 territorial force regiments. However, formation of these units was hindered by a lack of sufficient amounts of equipment, especially uniforms.[51]

Japanese troops were equipped with the 8mm single-shot Murata Type 18 breech-loading rifle. The improved five-round-magazine Type 22 was just being introduced and consequently in 1894, on the eve of the war, only the Imperial Guard and 4th Division were equipped with these rifles. The division artillery consisted of 75mm field guns and mountain pieces manufactured in Osaka. The artillery was based on Krupp designs that were adapted by the Italians at the beginning of the 1880s; although it could hardly be described as modern in 1894, in general it still matched contemporary battlefield requirements.[51]

By the 1890s, Japan had at its disposal a modern, professionally trained Western-style army which was relatively well equipped and supplied. Its officers had studied in Europe and were well educated in the latest strategy and tactics. By the start of the war, the Imperial Japanese Army could field a total force of 120,000 men in two armies and five divisions.

China

The prevailing view in many Western circles was that the modernized Chinese military would crush the Japanese. Observers commended Chinese units such as the Huai Army and Beiyang Fleet.[nb 2] The German General Staff predicted a Japanese defeat and William Lang, who was a British advisor to the Chinese military, praised Chinese training, ships, guns, and fortifications, stating that "in the end, there is no doubt that Japan must be utterly crushed".[53]

Imperial Chinese Army

Main article: Imperial Chinese Army

The Qing Dynasty did not have a unified national army, but was made up of three main components, with the so-called Eight Banners forming the elite. The Eight Banners forces were segregated along ethnic lines into separate Manchu, Han Chinese, Mongol, Hui (Muslim) and other ethnic formations.[54] Bannermen who made up the Eight Banners got higher pay than the rest of the army while the Manchu received further privileges. In total, there were 250,000 soldiers in the Eight Banners, with over 60 per cent kept in garrisons in Beijing, while the remaining 40 per cent served as garrison troops in other major Chinese cities.[55] The Green Standard Army was a 600,000-strong gendarmarie-type force that was recruited from the majority Han Chinese population. Its soldiers were not given any peacetime basic military training, but were expected to fight in any conflict. The third component was an irregular force called the Braves, which were used as a kind of reserve force for the regular army, and which were usually recruited from the more distant or remote provinces of China. They were formed into very loosely organized units from the same province. The Braves were sometimes described as mercenaries, with their volunteers receiving as much military training as their commanders saw fit. With no fixed unit organization, it is impossible to know how many battle-ready Braves there actually were in 1894.[55] There were also other, smaller number of military formations, one of which was the Huai Army, which was under the personal authority of the politician, general and diplomat Li Hongzhang and was created originally to suppress the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864). The Huai Army had received limited training by Western military advisors;[55] numbering nearly 45,000 troops, it was considered the best armed military unit in China.[56]

Although the Chinese had established arsenals to produce firearms, and a large number of them had been imported from abroad, 40 per cent of Chinese troops at the outbreak of the war were not issued with rifles or even muskets.[57] Instead they were armed with a variety of swords, spears, pikes, halberds, and bows and arrows.[57] Against well-trained, well-armed, and disciplined Japanese troops, they would have little chance. Those units that did have firearms were equipped with a heterogeneity of weapons, from a variety of modern rifles to old-fashioned muskets; this lack of standardization led to a major problem with the proper supply of ammunition.[58]

The Imperial Chinese Army in 1894 was a heterogeneous mixture of modernized, partly modernized, and almost medieval units which no commander could have led successfully, leading to poor leadership among Chinese officers.[59] Chinese officers did not know how to handle their troops and the older, higher-ranking officers still believed that they could fight a war as they had during the Taiping Rebellion of 1850–1864.[60] This was also the result of the Chinese military forces being divided into largely independent regional commands. The soldiers were drawn from diverse provinces that had no affinity with each other.[61] Chinese troops also suffered from poor morale, largely because many of the troops had not been paid for a long time.[60] The low prestige of soldiers in Chinese society also hindered morale, and the use of opium and other narcotics was rife throughout the army.[60] Low morale and poor leadership seriously reduced the effectiveness of Chinese troops, and contributed to defeats such as the abandonment of the very well-fortified and defensible Weihaiwei. Additionally, military logistics were lacking, as the construction of railroads in Manchuria had been discouraged. Huai Army troops, although they were a small minority in the overall Imperial Chinese Army, were to take part in the majority of the fighting during the war.[55]
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Beiyang Fleet

Main article: Beiyang Fleet

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Empress Dowager Cixi built the Chinese navy in 1888.

The Beiyang Fleet was one of the four modernised Chinese navies in the late Qing dynasty. The navies were heavily sponsored by Li Hongzhang, the Viceroy of Zhili who had also created the Huai Army. The Beiyang Fleet was the dominant navy in East Asia before the First Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese themselves were apprehensive about facing the Chinese fleet, especially the two German-built battleships — Dingyuan and Zhenyuan – to which the Japanese had no comparable counterparts.[48] However, China's advantages were more apparent than real as most of the Chinese warships were over-age and obsolescent;[48] the ships were also not maintained properly and indiscipline was common among their crews.[62] The greater armor of major Chinese warships and the greater weight of broadside they could fire were more than offset by the number of quick-firing guns on most first-line Japanese warships, which gave the Japanese the edge in any sustained exchange of salvos.[48] The worst feature of both Chinese battleships was actually their main armament; each was armed with short-barreled guns in twin barbettes mounted in echelon which could fire only in restricted arcs. The short barrels of the Chinese main armament meant that the shells had a low muzzle velocity and poor penetration, and their accuracy was also poor at long ranges.[63]

Tactically, Chinese naval vessels entered the war with only the crudest set of instructions — ships that were assigned to designated pairs were to keep together and all ships were to fight end-on, as far forward from the beam as possible, a tactic dictated by the obsolescent arrangement of guns aboard Chinese warships.[63] The only vague resemblance of a fleet tactic was that all ships were to follow the visible movements of the flagship, an arrangement made necessary because the signal book used by the Chinese was written in English, a language with which few officers in the Beiyang Fleet had any familiarity.[63]

When it was first developed by Empress Dowager Cixi in 1888, the Beiyang Fleet was said to be the strongest navy in East Asia. Before her adopted son, Emperor Guangxu, took over the throne in 1889, Cixi wrote out explicit orders that the navy should continue to develop and expand gradually.[64] However, after Cixi went into retirement, all naval and military development came to a drastic halt. Japan's victories over China has often been falsely rumored to be the fault of Cixi.[65] Many believed that Cixi was the cause of the navy's defeat because Cixi embezzled funds from the navy in order to build the Summer Palace in Beijing. However, extensive research by Chinese historians revealed that Cixi was not the cause of the Chinese navy's decline. In actuality, China's defeat was caused by Emperor Guangxu's lack of interest in developing and maintaining the military.[64] His close adviser, Grand Tutor Weng Tonghe, advised Guangxu to cut all funding to the navy and army, because he did not see Japan as a true threat, and there were several natural disasters during the early 1890s which the emperor thought to be more pressing to expend funds on.[64]

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Dingyuan, the flagship of the Beiyang Fleet

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Zhenyuan

Contemporaneous wars fought by the Qing Empire

While the Qing Empire was fighting the First Sino-Japanese War, it was also simultaneously engaging rebels in the Dungan Revolt in northwestern China, where thousands lost their lives. The generals Dong Fuxiang, Ma Anliang and Ma Haiyan were initially summoned by the Qing government to bring the Hui troops under their command to participate in the First Sino-Japanese War, but they were eventually sent to suppress the Dungan Revolt instead.[66]

Early stages

1 June 1894: The Donghak Rebel Army moves toward Seoul. The Korean government requests help from the Qing government to suppress the revolt.

6 June 1894: About 2,465 Chinese soldiers are transported to Korea to suppress the Donghak Rebellion. Japan asserts that it was not notified and thus China has violated the Convention of Tientsin, which requires that China and Japan must notify each other before intervening in Korea. China asserts that Japan was notified and approved of Chinese intervention.

8 June 1894: First of about 4,000 Japanese soldiers and 500 marines land at Jemulpo (Incheon).

11 June 1894: End of the Donghak Rebellion.

13 June 1894: The Japanese government telegraphs the commander of the Japanese forces in Korea, Ōtori Keisuke, to remain in Korea for as long as possible despite the end of the rebellion.

16 June 1894: Japanese foreign minister Mutsu Munemitsu meets with Wang Fengzao, the Qing ambassador to Japan, to discuss the future status of Korea. Wang states that the Qing government intends to pull out of Korea after the rebellion has been suppressed and expects Japan to do the same. However, China retains a resident to look after Chinese primacy in Korea.

22 June 1894: Additional Japanese troops arrive in Korea. Japanese prime minister Itō Hirobumi tells Matsukata Masayoshi that since the Qing Empire appear to be making military preparations, there is probably "no policy but to go to war". Mutsu tells Ōtori to press the Korean government on the Japanese demands.

26 June 1894: Ōtori presents a set of reform proposals to the Korean king Gojong. Gojong's government rejects the proposals and instead insists on troop withdrawals.

7 July 1894: Failure of mediation between China and Japan arranged by the British ambassador to China.

19 July 1894: Establishment of the Japanese Combined Fleet, consisting of almost all vessels in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Mutsu cables Ōtori to take any necessary steps to compel the Korean government to carry out a reform program.

23 July 1894: Japanese troops occupy Seoul, capture Gojong, and establish a new, pro-Japanese government, which terminates all Sino-Korean treaties and grants the Imperial Japanese Army the right to expel the Qing Empire's Beiyang Army from Korea.

25 July 1894: First battle of the war: the Battle of Pungdo / Hoto-oki kaisen

Events during the war

Opening moves


By July 1894, Qing forces in Korea numbered 3,000–3,500 and were outnumbered by Japan. They could only be supplied by sea through Asan Bay. The Japanese objective was first to blockade the Chinese at Asan (south of Seoul, South Korea) and then encircle them with their land forces. Japan's initial strategy was to gain command of the sea, which was critical to its operations in Korea.[67] Command of the sea would allow Japan to transport troops to the mainland. The army's Fifth Division would land at Chemulpo on the western coast of Korea, both to engage and push Chinese forces northwest up the peninsula and to draw the Beiyang Fleet into the Yellow Sea, where it would be engaged in decisive battle. Depending on the outcome of this engagement, Japan would make one of three choices; If the Combined Fleet were to win decisively, the larger part of the Japanese army would undertake immediate landings on the coast between Shan-hai-kuan and Tientsin in order to defeat the Chinese army and bring the war to a swift conclusion. If the engagement were to be a draw and neither side gained control of the sea, the army would concentrate on the occupation of Korea. Lastly, if the Combined Fleet was defeated and consequently lost command of the sea, the bulk of the army would remain in Japan and prepare to repel a Chinese invasion, while the Fifth Division in Korea would be ordered to hang on and fight a rearguard action.[68]

Sinking of the Kow-shing

Main article: Battle of Pungdo

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Depiction of the sinking of the Kow-shing and the rescue of some of its crew by the French gunboat Le Lion, from the French periodical Le Petit Journal (1894)

On 25 July 1894, the cruisers Yoshino, Naniwa and Akitsushima of the Japanese flying squadron, which had been patrolling off Asan Bay, encountered the Chinese cruiser Tsi-yuan and gunboat Kwang-yi.[68] These vessels had steamed out of Asan to meet the transport Kow-shing, escorted by the Chinese gunboat Tsao-kiang. After an hour-long engagement, the Tsi-yuan escaped while the Kwang-yi grounded on rocks, where its powder-magazine exploded.

The Kow-shing was a 2,134-ton British merchant vessel owned by the Indochina Steam Navigation Company of London, commanded by Captain T. R. Galsworthy and crewed by 64 men. The ship was chartered by the Qing government to ferry troops to Korea, and was on her way to reinforce Asan with 1,100 troops plus supplies and equipment. A German artillery officer, Major von Hanneken, advisor to the Chinese, was also aboard. The ship was due to arrive on 25 July.

The Japanese cruiser Naniwa, under Captain Tōgō Heihachirō, intercepted the Kow-shing and captured its escort. The Japanese then ordered the Kow-shing to follow Naniwa and directed that Europeans be transferred to Naniwa. However, the 1,100 Chinese on board, desperate to return to Taku, threatened to kill the English captain, Galsworthy, and his crew. After four hours of negotiations, Captain Togo gave the order to fire upon the vessel. A torpedo missed, but a subsequent broadside hit the Kow Shing, which started to sink.

In the confusion, some of the Europeans escaped overboard, only to be fired upon by the Chinese.[69] The Japanese rescued three of the British crew (the captain, first officer and quartermaster) and 50 Chinese, and took them to Japan. The sinking of the Kow-shing almost caused a diplomatic incident between Japan and Great Britain, but the action was ruled in conformity with international law regarding the treatment of mutineers (the Chinese troops). Many observers considered the troops lost on board the Kow-shing to have been the best the Chinese had.[69]

The German gunboat Iltis rescued 150 Chinese, the French gunboat Le Lion rescued 43, and the British cruiser HMS Porpoise rescued an unknown number.[70]

Conflict in Korea

Main articles: Battle of Seonghwan and Battle of Pyongyang (1894)

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Korean soldiers and Chinese captives

Commissioned by the new pro-Japanese Korean government to forcibly expel Chinese forces, Major-General Ōshima Yoshimasa led mixed Japanese brigades numbering about 4,000 on a rapid forced march from Seoul south toward Asan Bay to face 3,500 Chinese troops garrisoned at Seonghwan Station east of Asan and Kongju.

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Japanese soldiers of the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan, 1895

On 28 July 1894, the two forces met just outside Asan in an engagement that lasted till 07:30 the next morning. The Chinese gradually lost ground to the superior Japanese numbers, and finally broke and fled towards Pyongyang. Chinese casualties amounted to 500 killed and wounded, compared to 82 Japanese casualties.

On 1 August, war was officially declared between China and Japan. By 4 August, the remaining Chinese forces in Korea retreated to the northern city of Pyongyang, where they were met by troops sent from China. The 13,000–15,000 defenders made defensive repairs to the city, hoping to check the Japanese advance.

On 15 September, the Imperial Japanese Army converged on the city of Pyongyang from several directions. The Japanese assaulted the city and eventually defeated the Chinese by an attack from the rear; the defenders surrendered. Taking advantage of heavy rainfall overnight, the remaining Chinese troops escaped Pyongyang and headed northeast toward the coastal city of Uiju. Casualties were 2,000 killed and around 4,000 wounded for the Chinese, while the Japanese casualties totaled 102 men killed, 433 wounded, and 33 missing. In the early morning of 16 September, the entire Japanese army entered Pyongyang.

Qing Hui Muslim general Zuo Baogui, from Shandong province, died in action in Pyongyang from Japanese artillery in 1894 while securing the city. A memorial to him was constructed.[71]

Defeat of the Beiyang fleet

Main article: Battle of the Yalu River (1894)

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The Battle of the Yalu River

In early September, Li Hongzhang decided to reinforce the Chinese forces at Pyongyang by employing the Beiyang fleet to escort transports to the mouth of the Taedong River.[72] About 4,500 additional troops stationed in the Zhili were to be redeployed. On September 12, half of the troops embarked at Dagu on five specially chartered transports and headed to Dalian where two days later on September 14, they were joined by another 2,000 soldiers. Initially, Admiral Ding wanted to send the transports under a light escort with only a few ships, while the main force of the Beiyang Fleet would locate and operate directly against Combined Fleet in order to prevent the Japanese from intercepting the convoy.[72] But the appearance of the Japanese cruisers Yoshino and Naniwa on a reconnaissance sortie near Weihaiwei thwarted these plans.[72] The Chinese had mistaken them for the main Japanese fleet. Consequently, on September 12, the entire Beiyang Fleet departed Dalian heading for Weihaiwei, arriving near the Shandong Peninsula the next day. The Chinese warships spent the entire day cruising the area, waiting for the Japanese. However, since there was no sighting of the Japanese fleet, Admiral Ding decided to return to Dalian, reaching the port in the morning of September 15.[72] As Japanese troops moved north to attack Pyongyang, Admiral Ito correctly guessed that the Chinese would attempt to reinforce their army in Korea by sea. On 14 September, the Combined Fleet steamed northwards to search the Korean and Chinese coasts in order to bring the Beiyang Fleet to battle.[73]

The Japanese victory at Pyongyang had succeeded in pushing Chinese troops north to the Yalu river, in the process removing all effective Chinese military presence on the Korean Peninsula.[74] Shortly before the convoy's departure, Admiral Ding received a message concerning the battle at Pyongyang informing him about the defeat. Subsequently, it made the redeployment of the troops to the mouth of the Taedong river unnecessary.[72] Admiral Ding then correctly assumed that the next Chinese line of defence would be established on the Yalu River, and decided to redeploy the embarked soldiers there.[72] On September 16, the convoy of five transport ships departed from the Dalian Bay under escort from the vessels of the Beiyang Fleet which included the two ironclad battleships, Dingyuan and Zhenyuan.[72] Reaching the mouth of the Yalu River, the transports disembarked the troops, and the landing operation lasted until the following morning.

On September 17, 1894, the Japanese Combined Fleet encountered the Chinese Beiyang Fleet off the mouth of the Yalu River. The naval battle, which lasted from late morning to dusk, resulted in a Japanese victory.[75] Although the Chinese were able to land 4,500 troops near the Yalu River by sunset the Beiyang fleet was near the point of total collapse, most of the fleet had fled or had been sunk and the two largest ships Dingyuan and Zhenyuan were nearly out of ammunition.[76] The Imperial Japanese Navy destroyed eight of the ten Chinese warships, assuring Japan's command of the Yellow Sea. The principal factors in the Japanese victory was the superiority in speed and firepower.[77] The victory shattered the morale of the Chinese naval forces.[78] The Battle of the Yalu River was the largest naval engagement of the war and was a major propaganda victory for Japan.[79][80]

Invasion of Manchuria

Main article: Battle of Jiuliancheng

With the defeat at Pyongyang, the Chinese abandoned northern Korea and took up defensive positions in fortifications along their side of the Yalu River near Jiuliancheng. After receiving reinforcements by 10 October, the Japanese quickly pushed north toward Manchuria.

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An illustration of Japanese soldiers beheading 38 Chinese POWs as a warning to others by Utagawa Kokunimasa

On the night of 24 October 1894, the Japanese successfully crossed the Yalu River, undetected, by erecting a pontoon bridge. The following afternoon of 25 October at 17:00, they assaulted the outpost of Hushan, east of Jiuliancheng. At 20:30 the defenders deserted their positions and by the next day they were in full retreat from Jiuliancheng.

With the capture of Jiuliancheng, General Yamagata's 1st Army Corps occupied the nearby city of Dandong, while to the north, elements of the retreating Beiyang Army set fire to the city of Fengcheng. The Japanese had established a firm foothold on Chinese territory with the loss of only four killed and 140 wounded.[citation needed]

The Japanese 1st Army Corps then split into two groups with General Nozu Michitsura's 5th Provincial Division advancing toward the city of Mukden (present-day Shenyang) and Lieutenant-General Katsura Tarō's 3rd Provincial Division pursuing fleeing Chinese forces west along toward the Liaodong Peninsula.

By December, the 3rd Provincial Division had captured the towns of Tatungkau, Takushan, Xiuyan, Tomucheng, Haicheng and Kangwaseh. The 5th Provincial Division marched during a severe Manchurian winter towards Mukden.

The Japanese 2nd Army Corps under Ōyama Iwao landed on the south coast of Liaodong Peninsula on 24 October and quickly moved to capture Jinzhou and Dalian Bay on 6–7 November. The Japanese laid siege to the strategic port of Lüshunkou (Port Arthur).

Fall of Lüshunkou

Main articles: Battle of Lushunkou and Port Arthur massacre (China)

By 21 November 1894, the Japanese had taken the city of Lüshunkou (Port Arthur) with minimal resistance and suffering minimal casualties. Describing their motives as having encountered a display of the mutilated remains of Japanese soldiers as they invaded the town, Japanese forces proceeded with the unrestrained killing of civilians during the Port Arthur Massacre with unconfirmed estimates in the thousands. An event which at the time was widely viewed with scepticism as the world at large was still in disbelief that the Japanese were capable of such deeds that seemed more likely to have been exaggerated propagandist fabrications of a Chinese government to discredit Japanese hegemony. In reality, the Chinese government itself was unsure of how to react and initially denied the occurrence of the loss of Port Arthur to the Japanese altogether.

As we entered the town of Port Arthur, we saw the head of a Japanese soldier displayed on a wooden stake. This filled us with rage and a desire to crush any Chinese soldier. Anyone we saw in the town, we killed. The streets were filled with corpses, so many they blocked our way. We killed people in their homes; by and large, there wasn't a single house without from three to six dead. Blood was flowing and the smell was awful. We sent out search parties. We shot some, hacked at others. The Chinese troops just dropped their arms and fled. Firing and slashing, it was unbounded joy. At this time, our artillery troops were at the rear, giving three cheers [banzai] for the emperor.

— Makio Okabe, diary[81]


By 10 December 1894, Kaipeng (present-day Gaizhou) fell to the Japanese 1st Army Corps.

Fall of Weihaiwei

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Revisionist depiction of Chinese delegation, led by Admiral Ding Ruchang and their foreign advisors, boarding the Japanese vessel to negotiate the surrender with Admiral Itō Sukeyuki after the Battle of Weihaiwei. In reality, Ding had committed suicide after his defeat and never surrendered.

Main articles: Battle of Weihaiwei and Battle of Yingkou
The Chinese fleet subsequently retreated behind the Weihaiwei fortifications. However, they were then surprised by Japanese ground forces, who outflanked the harbour's defenses in coordination with the navy.[82] The Battle of Weihaiwei was a 23-day siege with the major land and naval components taking place between 20 January and 12 February 1895. Historian Jonathan Spence notes that "the Chinese admiral retired his fleet behind a protective curtain of contact mines and took no further part in the fighting."[83] The Japanese commander marched his forces over the Shandong peninsula and reached the landward side of Weihaiwei, where the siege was eventually successful for the Japanese.[83]

After Weihaiwei's fall on 12 February 1895, and an easing of harsh winter conditions, Japanese troops pressed further into southern Manchuria and northern China. By March 1895 the Japanese had fortified posts that commanded the sea approaches to Beijing. Although this would be the last major battle fought; numerous skirmishes would follow. The Battle of Yinkou was fought outside the port town of Yingkou, Manchuria, on 5 March 1895.

Occupation of the Pescadores Islands

Main article: Pescadores Campaign (1895)

Even before the peace negotiations were set to begin at Shimonoseki, the Japanese had begun preparations for the capture of Taiwan. However, the first operation would be directed not against the island itself, but against the Pescadores Islands, which due to their strategic position off the west coast would become a stepping stone for further operations against the island.[84] On March 6, a Japanese expeditionary force consisting of a reinforced infantry regiment with 2,800 troops and an artillery battery were embarked on five transports, sailed from Ujina to Sasebo, arriving there three days later.[84] On March 15, the five transports were escorted by seven cruisers and five torpedo boats of the 4th Flotilla, left Sasebo heading south. The Japanese fleet arrived at the Pescadores during the night of March 20, but encountered stormy weather. Due to the poor weather, the landings were postponed until March 23, when the weather cleared.[85]

On the morning March 23, the Japanese warships began the bombardment of the Chinese positions around the port of Lizhangjiao. A fort guarding the harbor was quickly silenced. At about midday, the Japanese troops began their landing. Unexpectedly, when the landing operation was underway, the guns of the fort once again opened fire, which caused some confusion among the Japanese troops. But they were soon silenced again after being shelled by the Japanese cruisers.[85] By 2:00pm, Lizhangjiao was under Japanese control. After reinforcing the captured positions, the following morning, Japanese troops marched on the main town of Magong. The Chinese offered token resistance and after a short skirmish they abandoned their positions, retreating to nearby Xiyu Island. At 11:30am, the Japanese entered Magong, but as soon as they had taken the coastal forts in the town, they were fired upon by the Chinese coastal battery on Xiyu Island. The barrage went unanswered until nightfall, as the Chinese had destroyed all the guns at Magong before they retreated, and Japanese warships feared entering the strait between the Penghu and Xiyu Islands due to the potential threat posed by mines. However, it caused no serious casualties among the Japanese forces. During that night, a small naval gunnery crew of 30, managed to make one of guns of the Magong coastal battery operational. At dawn, the gun began shelling the Chinese positions on Xiyu, but the Chinese guns did not respond. Subsequently, the Japanese crossed the narrow strait reaching Xiyu, discovering that the Chinese troops had abandoned their positions during the night and escaped on board local vessels.[85]

The Japanese warships entered the strait the next day and, upon discovering that there were no mine fields, they entered Magong harbor. By March 26, all the islands of the archipelago were under Japanese control, and Rear Admiral Tanaka Tsunatsune was appointed the governor. During the campaign the Japanese lost 28 killed and wounded, while the Chinese losses were almost 350 killed or wounded and nearly 1,000 taken prisoner.[85] This operation effectively prevented Chinese forces in Taiwan from being reinforced, and allowed the Japanese to press their demand for the cession of Taiwan in the peace negotiations.

End of the war

Treaty of Shimonoseki


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Japan–China peace treaty, 17 April 1895

The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on 17 April 1895. The Qing Empire recognized the total independence of Korea and ceded the Liaodong Peninsula, Taiwan and Penghu Islands to Japan "in perpetuity". The disputed islands known as "Senkaku/Diaoyu" islands were not named by this treaty, but Japan annexed these uninhabited islands to Okinawa Prefecture in 1895. Japan asserts this move was taken independently of the treaty ending the war, and China asserts that they were implied as part of the cession of Taiwan.

Additionally, the Qing Empire was to pay Japan 200 million taels (8,000,000 kg/17,600,000 lb) of silver as war reparations. The Qing government also signed a commercial treaty permitting Japanese ships to operate on the Yangtze River, to operate manufacturing factories in treaty ports and to open four more ports to foreign trade. Russia, Germany and France in a few days made the Triple Intervention, however, and forced Japan to give up the Liaodong Peninsula in exchange for another 30 million taels of silver (equivalent to about 450 million yen).

After the war, according to the Chinese scholar Jin Xide, the Qing government paid a total of 340,000,000 taels (13,600 tons) of silver to Japan in both war reparations and trophies, equivalent to about 510,000,000 Japanese yen at the time and about 6.4 times the Japanese government's revenue.[citation needed]

Japanese invasion of Taiwan

Main article: Japanese invasion of Taiwan (1895)

"The cession of the island to Japan was received with such disfavour by the Chinese inhabitants that a large military force was required to effect its occupation. For nearly two years afterwards, a bitter guerrilla resistance was offered to the Japanese troops, and large forces — over 100,000 men, it was stated at the time — were required for its suppression. This was not accomplished without much cruelty on the part of the conquerors, who, in their march through the island, perpetrated all the worst excesses of war. They had, undoubtedly, considerable provocation. They were constantly ambushed by enemies, and their losses from battle and disease far exceeded the entire loss of the whole Japanese army throughout the Manchurian campaign. But their revenge was often taken on innocent villagers. Men, women, and children were ruthlessly slaughtered or became the victims of unrestrained lust and rapine. The result was to drive from their homes thousands of industrious and peaceful peasants, who, long after the main resistance had been completely crushed, continued to wage a vendetta war, and to generate feelings of hatred which the succeeding years of conciliation and good government have not wholly eradicated."

– The Cambridge Modern History, Volume 12[86]


Several Qing officials in Taiwan resolved to resist the cession of Taiwan to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and on 23 May declared the island to be an independent Republic of Formosa. On 29 May, Japanese forces under Admiral Motonori Kabayama landed in northern Taiwan, and in a five-month campaign defeated the Republican forces and occupied the island's main towns. The campaign effectively ended on 21 October 1895, with the flight of Liu Yongfu, the second Republican president, and the surrender of the Republican capital Tainan.

Aftermath

Image
Satirical drawing in the magazine Punch[87] (29 September 1894), showing the victory of "small" Japan over "large" China

The Japanese success during the war was the result of the modernisation and industrialisation embarked upon two decades earlier.[88] The war demonstrated the superiority of Japanese tactics and training from the adoption of a Western-style military. The Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy were able to inflict a string of defeats on the Chinese through foresight, endurance, strategy and power of organisation. Japan's prestige rose in the eyes of the world, and the victory reflected the success of the Meiji Restoration. Japan only suffered a small loss of lives and treasure in return for the dominance of Taiwan, the Pescadores and the Liaotung Peninsula in China. Their decisions of abandoning the policy of isolation and learning advanced policy from Western countries also became a good example for other Asian countries to follow. As a result of this war, Japan started to have equal status with the powers of the West, [89] and the victory established Japan as the dominant power in Asia.[90][nb 3] It also heightened their ambitions of aggression and military expansion in Asia. Because Japan had benefited a lot from the Treaty, it stimulated Japanese ambition to continue to invade China. It made the Chinese national crisis unprecedentedly serious. The degree of semi-colonization was greatly deepened. After Japan's victory, the other Imperialist powers thought they could also get benefits from China. Then these Imperialist powers started to partition China over the next few years.

For China, the war revealed the high level of corruption present in the government and policies of the Qing administration. Traditionally, China viewed Japan as a subordinate part of the Chinese cultural sphere. Although China had been defeated by European powers in the 19th century, defeat at the hands of an Asian power and a former tributary state was a bitter psychological blow. Anti-foreign sentiment and agitation grew, which would later culminate in the form of the Boxer Rebellion five years later. The Manchu population was devastated by the fighting during the First Sino-Japanese War and the Boxer Rebellion, with massive casualties sustained during the wars and subsequently being driven into extreme suffering and hardship in Beijing and northeast China.[91]

Image
Convention of retrocession of the Liaodong Peninsula, 8 November 1895

Although Japan had achieved what it had set out to accomplish and ended Chinese influence over Korea, Japan had been forced to relinquish the Liaodong Peninsula, (Port Arthur), in exchange for an increased financial indemnity. The European powers (especially Russia) had no objection to the other clauses of the treaty but felt that Japan should not gain Port Arthur, for they had their own ambitions in that part of the world. Russia persuaded Germany and France to join in applying diplomatic pressure on Japan, resulting in the Triple Intervention of 23 April 1895.

Although Japan had succeeded in eliminating Chinese influence over Korea, it was Russia who reaped the benefits. Korea proclaimed itself the Korean Empire and announced its independence from the Qing Empire. The Japanese-sponsored Gabo reforms (Kabo reforms) of 1894–1896 transformed Korea: legal slavery was abolished in all forms; the yangban class lost all special privileges; outcastes were abolished; equality of law; equality of opportunity in the face of social background; child marriage was abolished, Hangul was to be used in government documents; Korean history was introduced in schools; the Chinese calendar was replaced with the Gregorian calendar; education was expanded and new textbooks written.[43]

In 1895, a pro-Russian official tried to remove the King of Korea to the Russian legation and failed, but a second attempt succeeded. Thus, for a year, the King reigned from the Russian legation in Seoul. The concession to build a Seoul-Inchon railway that had been granted to Japan in 1894 was revoked and granted to Russia. Russian guards guarded the King in his palace even after he left the Russian legation.

China's defeat precipitated an increase in railway construction in the country, as foreign powers demanded China make railway concessions.[92][93]

Image
Western Powers trying to divide their interests and influence in China in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War

In 1898, Russia signed a 25-year lease on the Liaodong Peninsula and proceeded to set up a naval station at Port Arthur. Although that infuriated the Japanese, they were more concerned with the Russian encroachment in Korea than that in Manchuria. Other powers, such as France, Germany and Britain, took advantage of the situation in China and gained land, port, and trade concessions at the expense of the decaying Qing dynasty. Qingdao and Jiaozhou were acquired by Germany, Guangzhouwan by France, and Weihaiwei and the New Territories by Britain.[94]

Tensions between Russia and Japan would increase in the years after the First Sino-Japanese War. During the Boxer Rebellion, an eight-member international force was sent to suppress and quell the uprising; Russia sent troops into Manchuria as part of this force. After the suppression of the Boxers, the Russian government agreed to vacate the area. However, by 1903, it had actually increased the size of its forces in Manchuria.

Negotiations between the two nations (1901–1904) to establish mutual recognition of respective spheres of influence (Russia over Manchuria and Japan over Korea) were repeatedly and intentionally stalled by the Russians. They felt that they were strong and confident enough not to accept any compromise and believed Japan would not go to war against a European power. Russia also had intentions to use Manchuria as a springboard for further expansion of its interests in the Far East. In 1903, Russian soldiers began construction of a fort at Yongnampo but stopped after Japanese protests.[43]

In 1902, Japan formed an alliance with Britain, the terms of which stated that if Japan went to war in the Far East and that a third power entered the fight against Japan, then Britain would come to the aid of the Japanese.[95] This was a check to prevent Germany or France from intervening militarily in any future war with Russia. Japan sought to prevent a repetition of the Triple Intervention that deprived it of Port Arthur. The British reasons for joining the alliance were to check the spread of Russian expansion into the Pacific area,[96] to strengthen Britain's focus on other areas, and to gain a powerful naval ally in the Pacific.

Increasing tensions between Japan and Russia were a result of Russia's unwillingness to compromise and the prospect of Korea falling under Russia's domination, therefore coming into conflict with and undermining Japan's interests. Eventually, Japan was forced to take action. This would be the deciding factor and catalyst that would lead to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05.

See also

• China portal
• Japan portal
• War portal
• History of China
• History of Japan
• History of Korea
• History of Taiwan
• Military history of China
• Military history of Japan
• Sino-Japanese relations

References

Notes


1. A Korean historian stated that "the Chinese government began to turn its former tributary state into a semi-colony and its policy toward Korea substantially changed to a new imperialistic one where the suzerain state demanded certain privileges in her vassal state".[31]
2. "On the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, China appeared, to undiscerning observers, to possess respectable military and naval forces. Praise for Li Hung-chang's Anhwei Army and other Chinese forces was not uncommon, and the Peiyang Navy elicited considerable favourable comment. When war between China and Japan appeared likely, most Westerners thought China had the advantage. Her army was vast, and her navy both outnumbered and outweight Japan's. The German general staff considered a Japanese victory improbable. In an interview with Reuters, William Lang predicted defeat for Japan. Lang thought that the Chinese navy was well-drilled, the ships were fit, the artillery was at least adequate, and the coastal forts were strong. Weihaiwei, he said, was impregnable. Although Lang emphasized that everything depended on how China's forces were led, he had faith that 'in the end, there is no doubt that Japan must be utterly crushed'."[52]
3. "A new balance of power had emerged. China's millennia-long regional dominance had abruptly ended. Japan had become the pre-eminent power of Asia, a position it would retain throughout the twentieth century". Paine, The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perception, Power, and Primacy.
Citations[edit]
1. "...Japan was at the forefront of hegemonic wars in a quest to extend the Japanese hegemony over Korea to the entire Asia-Pacific region – the Sino–Japanese War of 1894–95 to gain dominance in Korea" The Two Koreas and the Great Powers, Cambridge University Press, 2006, page 2.
2. Paine 2003, pp. 3.
3. Jansen 2002, p. 343.
4. Jansen 2002, p. 335.
5. Jump up to:a b Kim 2012, p. 279.
6. Kim 2012, p. 281.
7. Kim 2012, p. 284.
8. Jump up to:a b c d e Kim 2012, p. 285.
9. Jump up to:a b Seth 2011, p. 234.
10. Seth 2011, pp. 234–235.
11. Jump up to:a b c Seth 2011, p. 235.
12. Jump up to:a b c Kim 2012, p. 287.
13. Jump up to:a b Kim 2012, p. 288.
14. Jump up to:a b c d e f g Kim 2012, p. 289.
15. Jump up to:a b Kim 2012, p. 290.
16. Jump up to:a b Keene 2002, p. 372.
17. Kim 2012, p. 289; Keene 2002, p. 373.
18. Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i j k l Keene 2002, p. 373.
19. Jump up to:a b c Duus 1998, p. 49.
20. Jump up to:a b Duus 1998, p. 51.
21. Jump up to:a b Duus 1998, p. 52.
22. Jump up to:a b Duus 1998, p. 50.
23. Kim 2012, p. 282.
24. Jump up to:a b c Keene 2002, p. 374.
25. Seth 2011, p. 236.
26. Keene 2002, p. 376.
27. Keene 2002, p. 377.
28. Jump up to:a b c d e f g h Seth 2011, p. 237.
29. Kim 2012, p. 293; Seth 2011, p. 237.
30. Jump up to:a b c d e Kim 2012, p. 293.
31. Jump up to:a b c Duus 1998, p. 54.
32. Kim 2002, p. 293.
33. Jump up to:a b c d e f Seth 2011, p. 238.
34. Jump up to:a b c d e f g h Kim 2012, p. 294.
35. Kim 2012, p. 294; Paine 2003, p. 59.
36. Jump up to:a b c d e Kim 2012, p. 295.
37. Paine 2003, p. 59.
38. Seth, p. 445
39. Jump up to:a b c d Jansen 2002, p. 431.
40. Jump up to:a b c d Elleman 2001, p. 96.
41. James Z. Gao, "Historical Dictionary of Modern China (1800–1949)", 120
42. James McClain, "Japan a Modern History", 297
43. Jump up to:a b c d Seth, Michael J (2010). A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 225. ISBN 978-0-7425-6716-0.
44. Kwang-Ching 1978, p. 105.
45. Evans & Peattie 1997, p. 12.
46. Evans & Peattie 1997, p. 36.
47. Jump up to:a b Olender 2014, p. 39.
48. Jump up to:a b c d e Evans & Peattie 1997, p. 38.
49. Schencking 2005, p. 81.
50. Jump up to:a b c d e f g h Olender 2014, p. 30.
51. Jump up to:a b c d e Olender 2014, p. 31.
52. Kwang-Ching 1978, pp. 268–269.
53. Kwang-Ching 1978, p. 269.
54. Jowett 2013, p. 21.
55. Jump up to:a b c d Jowett 2013, p. 24.
56. Jowett 2013, p. 19.
57. Jump up to:a b Jowett 2013, p. 27.
58. Elleman 2001, p. 99.
59. Jowett 2013, pp. 24–25.
60. Jump up to:a b c Jowett 2013, p. 38.
61. Jowett 2013, p. 25.
62. Sondhaus 2001, pp. 169–170.
63. Jump up to:a b c Evans & Peattie 1997, p. 39.
64. Jump up to:a b c Chang 2013, pp. 182–184.
65. Chang 2013, pp. 160–161.
66. "董福祥与西北马家军阀的的故事 – 360Doc个人图书馆". Archived from the original on 2018-12-14. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
67. Evans & Peattie 1997, p. 40.
68. Jump up to:a b Evans & Peattie 1997, p. 41.
69. Jump up to:a b Paine 2003, p. 133.
70. Sequence of events, and numbers of rescued and dead, taken from several articles from The Times of London from 2 August 1894 – 24 October 1894
71. Aliya Ma Lynn (2007). Muslims in China. Volume 3 of Asian Studies. University Press. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-88093-861-7.
72. Jump up to:a b c d e f g Olender 2014, p. 60.
73. Evans & Peattie 1997, p. 42.
74. Elleman 2001, p. 101.
75. Evan & Peattie 1997, p. 42.
76. Evan & Peattie 1997, p. 44.
77. Evan & Peattie 1997, p. 48.
78. Paine 2003, p. 82.
79. Paine 2003, pp. 182–183.
80. Perry, John Curtis (1964). "The Battle off the Tayang, 17 September 1894". The Mariner's Mirror. 50 (4): 243–259. doi:10.1080/00253359.1964.10657787.
81. Lone 1994, p. 155.
82. Evans & Peattie 1997, p. 46.
83. Jump up to:a b Spence, Jonathan (2013). The Search for Modern China. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 2012. ISBN 9780393934519.
84. Jump up to:a b Olender 2014, p. 163.
85. Jump up to:a b c d Olender 2014, p. 164.
86. Sir Adolphus William Ward; George Walter Prothero; Sir Stanley Mordaunt Leathes; Ernest Alfred Benians (1910). The Cambridge Modern History. Macmillan. p. 573.
87. "www.ocu.mit.edu". Archived from the original on 2008-06-05. Retrieved 2008-07-11.
88. Jansen 2002, p. 432; Schencking 2005, p. 78.
89. Hopper, Helen. Fukuzawa Yukichi.
90. Paine 2003, pp. 293.
91. Rhoads, Edward J. M. (2011). Manchus and Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861–1928. University of Washington Press. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-295-80412-5.
92. Davis, Clarence B.; Wilburn, Kenneth E., Jr; Robinson, Ronald E. (1991). "Railway Imperialism in China, 1895–1939". Railway Imperialism. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-313-25966-1. Retrieved 10 August 2015 – via Questia.
93. Rousseau, Jean-François (June 2014). "An Imperial Railway Failure: The Indochina-Yunnan Railway, 1898–1941". Journal of Transport History. 35 (1). Retrieved 10 August 2015 – via Questia.
94. Jansen 2002, p. 438.
95. Jansen 2002, p. 439; Evans & Peattie, p. 65; 1997.
96. Evans & Peattie 1997, p. 65.

Bibliography

• Chang, Jung (2013). The Concubine Who Launched Modern China: Empress Dowager Cixi. New York: Anchor Books. ISBN 9780307456700.
• Duus, Peter (1998). The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-92090-3.
• Elleman, Bruce A. (2001). Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795–1989. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-21474-2.
• Schencking, J. Charles (2005). Making Waves: Politics, Propaganda, And The Emergence Of The Imperial Japanese Navy, 1868–1922. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-4977-0.
• Keene, Donald (2002). Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-12341-9.
• Kim, Jinwung (2012). A History of Korea: From "Land of the Morning Calm" to States in Conflict. New York: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-00024-8.
• Evans, David C; Peattie, Mark R (1997). Kaigun: strategy, tactics, and technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-192-8.
• Jansen, Marius B. (2002). The Making of Modern Japan. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-00334-7.
• Jansen, Marius B. (1995). The Emergence of Meiji Japan. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-48405-3.
• Jowett, Philip (2013). China's Wars: Rousing the Dragon 1894-1949. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-47280-673-4.
• Kwang-Ching, Liu (1978). John King Fairbank (ed.). The Cambridge History of China. Volume 11, Late Ch'ing, 1800–1911 Part 2 (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22029-3.
• Lone, Stewart (1994). Japan's First Modern War: Army and Society in the Conflict with China, 1894–1895. New York: St. Martin's Press.
• Olender, Piotr (2014). Sino-Japanese Naval War 1894–1895. MMPBooks. ISBN 978-83-63678-30-2.
• Paine, S.C.M (2003). The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-81714-1.
• Palais, James B. (1975). Politics and Policy in Traditional Korea. Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 978-0-674-68770-7.
• Seth, Michael J. (2011). A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-742-56715-3.
• Sondhaus, Lawrence (2001). Naval Warfare, 1815–1914. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-21477-3.
• Willmott, H. P. (2009). The Last Century of Sea Power: From Port Arthur to Chanak, 1894–1922, Volume 1. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-25300-356-0.
• Zachmann, Urs Matthias (2009). China and Japan in the Late Meiji Period: China Policy and the Japanese Discourse on National Identity, 1895-1904. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415481915.

Further reading

• Kim, Chong Ik Eugene, and Han-kyo Kim. ;;Korea and the Politics of Imperialism, 1876-1910 (Univ of California Press, 1967).
• Mutsu, Munemitsu. (1982). Kenkenroku (trans. Gordon Mark Berger). Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. ISBN 978-0-86008-306-1; OCLC 252084846
• Morse, Hosea Ballou. (1918). The international relations of the Chinese empire vol 2 1861–1893
• Shan, Patrick Fuliang (2018). Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal, The University of British Columbia Press. ISBN 9780774837781.
• Morse, Hosea Ballou. (1918). The international relations of the Chinese empire vol 3 1894–1916

External links

• 程映虹︰從"版畫事件"到《中國向西行進》Peter Perdue 濮德培和中國當代民族主義 (in Chinese)
• Detailed account of the naval Battle of the Yalu River by Philo Norton McGiffen
• Under the Dragon Flag — My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War by James Allan' at Project Gutenberg
• Print exhibition at MIT
• The Sinking of the Kowshing – Captain Galsworthy's Report
• SinoJapaneseWar.com A detailed account of the Sino-Japanese War
• The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: as seen in prints and archives (British Library/Japan Center for Asian Historical Records)
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