Opium Wars |
Taiping Rebellion
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“When it attempted to stop the import of opium into China by the British East India Company, |
“A population explosion, natural disasters, and rebellions and wars like the brutal Taiping Rebellion wreaked havoc on local populations.” |
Courtesy of Asian Pacific Curriculum
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Courtesy of Council of Foreign Affairs
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“Conditions in China had steadily worsened.
Government officials, landlords, and bandits all preyed on peasants.
Sometimes, parents would even have to sell one of their children into slavery
in order for the rest of the family to live.”
- Ruthanne Lum McCunn, author of An Illustrated History of Chinese in America
“The gold seekers came mostly from poor fishing and rice-growing villages in the Pearl River delta, where poverty and famine, floods, droughts, wars, and rebellion had long prompted the most enterprising men to seek their fortune in distant lands.” “Often, as many as 30% of the men in one village would be working overseas in order to support their families in the villages.” |
Click on image to enlarge
"Chinese Emigration to America-- on broad the Pacific Mail Steamship
(Smithsonian National Museum of American History) |