Various Examples of Resistance
to Imperialism
1856-1857 Cattle Killing amongst the
Xhosa in South Africa
• One morning in 1856, a fifteen year old Xhosa girl named
Nongqawuse went with another girl to scare birds from her
uncle's crops in the fields by the sea at the Gxarha river
mouth in the present day Wild Coast area of South Africa.
When she returned she said that she had seen a man, who
had told her that 'The whole community would rise from
the dead ; that all cattle now living must be slaughtered'.
The girls returned home and told their families what had
happened but they were not believed. Later, however,
when Nongqawuse described one of the men, her uncle
Mhalakaza, himself a diviner, recognised the description as
that of his dead brother, and became convinced she was
telling the truth.
Nonqawuse (on the left)
Suicide or Resistance?
• As a result, between April 1856 and June 1857,
the various sections of the Xhosa people of the
Eastern Cape and the Transkei slaughtered almost
all their enormous stocks of cattle and
deliberately killed their crops. This apocalyptic
event, rather than being some kind of 'mass
suicide's described by early colonial historians,
was actually the earliest example of a mass
'passive resistance' movement in South Africa.
The themes and symbols of the Cattle-Killing can
be found in the various resistance movements of
South Africa right into the modern era.
The Prophesy
• Nongqawuse and Mhalakaza said that those who had
appeared to them were the spirits of their dead
ancestors, who had come back to life in order to bring
the Xhosa nation back to its former glory and to
'render the Xhosa the assistance they required in order
to drive the white man out of the land'.
• The cattle, said Nongqawuse, were at present in
underground caverns waiting to arise and start a new
world for the purified Xhosa people. On the day of
their coming, she promised, 'the blind would see, the
deaf would hear, cripples would walk, and the whole
Xhosa nation would arise from the dead' and begin a
golden age without disease, death or misfortune.
Xhosa resistance to the movement
• Many refused to believe the truth of the
prophecies and refused to waste their corn
and neglect their gardens. By the end of 1856,
so many cattle had been killed that the
adherents of the movement had gone too far
to turn back. Searching for a reason why the
dead had not been resurrected as the
prophecies promised, they blamed the
'selfish' actions of the 'Unbelievers' in
preserving their cattle.
Colonial Response to the Cattle Killing
Movement
• The estimated figure of those who died as result
of the cattle-killing stands at 40,000. In addition,
the Governor of the Cape instigated a massive
program of labor 'recruitment' which led to
thousands of Xhosa being transported across the
border into Cape Colony. Magistrates were
instructed only to give food and relief to those
who were willing to be contracted for labor in the
colony. Those who agreed were obliged to sign a
term of agreement whereby they expressed their
willingness to work anywhere in Cape Colony for
any wage that was offered.
Sepoy Uprising 1857
• India, 1857
• Mutiny or 1st War of Indian Independence?
• 2 competing narratives with different
perspectives: British vs. Indian
• Began with the British East India COMPANY
seizing lands in India
Sepoy Soldiers
• Hindu or Muslim Indians who were employed
by the British East India Company
Lee-Enfield Rifle
• .303 caliber ammunition that needed to be
manually loaded
• To load you had to bite the cartridge, which
was sealed with beef or pork fat (tallow)
• This proved to be a problem because that
violated religious dietary restrictions of
Muslims and Hindus.
Sepoy War, 1857
• The "unorganized peasants" of India fought
one of the most powerful empires in the
world to near defeat with limited resources
and even more limited training.
• Impact: British Empire stepped in to aid the
British East India Company, and then took
over administration of India
• India= “Jewel in the Crown” of the British
Empire.
Ghost Dance: 1890’s
• Millenarian Movement that swept through Native
American communities in the Plains of the United
States
• By the 1880's the U.S. government had managed
to confine almost all of the Indians on
reservations, usually on land so poor that the
white man could conceive of no use for it
themselves. The rations and supplies that had
been guaranteed them by the treaties were of
poor quality, if they arrived at all. Graft and
corruption were rampant in the Indian Bureau
Wovoka and the Ghost Dance
Movement
• However, by 1890 conditions were so bad on the
reservations, nationwide, with starvation
conditions existing in many places, that the
situation was ripe for a major movement to rise
among the Indians. This movement found its
origin in a Paiute Indian named Wovoka, who
announced that he was the messiah come to
earth to prepare the Indians for their salvation.
Representatives from tribes all over the nation
came to Nevada to meet with Wovoka and learn
to dance the Ghost Dance and to sing Ghost
Dance songs.
Wovoka
The Ghost Dance Prophesy:
• Next spring, when the grass was high, the earth
would be covered with new soil, burying all the
white men. The new soil would be covered with
sweet grass, running water and trees; the great
herds of buffalo and wild horses would return. All
Indians who danced the Ghost Dance would be
taken up into the air and suspended there while
the new earth was being laid down. Then they
would be replaced there, with the ghosts of their
ancestors, on the new earth. Only Indians would
live there then.
The Ghost Dance
Followers:
• This new religion was being taught at all of the
Sioux reservations now. Big Foot's band, which
consisted mostly of women who had lost their
husbands and/or other male relatives in battles
with Custer, Miles and Crook, would dance until
they collapsed, hoping to guarantee the return of
their dead warriors.
• Kicking Bear assured him that, if the dancers
wore their Ghost Dance shirts, painted with
magic symbols, the soldiers bullets would not
strike them.
U.S. Government Response
• As the number of people involved in the Ghost
Dance movement increased, the panic and
hysteria of the Indian agents increased with it.
• The whites stumbled over each other in their
attempts to quell this movement. Panicky
messages about Indians dancing in the snow,
wild and crazy, were sent to Washington.
Sitting Bull
The Assassination of Sitting Bull
• On December 15, 43 Indian police surrounded Sitting Bull's
cabin before dawn. Three miles away they were backed up
by a squadron of cavalry. When Lieutenant Bull Head
entered the cabin, Sitting Bull was asleep. Upon awakening,
he agreed to come with the police and asked that his horse
be saddled while he dressed. When they left the cabin, a
large group of Ghost Dancers, much larger than the police
force, had assembled and challenged the police. One
dancer, Catch-the-Bear, pulled out a rifle and shot
Lieutenant Bull Head in the side. In an attempt to shoot
back at his assailant, Bull Head instead accidentally shot
Sitting Bull. Then another policeman, Red Tomahawk, shot
Sitting Bull in the head. Many Indian policemen died that
day before the cavalry arrived to quell the fighting.
Massacre at Wounded Knee, 1890
• After Sitting Bull's death, Big Foot feared for
the safety of his band, which consisted in large
part of widows of the Plains wars and their
children. Big Foot himself had been placed on
the list of "fomenters of disturbances," and his
arrest had been ordered.
The Next Morning…
• In the morning a bugle call awakened the camp and the men were
told to come to the center of the camp for a talk. After the talk they
would move to Pine Ridge. Big Foot was brought out and seated
before his tent. The older men of the band gathered around him.
Hardtack was issued for breakfast. Then the Indians were informed
that they would be disarmed. They stacked their guns in the center,
but the soldiers were not satisfied. The soldiers went through the
tents, bringing out bundles and tearing them open, throwing
knives, axes, and tent stakes into the pile. Then they ordered
searches of the individual warriors. The Indians became very angry
but only one spoke out, the medicine man, Yellow Bird. He danced
a few steps of the Ghost Dance and chanted in Sioux, telling the
Indians that the bullets would not hurt them, they would go right
by.
Hotchkiss Guns used at Wounded Knee
The Massacre at Wounded Knee, 1890
• The search found only two rifles, one brand new, belonging
to a young man named Black Coyote. He raised it over his
head and cried out that he had spent much money for the
rifle and that it belonged to him. Black Coyote was deaf and
therefore did not respond promptly to the demands of the
soldiers. He would have been convinced to put it down by
the Sioux, but that option was not possible. He was
grabbed by the soldiers and spun around. Then a shot was
heard; its source is not clear but it began the killing. The
only arms the Indians had were what they could grab from
the pile. When the Hotchkiss guns opened up, shrapnel
shredded the lodges, killing men, women and children,
indiscriminately. They tried to run but were shot down "like
buffalo," women and children alike.
The Aftermath
• When the mass insanity of the soldiers ended, 153 dead were counted,
including Big Foot; but many of the wounded had crawled off to die alone.
One estimate place the final death toll at 350 Indian men, women and
children. Twenty-five soldiers died and 39 were wounded, most by their
own shrapnel and bullets. The wounded soldiers were started back to the
Pine Ridge agency. Then a detail of soldiers went over the battlefield,
gathering up any Indians that were still alive and placing them in wagons.
As a blizzard was approaching, the dead were left where they had fallen.
The wagons with the wounded arrived at Pine Ridge after dark. They
contained only 4 Sioux men and 47 women and children. These people
were left outside in wagons in the bitter cold while a search was made for
housing for them. Finally the Episcopal mission was opened, the benches
removed and hay scattered over the floor as bedding for the wounded
Sioux. As they were brought in, those who were conscious could see the
Christmas decorations hanging from the rafters.
“Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,”
1890
The Boxer Rebellion, 1900
• Boxer Rebellion (1900): Beginning in 1898, groups of
peasants in northern China began to band together into a
secret society known as I-ho ch'üan ("Righteous and
Harmonious Fists"), called the "Boxers" by Western press.
Members of the secret society practiced boxing and
calisthenic rituals (hence the nickname, the "Boxers")
which they believed would make them impervious to
bullets.
• At first, the Boxers wanted to destroy the Ch'ing dynasty
(which had ruled China for over 250 years) and wanted to
rid China of all foreign influence (which they considered a
threat to Chinese culture). When the Empress Dowager
backed the Boxers, the Boxers turned solely to ridding
China of foreigners.
Society of Harmonious Fists
Rebellion against Qing Dynasty and
“Foreign Devils”
• By late 1899, bands of Boxers were massacring Christian
missionaries and Chinese Christians. By May 1900, the
Boxer Rebellion had come out of the countryside and was
being waged in the capital of Peking (now Beijing). To help
their fellow countrymen and to protect their interests in
China, an international force of 2,100 American, British,
Russian, French, Italian, and Japanese soldiers were sent to
subdue the "rebellion."
• On June 18, 1900, the Empress Dowager ordered all
foreigners to be killed. Several foreign ministers and their
families were killed before the international force could
protect them. On August 14, 1900, the international force
took Peking and subdued the rebellion.
Empress Dowager Cixi
Legation Building in Peking
• The Siege of the Legation lasted for 55 days
until an international force marching from
Tientsin on the coast managed to relieve
them. 66 Europeans had been killed in this
time and 150 had been wounded. This type of
treatment was unforgivable from a European
point of view. America had also been shocked
by the treatment of the Europeans.
Maji Maji Rebellion (1905-1907)
• Background: Uprising by several indigenous
African communities in Tanzania against the
German colonial rule in response to a German
plan to force the Africans to grow cotton for
export.
• Key: Interethnic opposition to German
Colonial Rule
Maji Maji Warriors
Maji Maji Rebellion (1905-1907)
• Leader of the rebellion was Bokero (Kinjikitile
Ngwale) who was believed to be possessed by a
snake spirit.
• Maji was a name for the medicine (elixir of water
and castor oil) that was supposed to give the
believers immunity to German bullets.
• African warriors armed with war medicine, cap
guns and spears began attacking German
garrisons.
Maji Maji Prisoners of War
Maji Maji Rebellion (1905-1907)
• Although outnumbered, Germans had the
advantage of the machine gun which they used
liberally against the Africans
• Bokero was killed and replaced with another
mystic.
• Germans retaliated with a scorched earth policy
that led to famine
• Germans maintained control through WWI- then
lost Tanzania to the British
• Despite defeat, important point of pride for the
African peoples in Tanzania.