The Miao in 1834


The Miao in 1834 -

The Chinese Repository - Elijah Coleman Bridgman, S W Williams. pp. 489-490

The most troublesome of the latter order (talking about minor insurrections) have been occasioned by the Meaoutsze (1) and other tribes lodged among the mountains in the very heart of the empire, and by the people in the island of Formosa (2).

An interesting account of the reduction of the Meaoutsze of Szechuen by the Chinese in 1775, is given by Pere Amiot (3) in the third volume of "Memoires des Chinois"; but we imagine that they were then but imperfectly subdued, and that they remain so to this day, since we find in the Peking gazettes frequent notices of disturbances occasioned by them and their kindred tribes. They have probably been always engaged in plundering the inhabitants around them, for we find an especial clause in the Penal Code to prevent their depredations; "in all cases of murder, committed by the people called Meaoutsze, for the sake of obtaining booty, all the parties to the crime shall suffer death by being beheaded immediately after conviction".

(1) Miao zi or Miao peoples. This is a denomination only slightly related to the ethnic groups included now under the term "Miao Nationality". As a synonym of savagery, it included in the nineteen century, most of the tribes of south China.
(2) Now Taiwan.
(3) This indiscriminate use of the word Meaoutsze (or Miao zi) by Pere Amiot, had far reaching effects. As his words were reproduced for later authors without a deeper analysis, until recently some scholars thought that the rebellion of 1775 in Sichuan was a Miao War, instead of the end of the Jinchuan Wars. Jinchuan were the name of some tribes and their territory, probably the forefathers of the present Gyarong (a non recognized nationality of Tibetan religion living in west Sichuan)

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