DBQ Practice

Unfortunately, many of the potential Javanese workers for the sugar processing factory are already forced to work on sugar fields under the Dutch government's Cultivation System.1 There is not a single peasant in the district who is not subject to multiple demands on his labor, from the government or from local Javanese elites. I have had one of my factory agents travel around the villages in the district all year looking for workers. Despite offering them good wages, I have never succeeded in getting more than five men per day. When I ask the men to work in the factory full time, they all answer that they would if I could get them freed from government-imposed work.

We pay for what we buy from England by exporting Indian agricultural commodities such as rice, silk, indigo, etc. It goes without saying that as the trade with England expands, so will the demand for such agricultural commodities. Ever since the establishment of British rule, the trade of India has increased, leading to an expansion of agriculture. The Indian cotton weaving trade may have collapsed because of cheap British cloth imports, but why does the weaver not move to another occupation? He may not be able to support his family by weaving cloth, but he should be able to do so if he would switch to cultivating rice. But people in our country are reluctant to give up their hereditary trades. This reluctance is unfortunate for our weavers, but it does not mean a loss of wealth for India as a whole.

Let it be known that Charles Rudd of Kimberley (South Africa), Rochfort Maguire of London, and Francis Thompson of Kimberley have made a contract with me and agreed to pay me and my heirs the monthly sum of 100 pounds sterling (British currency) and the delivery of 1,000 rifles made in England. Further, they have promised to deliver a steamboat with guns suitable for the defense of my territories on the Zambezi River. In exchange for these presents, I hereby grant to the above-mentioned individuals and their heirs the complete and exclusive right to collect, sell, and enjoy the profits of all of the metals and minerals contained in my kingdoms. And since I have been much pestered lately by various persons and companies seeking these rights, I further grant to them the right to take all necessary measures to exclude all their competitors seeking mining rights and privileges from my kingdoms.

Each village from our district had to produce 80 loads of rubber per month. As rubber plants got scarcer, the White man reduced the required amount only by a little. We got no pay! Our village got cloth and a little salt from the government, but it did not go to the people who collected the rubber. Instead, our chiefs used up the cloth; the workers got nothing. The pay was given to the Chief, never to the men. It used to take ten days to get twenty loads of rubber. We were always in the forest and then if we were late making the delivery, we could be killed. We had to go further into the forest to find the rubber vines and our women had to give up cultivating fields and gardens. Then we starved. Wild animals killed some of us when we were working in the forest, and others got lost or died from exposure and starvation. We begged the White men, saying we could get no more rubber, but the White men and their soldiers refused. We tried, always, to go further into the forest, and when we failed, and our rubber delivery was short, the soldiers came to our towns.

After our rebellion had been put down,1 we were offered work in the mines and farms of the White people to earn money, and so we were able to buy back some cattle to replace the ones that had been lost during the rebellion. At first, of course, we were not used to working for a wage, but the colonial government ordered the chiefs to advise the young people to go to work, and gradually they went. In a few years we had recovered our livelihoods somewhat. But then the taxes came. At first, it was 10 shillings [British currency] a year. Soon the Government said, "This is too little, you must contribute more, you must pay one pound." We were also taxed 5 shillings for a dog. Then the Government told us that we were living on private land that supposedly belonged to the White settlers; the owners wanted rent in addition to the Government tax.

In 1902, the Germans established cotton plantations in our Matumbi district. Every village was allotted days on which it had to cultivate the plantations. One person had to come from each household on the allotted days. This work made us suffer greatly. We were whipped for the smallest mistake, and once you started working, there was no break. Some of us were assigned to clear the land of trees, others tilled the land, others would smooth the ground and plant the cotton seeds, another group did the weeding, another the picking, and yet another transported the bales of cotton to the coast beyond Kikanda for shipping.1 The work was astonishingly hard and our only reward was the whip. And yet the German also wanted us to pay him taxes in addition to the plantation work! Our people came to hate German rule, which was so cruel. It was not because we were lazy or disliked agriculture. If it had been good agriculture with meaning and profit, we would never have risked our lives by starting a rebellion.

Our dynasty has always followed the teachings of the ancient sages and, as a result, everyone in our district lived in harmony for a long time. As the population increased, resources were plentiful. However, in 1846 local bandits and rebels began attacking our district. They captured the district capital and took government officials as prisoners. Many people were killed, houses were left in ashes, and farmers' fields were thick with weeds. The rebels forced the people to pay land taxes to them. They used official seals to issue false orders to the population. It was intolerable to see these criminals seize control of the local government. Your Excellency, last year you promised to send an army to suppress the rebels. We beg you, please have the army come immediately to exterminate the rebels and save the people. Our local militia has been fighting them for a long time and we fear that if the militia collapses, the rebels will run free and it will become impossible for the government to control them.

The current formidable revolution that is taking place in China1 has unquestionably been caused by the British cannon forcing upon China the unlimited importation of opium. Faced with the might of the British arms, the authority of the Manchu [Qing] dynasty fell to pieces and China's complete isolation from the civilized world came to an end. The opium trade changed the balance of trade from being continually in favor of the Chinese to being an exhausting drain on the silver reserves of the empire. Hence, the emperor made strong decrees against the opium trade, which were subsequently not enforced. The bribery connected with opium smuggling has entirely corrupted the Chinese state officers in the southern provinces and thereby undermined the authority of the state. The introduction of English mass-produced textiles has had a similar effect on the native Chinese industry to that on the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and India. In China the spinners and weavers have suffered greatly under this foreign competition, and their communities have become destabilized as a result.

Under the Treaties of Tianjin,1 foreigners in China are not subject to the jurisdiction of the Chinese imperial authorities. If they have disputes among themselves, their own consuls in China are to settle them; if they commit a crime in China, their own diplomats are to punish them according to their national laws. But in practice, foreigners claim much more than this: they interpret the treaties to mean that they may violate Chinese laws without consequences. To this we cannot agree-China never gave foreigners permission to disregard our laws. A special case of this issue is the missionary question. By the terms of the treaties, China had to agree to admit Western missionaries and to guarantee them protection. But among the missionaries there are some who act as if their missions are outside of government control, and among their Chinese converts there are some who seem to believe being Christians allows them to break the laws of their own country. We cannot accept this. Chinese subjects, whether Christians or not, must obey completely the laws of China.

In our district, the wealthy landowners grow richer each year, while the poor have nothing. These rich folks treat the poor like strangers-they will lend them neither cloth nor grain. They treat their hired laborers particularly cruelly, arousing a hatred so strong that the poor people are easily tempted to turn to a life of banditry. The bandits come every few weeks to people's houses, bearing sharp knives or foreign rifles. When they ask the poor people for money at knifepoint, how can the poor refuse? If the grain of the district were more equally distributed, there would be enough to eat, but there are many without any land. All the poor can do is sell their labor or turn to a life of crime. In North China a hired farmworker can find work for three months per year at the most. A person cannot make a living on that. So, when they see the easy lives of the bandits, the people are tempted to join them.

Since the beginning of China as a nation, we Chinese have governed our own country despite occasional interruptions. Today, when we raise the righteous standard of revolt in order to expel an alien race [the Manchu] that has been occupying China, we do no more than our ancestors have done or expected us to do. The purpose of past revolutions, such as those conducted by the Ming and Taiping, was to restore China to the Chinese, and nothing else. We, on the other hand, strive not only to expel the ruling aliens but also to change the political and economic structure of our country. While we cannot describe in detail this new political and economic structure in this short proclamation, the basic principles behind it are liberty, equality, and fraternity. The revolutions of yesterday were revolutions by and for the revolutionaries; our revolution, on the other hand, is a revolution by and for the people.

As a consequence of the uprising of the Republican Army, to which different provinces immediately responded, the empire seethed like a boiling cauldron and the people were plunged into utter misery. It is now evident that the hearts of the majority of the people are in favor of a republican form of government: the provinces of the south were the first to espouse the cause, and the generals of the north have since pledged their support. From the preference of the people's hearts, the Will of Heaven can be seen. How could We then bear to oppose the will of millions for the glory of one Family? Therefore, observing the tendencies of the age on the one hand and studying the opinions of the people on the other, We and His Majesty the Emperor hereby grant the sovereignty to the people and decide in favor of a republican form of constitutional government.