Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T14:27:47.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Salt and Revenue in Frontier Formation: State Mobilized Ethnic Politics in the Yunnan-Burma Borderland since the 1720s*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2013

JIANXIONG MA
JIANXIONG MA*
Affiliation:
Division of Humanities, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Email: hmjxm@ust.hk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This research reviews the formation of the Yunnan-Burma frontier since the 1720s, when the Qing government reformed the administrative systems from chieftainships to official counties in the middle and southern Yunnan mountains areas. One of some crucial political changes was the policy of salt revenue which directly stimulated large scale ethnic resistance in the region of salt wells. However, the social political context of continuing ethnic conflicts was not only rooted in the reshaping of the salt-consuming districts, but also rooted in social changes in the Yunnan-Burma borderland because of increasing Han Chinese immigration and their penetration into mining, long distance trade and local agriculture. In order to successfully control mountain resources as the base of revenue, the Qing government continued to gradually integrate native Dai chieftains into official counties. Local resistance continued and reached a peak from the 1790s to the 1810s. Pushed by the Qing government, and with the collaboration of different social actors, the synthesized mobilization of frontier formation had made ethnic politics a main style of social political reconstruction, even if commercial exchange, long distance trade, and demographic reshaping also continued to be mixed with ethnic politics as another layer of the Yunnan-Burma frontier formation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 6 , November 2014 , pp. 1637 - 1669
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Asian Borderland: Enclosure, Interaction and Transformation Conference at Chiang Mai in Thailand, 2010. The research project was supported by the Direct Allocation Grant of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Areas of Excellence Scheme: The Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society. The author's thanks go to the anonymous reviewers and Professor Raj Brown for her encouragement and advice.

References

1 Giersch, C. Patterson (2006), Asian Borderlands: The Transformation of Qing China's Yunnan Frontier, Cambridge (London: Harvard University Press)Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., pp. 3–4.

3 Ibid., p. 4.

4 Giersch, C. Patterson (2011). ‘Cotton, Copper, and Caravans: Trade and the Transformation of Southwest China’, in Tagliacozzo, Eric and Chang, Wen-Chin (eds), Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities, and Networks in Southeast Asia (Durham and London: Duke University Press), p. 39Google Scholar.

5 James Lee (1982). The Legacy of Immigration in Southwest China, 1250–1850, Annales de demographie historique, (1982): 279–304.

6 Skinner, G. William (1977). The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press)Google Scholar.

7 Yang, Bin (2009). Between Winds and Clouds: The Making of Yunnan (Second Century BCE to Twentieth Century CE) (New York: Columbia University Press)Google Scholar.

8 Lee, James (1982). Food Supply and Population Growth in Southwest China, 1250–1850, The Journal of Asian Studies, 41:4, 711–746Google Scholar.

9 Yin, Gong (1992). The Chieftain System of China (Kunming: Yunnan Nationalities Publishing House)Google Scholar.

10 See also Herman, John E. (1997). Empire in the Southwest Early Qing Reforms to the Native Chieftain System, The Journal of Asian Studies, 56:1, 47–74Google Scholar.

11 Bello, David. A. (2005). ‘To Go Where No Han Could Go for Long’: Malaria and the Qing Construction of Ethnic Administrative Space in Frontier Yunnan’, Modern China, 31:3, 283–317Google Scholar.

12 Yuanzhi, Huang (1968). The Draft of Yuan Jiang Gazetter (Taipei: Chengwen Publishing House)Google Scholar; Nitui, (1992). The Chronicle of Yunnan (1846) (Kunming: Yunnan University Press)Google Scholar.

13 Yunsui, Zhang (2003). ‘The Zhang Yunsui's Reports to the Emperor’, in Guoyu, Fang (ed.), Yunnan Historical Materials Collection (1751), volume 8 (Kunming: Yunnan University Press), p. 683Google Scholar.

14 Lee, James (1982). Food Supply and Population Growth in Southwest China, 1250–1850, The Journal of Asian Studies, 41:4, 711Google Scholar.

15 Daxun, Wu (2003). ‘The Notes about Southern Yunnan (1782)’, in Guoyu, Fang (ed.), Yunnan Historical Materials Collection (Kunming: Yunnan University Press), volume 12, pp. 17–18Google Scholar.

16 Guoyu, Fang (2003). The general study on the Han immigration in Yunnan in Qing dynasty, in Guoyu, Fang (ed.), Yunnan Historical Materials Collection, volume 11, (Kunming: Yunnan University Press), pp. 675–681Google Scholar.

17 Shaoqian, Zheng and Xiling, Li (1840), The (Daoguan) Gazetteer of Puer Prefecture (Kunming: Yunnan Provincial Library), volume 7, p. 13.Google Scholar

18 Jifa, Zhuang (1982). Research on the Military Feat of Qing Gaozong (Taipei: The Forbidden City Museum)Google Scholar.

19 Jianxiong, Ma (2011). Shaping of the Yunnan-Burma frontier by Secret societies since the end of the 17th century, Moussons, 17:1, pp. 65–84Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., pp. 65–84.

21 Yunnan Provincial History Institution Complied (1985). Collection of Historical Materials Relating to Yunnan in the Qing Veritable Records, volume 4 (Kunming: Yunnan People's Publishing House), p. 786Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., p. 786.

23 Yunnan Provincial History Institution Complied (1985). Collection of Historical Materials Relating to Yunnan in the Qing Veritable Records, volume 3 (Kunming: Yunnan People's Publishing House), p. 572Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., p. 572.

25 About the chieftain army, see also C. Patterson Giersch (2005). Yunnan's ‘Native Militias (tulian)’ and the Qing Empire, Ethnological Review, volume 3, pp. 211–232.

26 Yunnan Provincial History Institution Complied (1985). Collection of Historical Materials Relating to Yunnan in the Qing Veritable Records, volume 1 (Kunming: Yunnan People's Publishing House), p. 282Google Scholar.

27 Fuyi, Li (2005). ‘The Meng means administrative area lower than the level of county’, in The Letters Records of Fulu (Tapei, Furen Book House), p. 128Google Scholar.

28 Ma Jianxiong (2011). ‘Historical Process in the Bazi Basin Environmental System during the Ming Period: A Case Study of the Zhaozhou Bazi Society in Western Yunnan Mountains Area, Southwest China’ paper presented at The First Conference of East Asian Environment History, Tapei, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica and forthcoming in Liu, Ts’ui-jung (ed.), Resources Utilizations and their Impacts: Studies of East Asian Environmental History (London: Routledge)Google Scholar.

29 Decai, Dao (1992). Concise History of the Dai in Shuangjiang, (Shuangjiang: Manuscript), p. 108Google Scholar.

30 Ibid., p. 107.

31 Zhu, Yang (2005). ‘The Records of Tax, Corvee and Rituals of Gengma Chieftain’ in Zhu, Yang translated, The Translation of the History of Gengma Chieftain (Gengma: The County Bureau of Local Gazetteers), p. 53Google Scholar.

32 ‘Inscription on Prohibition of Chieftain Maladies in Mianning Military County’, in County Bureau of Minority Affairs Compiled (1995). The Ethnography of Nationalities in Shuangjiang County (Kunming: Yunnan Nationalities Publishing House), pp. 359–361Google Scholar.

33 Zhu, Yang (2005). ‘The Records of Tax, Corvée and Rituals of Gengma Chieftain’ in Zhu, Yang translated, The Translation of the History of Gengma Chieftain (Gengma: The County Bureau of Local Gazetteers), p. 42Google Scholar.

34 ‘Records about Yunnan in the Qing Code’ in Guoyu, Fang (ed.) (2001). Yunnan Historical Materials Collection, volume 8 (Kunming: Yunnan University Press), pp. 127, 178Google Scholar. All capitation fees of Yunnan were converted to be hidage (the fixed tax paid for forming lands) in 1726, and ‘the barbarians (yi ren)’ was one of two categories of household registration, another one was ‘the commoners’, rather than the Han. In Mianning military county of Shunning Prefecture, and in Yong Chang Prefecture, intermarriage between the Yi (Dai) and the commoners (Min) household categories was banned in 1757. The Qing government wanted to separate the Hunan and Jiangxi guest settlers from the natives but this policy was unsuccessful.

35 ‘Records about Yunnan in the Qing Code’ in Guoyu, Fang (ed.), Yunnan Historical Materials Collection, volume 8 (Kunming: Yunnan University Press), p. 179Google Scholar.

36 ‘Title Deed for Land’ in the County Bureau of Local Gazetteers of Shuangjiang compiled (1995), The Gazetteer of Shuangjiang, ‘The Appendix’ (Kunming: Yunnan Nationalities Publishing House), p. 911; and Tinghe, Qiu (1994). The Wuzhuang Collection (Lincang: The Prefecture Bureau of Culture), p. 220Google Scholar.

37 Yunnan Provincial History Institution complied (1985), Collection of Historical Materials Relating to Yunnan in the Qing Veritable Records, volume 3 (Kunming: Yunnan People's Publishing House), p. 649Google Scholar.

38 Ibid., p. 643.

39 YIbid.., p. 650.

40 Ma, Jianxiong (2011). ‘Shaping of the Yunnan-Burma Frontier by Secret Societies since the End of the 17th Century’, Moussons 17:1, 65–84.Google Scholar

41 Jing, Liu (2001). The (Qinglong) Gazetteer of Shunning Prefecture (1761) (Hong Kong: Tianma Publishing Company), p. 244Google Scholar.

42 Meng, Dang (2001). The (Guangxu) Gazetteer of Shunning Prefecture (1904) (Hong Kong: Tianma Publishing Company), p. 335Google Scholar.

43 Yuan, Ruan (2003). The (Daoguang) Yunnan Gazetteer (1835) in Guoyu, Fang (ed.), Yunnan Historical Materials Collection, volume 12, (Kunming: Yunnan University Press), pp. 564, 592Google Scholar.

44 Shaoqian, Zheng and Xilin, Li (1840), The (Dao Guang) Gazetteer of Puer Prefecture, volume 13 (Kunming: Yunnan Provincial Library), p. 17Google Scholar.

45 ‘The Tea Taxation of Yunnan’, in ‘Records about Yunnan in the Qing Code’, in Guoyu, Fang (ed.) (2003). Yunnan Historical Materials Collection, volume. 8 (Kunming: Yunnan University Press), p. 178Google Scholar.

46 Jianxiong, Ma (2007). Ethnic Politics in the Ailao Mountains: Reforms to the Native Chieftain System in the Early to Mid Qing Dynasty and the Mobilization of the Lahu Identity, The Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academic Sinica, 78:2, 553–602Google Scholar.

47 Jifa, Zhuang (1982). Research on the Military Feat of Qing Gaozong (Taipei: National Palace Museum), pp. 269–324Google Scholar.

48 Yuan, Ruan (2003), The Daoguang Yunnan Gazetteer (1835), ‘Record on Food and Money’, in Guoyu, Fang (ed.), Yunnan Historical Materials Collection, volume 12 (Kunming: Yunnan University Press), p. 641Google Scholar.

49 Yunnan Provincial History Institution Complied (1985). Collection of Historical Materials Relating to Yunnan in the Qing Veritable Records, volume 2 (Kunming: Yunnan People's Publishing House), p. 10Google Scholar.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid., p. 564.

52 Ibid.

53 Shaoqian, Zheng and Xilin, Li (1840). The Dao Guang Gazetteer of Puer Prefecture, volume 13, (Kunming: Yunnan Provincial Library), p. 17Google Scholar.

54 Ding, Xia and Tiren, Xie (1838). The (Dao Guang) Gazetteer of Weiyuan, volume 5 (Kunming: Yunnan Provincial Library)Google Scholar.

55 Yuan, Wei (2001). ‘The Records about the Chieftains Transformation in Southwest in the Yongzheng Reign (1846)’, in Guoyu, Fang (ed.), The Yunnan Historical Materials Collection, volume 8 (Kunming: Yunnan University Press)Google Scholar.

56 Guoyu, Fang (2003). ‘The Brief Study on the Han Chinese Immigration in Yunnan in Qing dynasty’, in Guoyu, Fang (ed.), Yunnan Historical Materials Collection, volume 11 (Kunming: Yunnan University Press), pp. 675–681Google Scholar.

57 Ding, Xia and Tiren, Xie (1838). The (Dao Guang) Gazetteer of Weiyuan, volume 5 (Kunming: Yunnan Provincial Library), p. 49Google Scholar.

58 Cui, Tang (1990). ‘The Records about Barbarians’ in Cui, Tang (ed.), The Gazetteer of Yunnan (1799), volume 13 (Kunming, the People's Publishing House of Yunnan), p. 312Google Scholar.

59 Weisan, Liu (2001). ‘The Brief Gazetteer of Southern Yunnan’, in Guoyu, Fang (ed.), Yunnan Historical Materials Collection, volume 13 (Kunming: Yunnan University Press), pp. 330–332Google Scholar.

60 Ibid., p. 106.

61 See also Liu Weisan (2001). The Brief Gazetteer of South Yunnan (1881); Nitui, (1992). The Chronicle of Yunnan (1846) (Kunming: Yunnan University Press)Google Scholar; Wang Song (1826). A Copy of (Daoguang) Yunnan Gazetteer (1829); Xu Shuhong (1732). The Gazetteer of Jingdong (Kunming: Yunnan Provincial Library). These materials described the so-call local barbarians before the Daoguan period (1821–1850) in the local contexts.

62 From the 1790s, under the leadership of monk Zhang Fuguo, the communities in the Luohei Mountains were mobilized and organized into Five of Six districts. The communities built their village temples and paid tax to the monks as their higher-level political leaders, setting their religious centre at Nanzha and Mangnuo villages. See Jianxiong Ma, ‘The Clustered Communities and Transportation Routes: The Wa Lands Neighbouring the Lahu and Dai on the Frontier’. The Journal of Burma Studies, 17:1, 81–119.

63 ‘The code of currency’ in ‘Records about Yunnan in the Qing Code’, in Guoyu, Fang (ed.) (2003). Yunnan Historical Materials Collection, volume 8 (Kunming: Yunnan University Press), p. 203Google Scholar.