Guizhou In Ming Dynasty History Of Immigration And Family Ethics Changes

It has been proved by the archaeological and excavation evidences that there were human beings inhabiting in Guizhou even 240,000 years ago. However, as Guizhou is located far from Central China and has plenty of towering mountains, it had so little communication with Central Plains and had been regarded as wild land in historical writings. Although without the involvement of Han nation and Huaxia civilization in Guizhou, several other non-Han nations as immigration in searching for living space, had communicated and integrated with each other, and had historically formed the ethnic structure in Guizhou together. The main ethnic groups were the Baiyue people, Diqiang clans, South barbarians system and native populations of Pu.During the historically long and slow process of integration, these different ethnic groups and tribes, had brought about many convergences and similarities in blood, culture and customs, and had come into being a new groups which was different from Han nation in culture and ethnic character and other aspects. And a relatively stable family values and behavior patterns were formed by them in historically specific circumstance and were represented through customs and other means. Strong features in customs of wedding, funeral, marriage and other aspects had been kept by the native until a large number of Han people immigrated into Guizhou during Ming Dynasty. Han immigrants as a new nation lived together with other nations, as a result, the communication and integration among them continued.Comparing with the immigration and integration among nations from pre-Qin period to Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty in Guizhou, it was different in Ming Dynasty in ways and results of immigration and integration between Han nation and other nations. On the one hand, the four groups (the Baiyue people, Diqiang clans, South barbarians system and native populations of Pu.) were roughly at the same level of social development and civilizations. The immigrants of Han nation in Ming Dynasty were more developed in civilization than those four groups; therefore the conflicts of value and of culture were unavoidable. On the other hand, the Han immigrants had strong advantages in number and size, so they provided necessary conditions for survival and reproduction of Confucian culture, which had played a positive role in development and change of ethic ideas in Guizhou. In other words, Han immigrants in Guizhou had successfully introduced the Confucian ethic into Guizhou and had promoted the process of civilization in Guizhou. However, the integration of nations and the cultural influences were reciprocal. On the one hand, the Han immigrants assimilated the native by force, education, communication, etc., which made local family ethic changed. As a result, the barbarians had changed the idea of freedom in marriage into the idea of abiding by "Six ceremony" and "parents'arrangement", and had changed the phenomenon that there would be a ruthless fight between father and his son once they disagreed with each other, into the new one that they regarded loyalty and filial piety as first and maintained the tradition of farming and education, and more. On the other hand, because of the changes of the identity and fate of migrants'descendents which were caused by the social changes, or because of the marriages between Han immigrants and the native, these descendents'value orientation had been different from Confucian family ethics during the process of assimilating the native through Confucian culture. The Fortress and the Fortress culture in Anshun area was the famous case representing Han immigrants' changes in ethical orientation. So the writing framework of the dissertation is established according to such a spatio-temporal logic:The introduction is devoted to discuss the basic structure of family ethics and the relationship between family ethics and customs, to define the concept of immigrant and its scope, and to explain the thesis and methods of this dissertation. The first chapter intends to examine the historical process of migration, integration, and evolution of the southern barbarian, Baiyue, Diqiang, Pu and Han nation by and the culture conflicts Ming Dynasty. The task of Chapterâ…¡is to examine Ming government's measures on controlling and governing Guizhou and the corresponding types of immigrants, and to make a statistical analysis on distribution of the of Han nation and un-Han nations according to historical records, and to check the "Customs" and other entries in local chronicles to review family ethic of Han nation and un-Han nations which reflected in terms of customs, so that to come to a conclude about respective form and features of the family ethic. The third chapter is utilized to study the cultural conflict and exchange between Han nation and un-Han nations, and inner communication and interaction within themselves. Within the Fourth chapter, we will research the sympathy between these groups and the impact of changes in family ethics and its results. The fifth chapter is conclusion which is to state that Han immigrants in the Ming Dynasty had partial and limited impact on the ethics change, and that this work still need to continue deeply.