Subsistence and sedition in southwest China: Local responses to Qing rule in eighteenth-century Guizhou

This dissertation examines the ways in which the people of Guizhou adapted to a harsh natural environment and resisted the hegemonic advances of the Qing state. Combining archival materials, folk literature, and ethnographic studies, I demonstrate that the imperial state and local communities constantly struggled for control of political and cultural space within Guizhou. This project challenges earlier work on Guizhou which views the Qing state as the sole actor in the region by portraying local inhabitants as creative actors rather than passive recipients of imperial initiatives.; Faced with an unfavorable climate and poor soils, Guizhou's local residents had for centuries relied upon what I term indigenous subsistence strategies---chiefly illegal activities such as robbery, raiding and banditry---to meet their basic needs. As long as the state presence in Guizhou remained light, local residents could pursue these strategies with impunity. In the 1720s, however, the central government imposed a new social and political order designed to transform all of Guizhou's residents into law-abiding Qing subjects and end the violence for which the province was notorious. Instead, in defiance of the state's increased presence, the people of Guizhou asserted their right to pursue and preserve the subsistence strategies that had sustained them for centuries. Criminal cases from the eighteenth century indicate that some individuals practiced a more traditional form of these strategies, usually involving petty theft and murder. Other individuals developed more sophisticated schemes that also served as vehicles for discontent with the Qing state.; Until the late eighteenth century, Qing authorities prevented local crime and dissent from escalating into full-scale rebellion. In 1796, however, a local religious leader from southwestern Guizhou organized an uprising against the Qing. Spurred on by their charismatic leaders and supernatural beliefs, the rebels soon controlled all of southern and central Guizhou. Eventually, Qing troops regained control of the region, but similar insurrections persisted well into the nineteenth century. For many residents of Guizhou, subsistence needs continued to supersede any sense of fealty to the dynasty.