The Boxer Rebellion took place from 1898 to the 1900s. The cause of the Boxer rebellion was the opium wars, which came right before the rebellion. Because of the imperialism during the opium wars, where the foreigners took money and territory from China, the Boxers decided to rebel because they didn’t like how foreigners were taking everything they wanted from China. Because of their motive, the Boxers did not deserve a bad reputation. According to Newsela, the Chinese were forced to continue importing opium for the benefit of British trade. The foreigners also demanded that certain ports would be opened up for foreign trade, and that China had to give up some of their territories. This was their reason to start The Boxer Rebellion. During the rebellion, according to Mr. Jenne, the Boxers attacked the city of Beijing and destroyed the foreign buildings, and even some Chinese buildings, because they believed their ‘magic fire’ would destroy only foreign things. Unfortunately, they had believed wrong and ended up destroying Chinese property. To keep all the foreigners in Beijing, the Boxers cut off the railway lines and the telegraph lines so the citizens couldn’t escape or efficiently contact others for help. They cornered the foreigners in the British legation, so the foreign space kept getting smaller as the Boxers surrounded them. Relief forces rescued the citizens and the Boxers had no choice but to surrender, they removed everything that made themselves recognizably a Boxer, so the troops shot anyone who they thought was a Boxer. This led to many people’s deaths, both Boxers and foreigners who were suspected to be Boxers. It is hard to judge whether or not the Boxers were good people or not, because we don’t have their perspective, and all the accounts of what happened were from the foreign perspective. This meant that the judgment of the war was biased, as you could only see it through the foreigner’s eyes. Even if it seems like all the things the Boxers did were harmful, destructive, and ruined many innocent lives, their acts were justified, as the foreigners colonized China and took what they wanted. In the end, the Boxers were only trying to get revenge on the foreigners who used and took from them for their benefit, so their actions were for a reasonable cause. Therefore, although the Boxers could have used different methods to rebel against foreign colonization, they did not deserve a bad reputation.

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