William Scott Ament and the Boxer Rebellion

In 1900 in China, a peasant movement commonly known as the Boxers rose up and tried to destroy its Western oppressors. The paramount event of the Boxer Rebellion was the siege of the legations in Peking, which was called by the New York Sun - with only modest hyperbole - 'the most exciting episode ever known to civilization'. In isolated Peking, a horde of brightly dressed, acrobatic, anti-Western and anti-Christian Boxers surrounded the fortified diplomatic legation compound, and rumors about the torture and murder of 900 Western diplomats, soldiers, and missionaries swirled throughout the foreign media. Scholars agree that animosity toward Christian missionaries was a major cause of the Boxer Rebellion and the siege in Peking, but most accounts of the rebellion neglect the missionaries and focus instead on the diplomats and soldiers who weathered the siege and defeated the Chinese in battle.This book aims to give equal due to the missionaries, their work, the impact they had on China, and the controversies arising in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion. It focuses particularly on American missionary William Scott Ament, one of the most distinguished China missionaries, whose brave and resourceful heroism was tarnished by hubris and looting. Once publicly criticized by Mark Twain, Ament grew notorious in the controversy surrounding foreign missionaries in China. By providing a detailed history of the Boxer Rebellion and the siege of Peking, this book allows readers to come to their own conclusions: was Ament as guilty as we have been led to believe? Or did the 'ideal missionary' mistakenly become a character of infamy while lesser men of greater sin escaped censure?