Dzunghar Genocide – World History – Free PDF Download

BACKGROUND

• The name Dzungar people, referred to the several Oirat tribes who formed and maintained the Dzungar Khanate in the 17th and 18th centuries.
• Historically they were one of major tribes of the Four Oirat confederation. They were also known as the Eleuths or Ööled, from the Qing dynasty euphemism for the hated word “Dzungar”.

BACKGROUND

• The Qing dynasty went to war against the Dzungars in the Dzungar–Qing War. The Dzungars lived in the area stretching from the west end of the Great Wall of China to present-day eastern Kazakhstan and from present-day northern Kyrgyzstan to southern Siberia.
• They were the last nomadic empire to threaten China.After Dzungars Wara  in 1755,  originally planned to split the Dzungar Khanate into four tribes headed by four Khans.
• Amursana rejected the Qing arrangement and rebelled because he wanted to be leader of a united Dzungar nation.

GENOCIDE

• The enraged Qianlong Emperor then issued orders for the eradication of the entire Dzungar nation and name. Mongol banners and Manchus would receive Dzungar women and children as slaves. The remaining Dzungars were to be killed.
• Manchu Bannermen and loyalist Mongols received Dzungars women, children, and old men as bondservants, and their Dzungar identity was wiped out.
• Orders were given to “completely exterminate” the Dzungar tribes, and the genocide left Dzungaria mostly depopulated.

GENOCIDE

• The Emperor saw no conflict between his order of extermination and upholding the peaceful principles of Confucianism.
• The Qianlong Emperor moved the remaining Dzungar people to other places in China. He ordered the generals to kill all the Dzungar men and divided their wives and children among the Qing soldiers.
• In his account of the war, Qing scholar Wei Yuan, wrote that about 50% of the Dzungar households were killed by smallpox, 20% fled to Russia, and 30% were killed by the army and  80%, or between 480,000 and 600,000 people, were killed between 1755 and 1758.
• GENOCIDE
• The Dzungar genocide has been compared to the Qing extermination of the Jinchuan Tibetan people in 1776.

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