Volta
Politics24 November 1894

Founding of the Revive China Society and the Guangzhou Uprising

Also called: Xingzhonghui, First Guangzhou Uprising

In November 1894 Sun Yat-sen founded his first revolutionary group, the Revive China Society, with overseas Chinese in Honolulu. A rising planned in Guangzhou the next year was betrayed, and Sun spent sixteen years in exile.

The “Four Bandits” who talked of overthrowing the Qing in Hong Kong before the Revive China Society — Sun Yat-sen second from left in front, c. 1888
The “Four Bandits” who talked of overthrowing the Qing in Hong Kong before the Revive China Society — Sun Yat-sen second from left in front, c. 1888

Public domain · Source

Born in Xiangshan, Guangdong, Sun Yat-sen went to Western schools in Hawaii, where his elder brother lived, and studied medicine in Hong Kong. In 1894 he sent Li Hongzhang a memorial urging reform; receiving no answer, on 24 November he founded the Revive China Society in Honolulu with some twenty overseas Chinese. Its oath read: “Expel the Tartars (the Manchus), revive China, and establish a federal government.”

In 1895, after China’s defeat by Japan, the society set up headquarters in Hong Kong and planned a rising in Guangzhou for October. But the boat carrying the arms was late and the plot leaked; Lu Haodong and others were caught and executed. With a price on his head, Sun wandered through Japan, America and Europe, and in 1896 was held captive in the Chinese legation in London — his release made him famous.

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States and rulers at the time
Qing — Guangxu Emperor
Places
Honolulu, Guangzhou

People

  • Sun Yat-sen1866 – 1925

    key figure · Leader of the Chinese revolution who led the Tongmenghui under the Three Principles of the People and became provisional president of the Republic of China after the Xinhai Revolution

Before and after

Earlier
1894 First Sino-Japanese War
Later
1897 Scramble for Concessions

Themes that include this event

  • The 1911 Revolution1894 – 1916

    From the Revive China Society to the death of Yuan Shikai — twenty-two years in which, amid debt and failed reform, revolutionaries and the New Army brought down the Qing and founded Asia’s first republic, which passed through dictatorship and a short-lived monarchy into the age of the warlords