Push Factors
Factors such as war, and floods made it hard for the Chinese to live in safety, grow food, or to make a living in their homeland (Library and Archives Canada). Also, because of the dense population of China, it was hard for the government to be able to feed every citizen (Library and Archives Canada). Large amounts of land was unable to be used for farming. From the good land that could be used for farming, there was high rental fees, and because of high population rates, not everyone could own fields to grow food, and so, those without fields had a hard time feeding themselves, and their families (Library and Archives Canada). The last half of the eighteenth century was also a hard political time for the Chinese people. Peasants began to revolt because of poor living conditions in 1851. This revolution ended in 1864, after claiming 20 million lives across the country (Library and Archives Canada). It was during these unstable years that farmers were forced into joining the army, their crops were ruined, and bandits raided into villages (Library and Archive Canada). So it is understandable to see why Chinese people were desperately leaving their country. When losing the Opium Wars to Great Britain, the Chinese were forced to open more cities for trading with the Europeans. These new ports caused less trading to go on with the ports that were used before. So the workers at the old ports lost their jobs (Library and Archives Canada). Resulting in the loss of the Opium Wars, China also had to pay massive amounts of money to the British. Because of this, the taxes of the ordinary citizens increased (Library and Archive Canada).
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