1875 | Political Events
Political Events
China's Qing dynasty emperor Tonghzi (Tung-chih) dies at his native Beijing (Peking) January 12 at age 19 scarcely 2 years after taking control of the government. In his 12-year reign the Taiping Rebellion was finally suppressed, the Nian Rebellion crushed, the finances of the empire restored, and attempts made to recruit able men into the government. The dowager empress Cixi served as co-regent until 1873 and in order to regain her regency she breaks sacred dynastic law of succession by adopting her nephew Zaitian, a cousin of Tonghzhi, who formally ascends the throne February 25 at age 4 and will reign until 1908 as the emperor Guangxu (Kuang-hsü). General Zuo Zong-tang (Tso Tsung-tang), 63, moves to suppress the Tungans of the Northern Tian Shan, who have been in revolt since 1862.
The murder of a British legation official (Augustus Raymond Margary) by native bandits near the Sino-Burmese border February 21 increases tensions between Beijing and London.
Gen. Sir James Hope Grant dies at London March 7 at age 66, having gained renown for his actions in the Sepoy Rebellion and the Second Opium War.
A French republican constitution finalized July 16 provides for a bicameral legislature (Chamber of Deputies and Senate) with a president to be elected for a 7-year term. Marshal MacMahon will continue as president until he resigns in 1879.
Bosnia and Herzogovina in the Balkans rise against the Turks until the Ottoman sultan Abdul Aziz meets insurgent demands and promises reforms, but he reappoints the reactionary former grand vizier Mahmud Nedim to his former position (see 1872; 1876).
The Suez Canal completed in 1869 comes under British control November 27 through the efforts of Prime Minister Disraeli, who has obtained a loan from the merchant banking house of Rothschild to outbid French investors and buy up 176,752 shares in the Universal Suez Company from the profligate Egyptian khedive Ismail (see 1863). Ismail is deep in debt and has secretly appealed to the British prime minister September 30 when Parliament was not in session, Disraeli has put up the British Government itself as security for the £4 million loan (N. M. Rothschild charges 2½ percent interest on the advance plus 5 percent interest per year), and he creates international consternation by purchasing control of the strategic waterway, which he regards as Britain's lifeline to India (see 1888; Ismail, 1879).
Portugal and the Transvaal Republic reach an accord that provides for commercial relations between the two and construction of a railroad between Lourenço Marques in Mozambique and the Transvaal.
The Society of True South Africans founded by South African pastor Stephanus Jacobus Du Toit, 28, begins publishing books in Afrikaans and rallying Boer political consciousness (see 1879).
Ecuador's dictator Gabriel García Moreno is assassinated on the steps of the government palace at Quito August 6 at age 53 by a group of young liberals after a remarkable 15-year period of autocratic rule (see 1861). Exiled pamphleteer Juan Montalvo proclaims, "My pen has killed him." But while the García Moreno regime has been oppressive at times, it has given the urban classes a strong sense of nationalism, built hospitals, roads, and schools, started a railroad between Quito and Guayaquil, and introduced agricultural reforms that have included the planting of eucalyptus trees from Australia to resist erosion in the Sierra, where poor Indians have cut down the original ground cover for fuel.
Former Confederate general (and 1860 presidential candidate) John C. Breckenridge dies at Lexington, Ky., May 17 at age 54; former president Andrew Johnson at his daughter's house near Carter Station, Tenn., July 31 at age 66 following a series of strokes; former Confederate general George E. Pickett at Norfolk, Va., October 25 at age 50.
President Grant opens Oregon Territory to white settlement; it has been occupied under an 1855 treaty by the Nez Percé (see Chief Joseph, 1877).