The Boxer Rebellion memorial arch is the most prominent object in Tappan Square, but who exactly it should be memorializing has been up for debate for the last three decades.

In the last part of the 19th century, China, after its defeat in the Sino-Japanese War in 1894, was in a state of extreme political and economic disarray. European countries and America took advantage of this instability to expand their international trade markets. The Secretary of State, John Hays, instituted an Open Door policy which commandeered China’s economic privileges. At the same time, China was overrun by missionaries, many of whom didn’t bother to hide their disdain for Chinese culture. This last factor alone caused much violence and resentment.

All of this tension exploded in 1900. A society called Yi Ho Tuan, or the Society of Righteousness and Harmony, was devoted to turning back the effects of imperialism and preserving the Chinese tradition. In 1900 the “Boxers” began raiding anything that represented western influence, including the missions. The raids were extremely violent and resulted in the deaths of many missionaries

Among these missions were those from Oberlin College and town. Missionary activity had been a tradition in Oberlin since its founding and it was in fact the original intention of the school to train evangelists. They were well represented in the missions to China. 19 of these evangelists, including some family members, were killed in the Rebellion.

In 1902, the arch was erected to honor the 19 dead. The bulk of the money to build it came from a D. Willis James, who called those memorialized the “heroic martyrs in China.”

It was completed in 1903 and generally well received.: “It [is] eminently fitting that monument to the memory of these missionaries…should be placed upon the campus of this college which has contributed so much of its work to the activity of the foreign missions,” a student commentary in a 1902 Oberlin Review said.

It became part of the commencement ritual for the graduates to walk through the arch. But in the ‘70’s, people began to oppose the arch on principle. They objected to how the arch implicitly ignored the thousands of Chinese people slain in the Rebellion. Students began to, alternatively, walk around the arch. This was in protest to what the arch stood for.

“..,given the fact that they knew very little about conditions in China, even less about Shansi, before they set this goal, it could be…argued that a college was designed to fill their own needs rather than China’s,” Mary Tarpley Campfield said of the missions set up by Oberlin at the time.

“We disdained the Oberlin missionary tradition…and we enjoyed the irony of using the arch for our incendiary purposes,” A former student, Paul Willen said.

Others spoke for the opposite side. Professor Carlson said this of the Oberlin missionaries;

“…doctors among them helped thousands of Chinese patients…mission wives…established and taught in little schools attended mainly by children from very poor families. These Oberlin people had no similarity with some missionaries in other places who gave mission work a bad name…They deserve to be memorialized by an arch on Tappan Square.”

Despite this opposition, in 1994 the students voted to add a plaque to the arch to memorialize the Chinese who died in the rebellion as well.

In 1989, members of the Asian American Alliance issued this remark: “[It is a] blatant example of Oberlin’s ethnocentricity and institutional racism…the arch stands as a symbol of western intervention not only in China, but also in all 3rd World Nations.”

On Monday, graduating Oberlin seniors will once again choose how to view this controversial symbol.