Ningpo massacre

The Ningpo massacre
Date 1800s Location Ningbo, Qing dynasty Result Cantonese victory
Belligerents
Qing dynasty	Portuguese Pirates
Commanders and leaders
Ah Pak
Casualties and losses
2 Chinese, 1 English dead	40 Portuguese dead

The Ningpo massacre was a massacre of Portuguese pirates by Cantonese pirates led by Ah Pak around the city of Ningbo. During the Qing dynasty, in the 1800s, the Ningbo authorities contracted Cantonese pirates to exterminate and massacre Portuguese pirates who raided Cantonese shipping around Ningbo. The massacre was "successful", with 40 Portuguese dead and only two Chinese dead, being dubbed "The Ningpo Massacre" by an English correspondent, who noted that the Portuguese pirates had behaved savagely towards the Chinese, and that the Portuguese authorities at Macau should have reined in the pirates.

Battle and Massacre

Portuguese pirates who raided Cantonese shipping in the early 19th century were exterminated by Cantonese forces around Ningbo.^[1]

The people from Ningbo supported the Cantonese massacre of the Portuguese pirates and the attack on the Portuguese consul. The Cantonese did not see the Portuguese as the same as other Europeans, not being afraid of them and fighting them man to man. The Ningbo authorities had made an agreement with a Cantonese pirate named A'Pak to exterminate the Portuguese pirates. The Portuguese did not even try to fight when the Cantonese pirates sacked their consulate, fleeing and hiding among the tombs. The Cantonese butchered around 40 Portuguese while sacking the consulate. Only two Chinese and one Englishman who sided with the Cantonese died.

Further reading

• George Wingrove Cooke (1858). China: being "The Times" special correspondence from China in the years 1857-58 (reprint ed.). G. Routledge. pp. 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134. Retrieved 4 November 2011.(the University of California)
• George Wingrove Cooke (1861). China and lower Bengal: being "The Times" correspondence from China in the years 1857-58 (5 ed.). Routledge, Warne, & Routledge. pp. 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134. Retrieved 4 November 2011.(the New York Public Library) Also available here
• American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (1869). The Missionary magazine, Volume 49 XLIX. Boston: American Baptist Missionary Union. Retrieved 14 December 2011.Original from the University of Wisconsin - Madison (eastern china mission - Letter from Mr. Kwolton)

References

1. Zhidong Hao (2011). Macau History and Society (illustrated ed.). Hong Kong University Press. p. 67. ISBN 988-8028-54-5. Retrieved 4 November 2011. There was indeed a group of Portuguese who became pirates, called "Macau ruffians," or policemen who turned bad, along with "Manila-men" from the Philippines and escaped African slaves. Their fleet attacked “the Cantonese ships when they could get them at an advantage, and murdered their crews with circumstances of great atrocity.”55 They were destroyed in Ningbo by a fleet of Chinese pirates with the support of the local Chinese government and other Europeans.