From Land Reclamation to Land Grab: Settler Colonialism in Southwest China, 1680–1735

This article challenges the notion that Kangxi-era policies (1661–1722) toward the southwest were laissez-faire. In June 1681, the Kangxi emperor extended the Qing state’s land reclamation program to recently pacified areas of Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou. Programmatic incentives encouraged government officials to recruit Han settlers from China’s interior to reclaim land in these southwestern provinces, and officials profited enormously from this state-sponsored campaign. Since the southwest was populated almost exclusively by non-Han peoples at the time, the land reclamation program amounted to nothing less than the outright seizure of non-Han lands. This program of settler colonialism was accompanied by an equally aggressive state campaign to undermine the independence of non-Han leaders by increasing the number of tusi titles and offices bestowed specifically upon non-Han elites. Indeed, many features integral to colonization of the southwest during the Yongzheng emperor’s reign (1723–1735) originated under Kangxi’s rule.