Policies and Institutions of the Oboi Regency 1661–1669
During the 1660's four Manchus dominated the Chinese empire from the court at Peking. These four, Soni, Suksaha, Ebilun, and Oboi, had been appointed in the “Imperial Will” of the late Shun-chih Emperor to serve as Regents during the minority of the K'ang-hsi Emperor. For the first five years of the Regency these Manchus governed collectively. After 1666, however, one of the Regents, Oboi, managed to concentrate power in his own hands and to eliminate the influence of the other Regents. In the years of 1667–69, the young K'ang-hsi Emperor, assisted by his grandmother (the Grand Empress Dowager) and several Manchu advisers, sought to assert personal control over the Ch'ing state and to eliminate the ambitious Oboi. Eventually, in June, 1669, the Emperor arrested Oboi and put an end to his faction of relatives and supporters.
The Economic Role of the Imperial Household in the Ch'ing Dynasty
This author will attempt to present a preliminary study of the economic aspects of the Imperial Household (Nei-wu-fu), which played a unique role during the Chʻing Dynasty in the grand strategy of the Manchu rule over China. The fact that this vital area of Chʻing history has long been neglected can be gauged from the lack of scholarly studies on the Nei-wu-fu up to the present. Even in the imperial days, few Chinese scholars knew about the actual workings of the Nei-wu-fu, for it remained a closed field to outsiders—almost a shrouded mystery. The reasons for its mysterious character were twofold: on the one hand, inaccessibility of sources of information prevented people from getting a clear picture of the Imperial Household; on the other hand, Chinese were inhibited from investigation, since to peer into the “secret affairs of the Court” (Kung-wei chin-shih) was to run a political risk.
Continents of Liberty: Emerson and Gerald Vizenor’s Chair of Tears
Ralph Waldo Emerson protested what came to be known as the Trail of Tears in a public letter to President Martin Van Buren in 1838. Th e Cherokee Nation, he argued, had been cheated by a “sham treaty” (Emerson, “Letter” 50), the will of the people ignored, and a false acquiescence to removal written into law. In making a passionate appeal to the highest “chair” of the land, Emerson underscored the great political and moral stakes involved: