Learn about The Boxer Rebellion, with this clip from The Story of China. The Boxer Rebellion was an anti-foreign peasant movement that began 1898 in north China. The Boxers were members of a secret martial arts society called the 'Harmonious Fists'. They blamed China's problems on foreigners, especially Christian missionaries. The Boxer movement attracted people struggling to survive on the edge of society. The movement expanded rapidly, seizing foreign properties, ripping up railroad tracks, and attacking and sometimes killing foreigners as well as Chinese Christian converts. In June 1900, the Boxers besieged the foreign legation area in Beijing. Several foreign armies banded together and defeated the Boxers.