David Campbell Porter

I am a historian of empire, state-making, and identity in Qing and early Republican China. My current book project, tentatively titled Slaves of the Emperor: The Qing Eight Banners as Service Elite (currently under review), explores the history of one of the key institutions of the Manchu conquest of China – the Eight Banner System. In it, I argue that that the banners are better understood not as an ethnic institution dedicated to maintaining Manchu solidarity, but as a “service elite” – a multiethnic caste of imperial servitors whose hereditary political, legal, and economic privilege was tied to the military and administrative service they provided to the Qing court. As part of my exploration of the service elite concept, I show the parallels that link the Qing banners to the samurai of Edo Japan, the service nobility of imperial Russia, and the janissaries of the Ottoman Empire, as institutions that helped small polities based on personal ties between ruler and elites grow into complex bureaucratic states.

In addition to this major research project, I take a great interest in the Manchu language and the texts written in it, from bureaucratic documents to popular fiction to private correspondence. I have taught Manchu, both as a graduate student at Harvard and online, worked to make the study of the language more accessible by sharing resources through the Manchu Studies Group, and translated Manchu sources for both academic uses and the interest of broader audiences. Manchu sources form a major part of all my research, and my next big project will be a study of translation and translators and their role in the Qing state, which might fairly be called a “translation empire.”

Selected publications: 

Journal Articles

“Bannermen as Translators: Manchu Language Education in the Hanjun Banners.” Late Imperial China 40.2 (December 2019), pp. 1-43.

“Manchu Racial Identity on the Qing Frontier: Donjina and Early Twentieth-Century Ili.” Modern China 44.1 (January 2018), pp. 3-34.

Writing for General Audiences

“Dmitri and Yakov Escape from Guangzhou,” Fairbank Center blog.

“Zhao Quan Adds a Salary: Losing Banner Status in Qing Dynasty Guangzhou,” Fairbank Center blog (October 31, 2016).

“Qianlong the Petty Tyrant,” Manchu Studies Group blog (September 17, 2014).