HISTORY
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reasonable standards of food, space and medical attention, which tended to drive the coolie trade to other ports. But Hong Kong prospered as the centre of an important passenger traffic.
The Taiping rebellion, which began in 1850 and spread over South China, created unsettled conditions on the mainland resulting in thousands seeking refuge in the safety of the Colony, until by 1861 the population had risen to 119,321, of whom 116,335 were Chinese. This pattern was to be repeated, and is significant of some of the forces which have made Hong Kong a predominantly Chinese community.
EXTENSIONS TO THE COLONY, 1860-99
The 1860 Convention of Peking ended the hostilities which had arisen from the sending of a British Minister to Peking after the second Anglo-Chinese War. Under it Kowloon Peninsula up to present-day Boundary Street was ceded to the Crown and became part of the Colony, together with Stonecutters Island.
Permanent quarters were established in Kowloon for part of the garrison. This development was followed by the construction of new docks, more extensive than could be attempted on the Victoria waterfront, and which were the beginning of Kowloon's develop- ment as the Colony's second city. The pioneers in residential development in Kowloon were the Portuguese, followed by the Parsees, from about 1870 onwards.
By the Convention of Peking 1898, as a result of the rivalry of the Western powers over concessions in China, the Colony was again extended, acquiring under a 99-year lease a substantial stretch of mainland north of Kowloon and a group of islands in the immediate vicinity of Hong Kong. This leased area became known as the New Territories.
The initial British occupation, which took place in 1899, met with some ill-organized armed opposition in the Tai Po and Yuen Long areas, but the confidence of the people was quickly established. Sir Henry Blake (Governor 1898-1903) personally identified himself with every aspect of the life of the Colony's new rural population, obtaining improved seed and types of livestock for them; and the relations between the Government and the people of the New Territories have ever since been