In honor of Duke’s Centennial, The Chronicle is highlighting pivotal figures and events throughout the University’s history. Here we take a look at Charlie Soong, Trinity College’s first international student and founder of an influential Chinese dynasty:
When a Chinese teenager suddenly arrived in Wilmington, North Carolina, during the summer of 1880, few could have anticipated that his influence would profoundly shape the course of modern Chinese history.
A missionary, revolutionary and father to China’s prominent Soong sisters, Charlie Soong’s fame was eventually eclipsed by those of his children. Yet, few families have wielded as much political influence in China as the Soong dynasty.
Soong was the first international student to study in North Carolina, according to E.A. Haag in the 2015 biography, “Charlie Soong.” Traveling all the way from Hainan, China, to Durham, it was at Duke’s predecessor institution of Trinity College that Soong pursued a Western education and formed lifelong connections.
Passage to America
Born with the name Han Chiao-shun on the island of Hainan, China, Oct. 17, 1861, Soong came from a Hakka lineage known for its migratory traditions. He likely made brief voyages along the South China coastline in his early years before arriving to the East Indies at 14 years old as an apprentice for a branch of the family.
Soong’s distant uncle, an established tea and silk merchant in the Chinatown section of Boston, adopted Soong and gave him his surname. In the spring of 1878, the young Soong set sail with his newfound guardian on a journey halfway around the world.
Trading the subtropical heat of Hainan for the winter breeze of Boston, Soong’s new life abroad was confined to his adoptive uncle’s cramped Chinatown shop.
The culture shock only made Soong’s transition to America more difficult — it did not take long before the young immigrant realized that he longed for something more. Soon, Soong found a way to escape.
Popular lore suggests that the teenager stowed away onboard the U.S. Coast Guard vessel Gallatin, only to be found after the ship had long left Boston Harbor.
However, a more likely account is that Soong — who had spent nearly half of his life on seafaring voyages — sought a job on the vessel.
He was fortunate to work under Gallatin Captain Eric Gabrielson, who introduced Soong to Methodism and enlisted him as a paid crew member. When Soong was asked his name, he answered “Chiao-shun,” which to American ears sounded like “Charlie Sun.”
The sudden transfer of his new “father figure” to another marine ship in Wilmington likely came as a shock to Soong, who shortly thereafter discharged from his service at the Gallatin and boarded a boat bound for Wilmington to reunite with his former captain.
Upon rejoining Gabrielson, Soong became part of a community of pious members of local congregations. There, he converted to Methodism, was baptized with the name Charles Jones Soon and began working at a local printing shop.
It did not take long before the idea of sending Soong back to China as a missionary to preach the gospel struck the church leaders. Reverend Thomas Ricaud of the Fifth Street Methodist Church in Wilmington convinced Soong to pursue the opportunity, both out of devotion to the Christian faith and as a way to reunite with family in China. First, though, Soong had to enroll in school.
Trinity College’s first international student
On a late April evening in 1881, Soong arrived in Durham aboard a train from Wilmington.
Through his Methodist connections, Ricaud persuaded Braxton Craven, president of Trinity College, to enroll Soong as a student. To finance Soong’s tuition, Ricaud reached out to Julian Carr, Durham tobacco magnate, philanthropist and one of the South’s most successful industrialists, who was impressed by Soong and took him into his home “not as a servant, but as a son.”
Carr cultivated a deep friendship with the young immigrant, who spent weekends and holidays attending church with the Carr family and playing with the Carr children.
By the time Soong set foot on Trinity College’s campus in Randolph County, the school had survived the Civil War but faced financial difficulties and low enrollment.
Furthermore, the enrollment of a Chinese student was unprecedented in Trinity’s history, as the school remained a “Southern” college that lacked racial and geographic diversity. In-state students comprised 93% of the student body, with 18 students from present-day Cherokee, North Carolina.
Soong’s sociable character made him popular among his schoolmates. Despite being teased on occasion, he was “very amiable, full of fun and always ready to respond in a playful spirit.”
Soong’s warm reception in Durham extended to his relationship with Craven. As Soong settled down as a student, he lodged at Craven’s home, where the schoolmaster and his wife, Irene Craven, took up the task of tutoring the teenager who could barely converse or write in basic English. Nevertheless, Soong’s ability to memorize Bible verses, a learning technique he mastered through Chinese custom, was recognized as a sign of progress.
Records from the Hillsboro District Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church reveal that Soong’s efforts were highly regarded as demonstrating “promise of much future usefulness.” The records further state, “His greatest desire seems to be to be able someday to return to China and tell his mother and father of Jesus and the resurrection; to convince them to throw down the tools of heathenism and embrace the religion of the Bible.”
By the summer of 1882, after Soong had completed a year at Trinity College, it was decided that the teenager would transfer to Vanderbilt University. In addition to Vanderbilt offering a specialized theological studies program that would better serve Soong’s goals as a missionary, Braxton Craven’s health was in decline, and Soong may not have had someone to take care of him at Trinity College.
Soong found it difficult to accept the news of his transfer. Leaving for Nashville meant putting his close ties with the Cravens and the Carrs behind him. According to one newspaper account, Soong “couldn’t stop crying” and “had to be convinced that the transfer was for his own good.” Eventually, Soong boarded a train bound for Nashville, arriving in the fall of 1882 to begin his studies in theology.
From missionary to revolutionary
After graduating from Vanderbilt, Soong made one more trip to North Carolina, where he bid farewell to his old friends before returning to China as a missionary.
Back in China, Soong felt discontented with his identity, caught between two disparate cultures and unable to fit into the urban milieu of Shanghai. To supplement his unsuccessful mission, Soong drifted into business by selling Bibles for the American Bible Society.
His business — which quickly became a rags-to-riches story — traced back to his experience in the printing industry in Wilmington. As Western missionaries flooded into China in the latter half of the 19th century, Soong capitalized on the economic opportunities by establishing a publishing business. The mass printing of inexpensive books met the increasing demand for Bibles in the vernacular language.
Ironically, as Soong considered abandoning his Methodist mission, it was the Methodist church that brought him into contact with Sun Yat-sen, regarded by many as the father of modern China. The two men met at a Methodist church service and connected over their shared faith, Western education and desire to end China’s dynastic rule.
Soong began secretly supporting Sun’s plans for a revolution, printing and disseminating revolutionary pamphlets with his press and funding his campaigns. In 1906, Soong was appointed treasurer of the Revolutionary Alliance and tasked with financing the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang.
Following a decade of failed uprisings, the efforts of Soong’s financial backing and Sun’s revolutionary activism contributed to the Chinese Revolution of 1911, which successfully brought an end to imperial rule in China and marked the beginning of the Republic of China.
The Soong dynasty
Charlie Soong’s legacy is defined by the family dynasty he founded and the fame that his children would go on to achieve. In particular, Soong’s three daughters would emerge as key figures in the founding of the Republic of China and in shaping Chinese-American relations during and after World War II.
Soong sent all six of his children to study in the United States. The eldest daughter, Ai-ling Soong, enrolled at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, one of the first higher education institutions in the world to offer degrees for women. Ching-ling Soong and Mei-ling Soong would later follow in their sister’s footsteps by attending the college.
Ai-ling married H.H. Kung, one of the wealthiest men in China in the 20th century. He later became the governor of the Bank of China, minister of finance and ultimately premier of the Republic of China.
Ching-ling served as secretary to Sun and later married him, who was 26 years her senior. Madame Sun Yat-sen was a popular public figure in China and achieved status as the “mother of modern China.” She was actively involved in political affairs before and after World War II, establishing the China Welfare Institute to support children’s health. She served as vice chairman of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Mei-ling, hailed as “the eternal first lady of China,” achieved a high degree of fame in the U.S. The wife of Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, Mei-ling was instrumental in convincing the rest of the world of China’s cause and the nation’s need for support in their war against Japan. Madame Chiang Kai-shek was also the first Chinese national to address both houses of Congress, serving as China’s de facto ambassador.
Soong’s oldest son T.V. Soong, a Harvard University graduate, worked as a secretary for Sun and later became finance minister and governor of the Central Bank of China. He was premier of the Republic of China from 1944 to 1947 and moved to the U.S. in 1949.
As the Communist Party took over power in China in 1949, many of Soong’s family members and descendants moved to the United States.
Soong’s name and story has gradually begun to receive recognition in China, a considerable legacy that traces back to his formative years as a young immigrant in North Carolina.
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Lucas Lin is a Trinity sophomore and a university news editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.