This is a study of the Manchu experience during the first half of the Qing period. Depending substantially on evidence collected from Manchu-language archives, the dissertation centers around three concerns: description of the institutions governing life in the Eight Banners, the place of bannermen in Qing society, and the evolution of banner, specifically Manchu, identity up to the mid-1700's. It focuses first on the systematic creation, very soon after 1644, of a network of permanent garrisons in provincial cities, and on the reliance of the Qing as a conquest dynasty on this system in asserting authority and control. An examination of the relationship of garrison commanders to civil officialdom and to the emperor concludes that these officials formed a separate, Manchu-only bureaucracy, which functioned as an additional tool of surveillance. The dissertation looks at the character of banner life in the garrisons (and to an extent in Peking) by investigating the size, population, and layout of the garrisons, finding that although assignment to these "Manchu cities" was meant to be temporary, by 1700 a distinct trend toward permanent residency had begun, evident in the growing disinclination of bannermen to recognize Peking as their putative home. Apart from enforced residence in garrisons, attention is called to other characteristics of banner life, including obligatory military service and a range of legal, social, and economic privileges denied Han Chinese. Examination of the economics of banner life treats the causes of the impoverishment of bannermen and discusses the partly-successful efforts to solve this problem. A review of economic relations between Manchu and Chinese cities shows the persistence of an initially uneasy relationship. Finally, assimilation--with impoverishment one of the twin evils (from the Manchu point of view) of the Qing occupation--is considered. Fear of the disappearance of a distinctive "Manchu Way" and the need to limit the financial burden imposed by the banners led to a series of reforms that resulted in the identification, on ethnic lines, of dynastic welfare with Manchu bannermen, and the simultaneous identification, on institutional lines, of Manchu identity with the Eight Banner system.
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