There are different theories concerning the origin of the Salar people. The prevalent view is that the ancestors of the Salar ethnic minority came from the region of Samarkand in Central Asia during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

Xunhua county, which is home to the largest group of Salar people, is a mountainous area situated along the banks of the Yellow River in southeastern Qinghai Province. Although it has a mild climate and fertile land crisscrossed by canals, it is plagued by insufficient rainfall.

Before China’s national liberation in 1949, farmers in the region had to deal with many issues concerning the Yellow River, and the county was often referred to as "arid Xunhua." The Salar people are mainly farmers, cultivating crops such as wheat, Tibetan barley, buckwheat and potatoes. They also produce salt.

During the Yuan Dynasty, a Salar headman surnamed Han was made hereditary chief of this ethnic minority. With the rise of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), he submitted to the new rulers and continued to hold his position. He had under him a basic bureaucracy that looked after such things as military affairs, punishments, revenue and provisions.

Following the development of the economy and the expansion of the population, the region inhabited by the Salar people was divided into two administrative areas - the "inner eight gongs" of Xunhua and the "outer five gongs" of Hualong - in the early period of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). A "gong" included a number of villages, equivalent to the later administrative unit of "xiang" (township).

New organizational setups were introduced during the following years of the Qing Dynasty to step up the control and exploitation of the Salar people. During both the Ming and Qing periods, Salar men were subject to conscription, which was an extremely heavy burden on the Salar.

As the Salar people are devout Muslims, the villages were dominated by mosques and the Muslim clergy. Along with the development of the feudal economy, land became concentrated in the hands of the ruling minority - including community chiefs and imams.

Prior to the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the landlord economy was dominant. Relying on their political power and feudal and religious privileges, the Salar landlords maintained ownership over most of the land and farm animals, as well as water sources and oil mills.

Most of the Salar farmers on the other hand were either landless or owned only a very insignificant portion of barren land. They had to endure crippling land rents and usury, in addition to unpaid labor including building houses, felling trees and doing transportation work for the landlords. As a result, there were large-scale migrations of Salar people from their villages, leaving the farmlands lying waste and production at a standstill.