By Mark Peterson
I can't write everything I would like to write about Korean slavery in one article, but here my purpose is to refer to Korean slavery as the ninth item on my list of top ten arguments showing Korea's history as a peaceful and stable country. When I read studies of slavery from an international perspective, and discovered that Korea has the longest, unbroken chain of slave-holding in the world, it was a real eye-opener. Because if there was never a break in the chain of slave-holding in Korea, it meant that there was never sufficient chaos to disrupt the ruling class who were the slave owners.
At the outset, we must deal with the definition of slavery. There are some Korean scholars who are quick to argue that Korean slavery is different from every other slavery in the world. It shows up in the language. Korean slaves are called "nobi" whereas slaves in every other culture ― EVERY other culture ― are called "noye." The translation into English comes up as slavery for both, although some try to gerrymander the definition and call it "servitude" or "serfdom," but "nobi" were bought and sold, inherited, traded and moved about at the owners' orders and were in all ways slaves.
For those that want to pursue the "nobi are not noye" argument, let me make one other point, and then I'll leave the definition issue behind. The slave administration office in the Joseon dynasty was called the "jangye-won," the "office of fostering slaves." Notice the "ye" term, implying that "noye" and "nobi" were synonymous.
Studies on international slavery point out that in Korea there is no break in the history of slavery, in the Three Kingdoms and Silla period, through the Goryeo period, and through the Joseon period. Descendants of Silla slaves became Goryeo slaves, and descendants of Goryeo slaves became Joseon slaves.
In all cultures most slavery begins as a result of war. In today's world we think of wars as fights for ideology ― freedom, Communism, Nazism ― but pre-modern wars were fought for "stuff" ― for land, for plunder, and for slaves. Losers in wars, if they survived, became the slaves of the winners. Most slavery begins with prisoners of war.
Korean slaves began as prisoners in the Three Kingdom's wars. Losers became the slaves of the winners. We do not have many original documents from the Silla period, but one extant document shows a Silla aristocrat with 3,000 slaves.
When were the Silla slaves liberated? They never were. Silla's fall to Goryeo was relatively peaceful: the last Silla king surrendered to the first Goryeo king and they sealed the deal with a marriage arranged for the Silla king to marry the daughter of the Goryeo king. There was war at the fall of Silla, but it was not between Silla and Goryeo, it was with Later Baekje, and Baekje lost, and the losers were enslaved. Similarly, the fall of Goryeo and the rise of Joseon did not involve social chaos that turned the society upside down. The slaves were not freed.
And that is the first clue ― although in my list it's number nine ― that Korea had something going on in regard to peaceful transitions, stable societies and that was the case for centuries. Centuries. For roughly 1,500 years the slaves were not freed because for 1,500 years the same aristocracy was in place. Without a destruction of the previous dynasty, the aristocracy with their limited number of members, and limited number of surnames, continued on into the present. That's why there are so few surnames in Korea and why there are so many instances of each of those few names. Kim, Yi, and Pak ― they were the names of the royalty of earlier dynasties. This will be the subject of next week's article.
So, to me, slaves were the "canary in the coalmine," a clear indication, that something was going on in Korean history. The unbroken chain of slavery in Korea led me to see the unbroken chain of aristocracy. From there, I have looked at other elements of Korean history and thus I've created this "top ten list" of proof that Korean history has been remarkably peaceful and stable until the 20th century which I see as the exception to the rule, the distortion of the true history and tradition of Korea.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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At the outset, we must deal with the definition of slavery. There are some Korean scholars who are quick to argue that Korean slavery is different from every other slavery in the world. It shows up in the language. Korean slaves are called "nobi" whereas slaves in every other culture ― EVERY other culture ― are called "noye." The translation into English comes up as slavery for both, although some try to gerrymander the definition and call it "servitude" or "serfdom," but "nobi" were bought and sold, inherited, traded and moved about at the owners' orders and were in all ways slaves.
For those that want to pursue the "nobi are not noye" argument, let me make one other point, and then I'll leave the definition issue behind. The slave administration office in the Joseon dynasty was called the "jangye-won," the "office of fostering slaves." Notice the "ye" term, implying that "noye" and "nobi" were synonymous.
Studies on international slavery point out that in Korea there is no break in the history of slavery, in the Three Kingdoms and Silla period, through the Goryeo period, and through the Joseon period. Descendants of Silla slaves became Goryeo slaves, and descendants of Goryeo slaves became Joseon slaves.
In all cultures most slavery begins as a result of war. In today's world we think of wars as fights for ideology ― freedom, Communism, Nazism ― but pre-modern wars were fought for "stuff" ― for land, for plunder, and for slaves. Losers in wars, if they survived, became the slaves of the winners. Most slavery begins with prisoners of war.
Korean slaves began as prisoners in the Three Kingdom's wars. Losers became the slaves of the winners. We do not have many original documents from the Silla period, but one extant document shows a Silla aristocrat with 3,000 slaves.
When were the Silla slaves liberated? They never were. Silla's fall to Goryeo was relatively peaceful: the last Silla king surrendered to the first Goryeo king and they sealed the deal with a marriage arranged for the Silla king to marry the daughter of the Goryeo king. There was war at the fall of Silla, but it was not between Silla and Goryeo, it was with Later Baekje, and Baekje lost, and the losers were enslaved. Similarly, the fall of Goryeo and the rise of Joseon did not involve social chaos that turned the society upside down. The slaves were not freed.
And that is the first clue ― although in my list it's number nine ― that Korea had something going on in regard to peaceful transitions, stable societies and that was the case for centuries. Centuries. For roughly 1,500 years the slaves were not freed because for 1,500 years the same aristocracy was in place. Without a destruction of the previous dynasty, the aristocracy with their limited number of members, and limited number of surnames, continued on into the present. That's why there are so few surnames in Korea and why there are so many instances of each of those few names. Kim, Yi, and Pak ― they were the names of the royalty of earlier dynasties. This will be the subject of next week's article.
So, to me, slaves were the "canary in the coalmine," a clear indication, that something was going on in Korean history. The unbroken chain of slavery in Korea led me to see the unbroken chain of aristocracy. From there, I have looked at other elements of Korean history and thus I've created this "top ten list" of proof that Korean history has been remarkably peaceful and stable until the 20th century which I see as the exception to the rule, the distortion of the true history and tradition of Korea.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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