The RFE as a Frontier Melting Pot 15Korean emigration to the RFE and their becoming tsarist subjects. How-
ever, upon closer inspection, the Treaty of Seoul actually served to restrict
Korean immigration, much like a quota. It did not recruit Korean immi-
grants based on skills or capital; it simply set cutoff dates and marked three
categories of Koreans, only the first of which were eligible to become tsarist
subjects. The preference for Rus sian or Slavic settlers remained. First- category
Koreans w ere those who arrived and settled before June 25, 1884. They were
eligible to become immediate Rus sian subjects, as the authorities did not
want to lose a productive colonizing ele ment. Second- and third- category Kore-
ans were guest workers without the right to citizenship. Third- category
Koreans w ere forbidden to settle on state land and were required to purchase
yearly or biannual visas to remain.^29 Koreans of the first category were imme-
diately eligible for land grants of 15 desiatinas.^30 Governor- General S. M.
Dukhovskoi (1893–1898) continued this policy in the 1890s and showed his
largesse by allowing Koreans of the second and third categories to become citi-
zens after remaining in the RFE for five years. Provisions were also made to
allow Koreans to become Rus sian subjects without receiving land grants, espe-
cially in areas such as the Ussuri where farmland was now becoming scarce.
Several governor- generals continued this progressive policy until the 1906
inauguration of P. F. Unterberger (1906–1910).^31
Additionally, Koreans were also left out of the amendments to the
Alien Charter of 1822 until 1918. Their inclusion would have given them
equal status (albeit as aliens/inorodtsy) to the other above- mentioned nation-
alities who settled the RFE.^32 Koreans would have gained official ac know-
ledg ment as tsarist subjects, the right to land, fair and reasonable taxes as
determined by the state, and protection from the vari ous depredations, head
taxes, and other forms of corruption from local officials run rampant in the
RFE.^33 Yet, the tax issue was not settled until 1916 when laborers from
China and Korea in the Khabarovsk region were judged as “half- persons”
and taxed at half the rate of a tsarist subject.^34
However, this left Koreans who were not Rus sian subjects as illegals or
stateless squatters with regard to land, taxes, and their relationship to the
state. Shrewdly, local officials and police were alert to the situation and
merely filled the gap as tax collectors without remittances to the state. Local
officials required Koreans to pay “taxes” for being Buddhists, for Orthodox
church baptisms of Korean children, for the use of timber from local forests
to build Korean cabins, for the legal recognition of Korean marriages, and
many other instances of daily life, based upon the creativity and caprice of each
official.^35
At the same time, Eu ro pean immigrants (except Jews) to the RFE were
given permanent exemptions from the soul tax, ten- year exemptions from