Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions. Yu Hyongwon and the Late Choson Dynasty - James B. Palais

SLAVERY 213

In the Choson period the origins of slavery in Korea were commonly attrib-

uted to Kija.^14 In 1689, ChOng T'ak argued that Kija had introduced slavery

on the principle of reciprocal moral obligation, not human degradation: the

relationship between slave and master was like that between ruler and subject,

and slaves were neither disloyal to masters or rebels against the state. 15 In the

sixteenth century an official historian of the Veritable Records (SUlok) wrote

that Kija had sanctioned hereditary slavery, and it had been valuable to Korea

because it eliminated any confusion in the distinction between noble and base

in society. 16

The historian probably derived his view that Kija sanctioned hereditary slav-

ery by carelessly attributing to Kija what in fact were remarks made by the

compiler of the prologue to the addendum on slavery in the treatise on pun-

ishments in the Koryosa. After describing Kija's law for the enslavement of

thieves and noting that this constituted the origin of slavery in Korea, the pro-

logue continued:

Those slaves who were passed on from generation to generation [italics mine]

and employed in the families of the sajok [scholar-officials] were called sanohi

[private slaves] .... In general the existence of slaves in Korea was greatly aided

by mores and teachings, which account for the strict [distinction] made between

inner and outer [males and females], the [hierarchical] grading of noble and base

[kwich on], and the [strict] practice of rites and righteousness. 17

That it was a mistake to attribute this paragraph to Kija is indicated by the
compiler of the late eighteenth-century encylopedia of Korean institutions, the
Chungbo munhonbigo, who separated this portion of the text from the descrip-
tion of Kija's laws and specifically attributed it to Chong Inji, the editor-in-chief
of the Koryosa. 18 Nevertheless, many Koreans by the seventeenth century must
have erroneously thought that the inheritance of slave status as well as enslave-
ment for thievery or criminal action had been sanctioned by one of the great
sages of Korean antiquity.
A commentator in the Chungbo munhonbigo explained that the Koreans were
a stubborn and recalcitrant people by virtue of a rough and harsh natural envi-
ronment who were not given to obeying orders, no matter what the source. Kija
judged that their propensity to craft and wrongdoing had to be ruled by sterner
measures, and his wise use of enslavement as a mode of punishment succeeded
in eliminating thievery altogether from society. Slavery was thus a fit tool for
the civilizing of a barbaric people. 19

REFORM IN THE KORYO PERIOD

T'aejo of Koryo

Another important figure in the legitimation of slavery in Korea was the founder