258 SOCIAL REFORMstate took place in the eighteenth century. Early in the history of the dynasty
official slaves were divided into those who performed direct labor, called either
"service slaves" (ibyok nob i) or "slaves selected and sent up [to the capital]"
(sonsang nobi), and those who remained in their villages and simply remitted
tribute payments to the government, called either "tribute-paying slaves" (nap-
kong nobi) or "outside resident slaves" (oego nobi). By the middle of the eigh-
teenth century, the select-service slaves almost completely disappeared,
converting the vast majority of official slaves to the tribute-paying type - even
including the select-service slaves of the capital. The first case of official slaves
paying tribute to the state in lieu of service occurred in 1654, and the example
was expanded in 1707. When official slaves were held responsible for support
payments for a commoner soldier, two were assigned in place of one commoner
support taxpayer because their tax rate was half the rate for commoners, in com-
pensation for their personal tribute (sinyok) paid to their private masters. [84 Chon
Hyongt'aek has argued that a major transition was taking place from labor rent
to hired labor in the performance of menial tasks for the central government. [85
This trend covered both slaves and commoners, and it also had the effect of weak-
ening the foundation of the traditional system of official slavery, rendering the
cumbersome system of personal service superfluous. What Yu Hyongwon had
done in the mid-seventeenth century was not to set the process in motion, but
to notice the general trend to hired labor in a number of areas, a process that Yu
Suwon discussed in far greater sophistication in the 173os.
The conversion of the mode of official slave obligations was accompanied by
a radical reduction in the number of official slaves. At the end of the Koryo dynasty
there had only been about 20,000 government slaves, but the number increased
overnight to about 100,000 by the state's confiscation of the slaves of Buddhist
temples and monasteries. By the late fifteenth century the maximum of 350,000
official slaves was reached, but as indicated above by 1655 the number of reg-
istered official slaves was reduced to 190,000, but only 27,000 were able to per-
form duty or pay tribute taxes. [86 By 1755 there were only 5,574 royal treasury
and royal relative palace slaves (naenobi) and 30,617 capItal bureau slaves
(sinobi), or a total of 36,191.187 For some unexplained reason, however, there
seems to have been a sudden increase right after this time, because when most
official slaves were manumitted in 1801, there were about 60,000 of them. Yet
even that number was only about one-sixth of the maximum reached in the late
fifteenth century.
Originally the tribute levy on slaves was 2 p' if of cloth for male slaves and
1.5 p 'il for female. The rate was reduced to 1.5 and 1 p'it respectively by the
late seventeenth century to alleviate the burden on the official slaves, but when
the decline in the number of tribute-paying official slaves reduced government
revenues, the central government bureaus dispatched slave registrars (Ch'uswaeg-
wan) to the provinces to maintain rosters of tribute-paying slaves despite the
failure of their activities to increase the number of official slaves in 1655. Since
they were charged with raising revenue rather than obtaining justice for the slaves