Slavery, Law, and Society

6 Entries | Curated by UCLA Korean History and Culture Digital Museum

In premodern Korea, slaves were a considerable portion of the population. Although they were integral to the functioning of the early Chosŏn state and the economic livelihood of yangban elites, the institution of slavery meshed awkwardly with the Confucian ideals espoused by the dynasty's elites. These contributions explore how the institution of slavery interfaced with other areas of Korean society.

In modern Western culture, most agree that certain jobs should be given to the most qualified, regardless of birth or parentage. However, in Chosŏn Korea (1392 - 1910), this was not the case. Chosŏn society “tended to emphasize aristocratic birth rather than bureaucratic skill and moral stature” (Kim, 3). Although Chosŏn society was largely governed by Confucianism, a Chinese philosophy that…
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I chose to write a historical fiction screenplay based on an 1897 documented Korean Legal Case from WRONGFUL DEATHS: Selected Inquest Records from Nineteenth-Century Korea, published in 2014, edited and translated by Sun Joo Kim and Jungwon Kim. 
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In a society with an established slave system, a father with four daughters born to a slave-status concubine narrates his own experience in the manumission process of his daughters. Paternal love is implemented in legal reasoning in manumission[1]cases of yangban elite children born to slave-status women. Through the phrase "my own flesh and blood," parental compassion, a Confucian emotional norm…
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The image to the left is a representation of the traditional ruling class, the yangban. The image was taken in 1863 and is one of the earliest photographs depicting highly educated civil servants and military officers of Chosŏn Korea. The image to the right is a representation of the Korean slaves and serfs, the nobi. According to the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, nobi were responsible for…
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Between 1392 and 1910, during the Chosŏn period in Korea, a strict hierarchical structure existed in society. As in many premodern cultures, a system of slavery existed within this structure and served as the base upon which society operated. Nobi (slaves) and their labor contributed to the wealth of Yangban (elites) who thrived within this system. At first glance, this system may appear to…
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The goal of this project is to visually recreate the stories in the form of a comic strip from Jisoo Kim’s research in Chapter Five of her book the Emotions of Justice. Throughout this chapter, Kim includes stories of individuals who petitioned on behalf of their family members to highlight the way…
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