A History of Korea (61 page)

Indeed, the most consequential result of the 1862 rebellions might have been to alter the growth of a nascent religious movement. In the tense atmosphere of southern Korea following the uprisings, the authorities arrested a wandering preacher, Ch’oe Cheu, for spreading heterodoxy and subversion. He was quickly tried and executed in 1864, and hence began Ch’oe’s status as that of a martyr. By then, his teachings, which he labeled “Tonghak,” or “Eastern Learning,” boasted several thousand followers organized into geographical units in over a dozen localities. Ch’oe’s story, and that of his movement in the early years, diverged little from the familiar path followed by the founders of other religions: an early life of doubt and restlessness leading to a path of self-discovery, followed by a
moment of extraordinary revelation of universal truths so powerful that they compelled the receiver of this vision to initiate a religious and social movement. The Tonghak theology, however, was particular to the conditions out of which Ch’oe arose. It blended elements of native Korean spirituality, Confucian ethics and cosmology, Catholic teachings of a single divinity, and a timely message of universal brotherhood and equality. What was most striking were the distinctively Korean prayers and incantations, methods of divination, and healing practices. Even the name of “Tonghak” referred to Korea—traditionally, the “eastern country”—and contrasted consciously with “Western Learning,” or Catholicism. The Tonghak theology’s incorporation of a strong native, even nationalist, identity compels a comparison to other nation-centered religious movements that arose in the nineteenth century: the Taiping in China and the Mormon Church in the US, both of which were founded by extraordinary men who blended nativist elements with established religious practices. Not surprisingly, Ch’oe’s execution in 1864 only served to harden the resolve of his followers, who flourished underground for the next three decades before erupting through an explicitly nationalistic revolt in 1894 (
Chapter 14
).

To the governing authorities, Ch’oe—despite his movement’s profession of a faith that deliberately contrasted with Catholicism—looked very much like someone trying to spread a subversive tenet like Catholicism. Like Tonghak, Catholicism, with its call for an ontological equality under a personal deity, was considered gravely threatening to the carefully crafted social order. While King Ch
ngjo had found this religion a curious but potentially disruptive superstition that demanded surveillance, after his death in 1800, the overwhelmingly hostile sentiment from the central elites was unleashed on the small but growing Catholic community in the country. The first state-led persecution of Catholics in 1801 killed several thousand converts, and when this failed to exterminate the movement, further roundups and mass executions took place periodically over the next several decades. The final anti-Catholic campaign took place in 1866, and by then, thousands of Korean Catholics had been martyred. Even today parts of the countryside are dotted by memorials to individual followers
who were captured in a particular spot and executed for their faith. To Korean Catholics, this experience of mass persecution represented the searing trial that ultimately strengthened their faith and church. To the historian, the Catholic persecutions represented yet another sign of domestic turmoil in the nineteenth century.

THE ARRIVAL OF IMPERIALISM

The persecution of 1866 was significant also because it helped trigger the arrival of imperialism to Korea, a force that had already struck its East Asian neighbors. Qing dynasty China had suffered the woes of actual military confrontation against these “barbarians from the oceans” (the British) beginning in the 1830s, and this set the tone for China’s tragic difficulties with both internal and external challenges through the rest of the century. While not lacking in institutional reforms, the Chinese response to the impending crisis, for complicated reasons, did not amount to a fundamental reorientation of the country’s sociopolitical system. Japan, on the other hand, managed to escape foreign depredation. This was due mostly to its relatively mild initial confrontation with the West, in the form of the US, which nonetheless sparked fiery domestic struggles that led to the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate and to an intensive drive for institutional reform. By the 1870s Japanese leaders sensed that influence over (and even conquest of!) Korea would constitute the logical extension of this self-strengthening effort, and hence they applied the same kind of gunboat diplomacy practiced by the West to “open” Korea to unequal terms of trade and diplomacy. The resulting Treaty of Kanghwa in 1876, for good reason, is commonly seen as the beginning of Korea’s modern era.

The opening shots of imperialism, however, were fired a decade earlier along the banks of the Taedong River in Pyongyang. The American officers and owner of the
General Sherman
had set sail from China in the summer of 1866. They had loaded the ship with trade goods and were determined to force open trade relations with the recalcitrant “hermit kingdom.” When the ship first stopped near the mouth of the river, the local magistrate sent word
that the Korean government forbade such relations with foreigners and demanded that the visitors leave. The Americans ignored this request by sailing further up the river and, buoyed by some heavy rains, made it past the shallows to Pyongyang itself. After the rains subsided, however, the ship found itself stuck on a sandbar. Negotiations between Pak Kyusu, the city’s governor, and the
General Sherman’s
officers reached an impasse, and when the Americans abducted a government representative and held him hostage, hostilities broke out. After a few days of cannon, rocket, and archery fire going back and forth, the end of the standoff came when the ship was set ablaze, forcing the crew members to swim to shore, where they were beaten to death.

Within a month, however, it became clear that these incursions were not going away, as a French armada raided villages and fortresses on Kanghwa Island on the west coast, establishing a temporary base. Soon, it made its way up the Han River leading to Seoul, proclaiming itself a punitive expedition and demanding reparations for the nine French priests who had been killed in the Catholic persecution earlier in the year. The Korean defenses
successfully beat back the ships after several days of fighting, but not without heavy casualties and the loss of something equally valuable: hundreds of books and cultural artifacts taken by the French forces from Kanghwa Island. The fear of the Korean leaders, especially the xenophobic Prince Regent, the
Taew
n’gun
(father of the boy king), that had led to the mass persecution in the first place had been their belief that Catholicism was simply an instrument of Western imperialism. The French invasion seemed to validate these fears.

Image 13
   “The Martyrdom of Reverend Thomas,” depicting the attack on the General Sherman in 1866. Painting by Kim Haksu. (Courtesy of the Council for the 100th Anniversary of the Korean Church.)

Kanghwa Island and the lower reaches of the Han River again served as center stage five years later in 1871, this time for a punitive expedition carried out by American marines in response to the destruction of the
General Sherman
. As the French had done, the American invasion force left behind a path of destruction on the island and along the banks of the river, suffering only a handful of casualties while killing hundreds of Korean soldiers. But once again, the invaders ultimately beat a retreat without accomplishing their aims of battering the capital. And once again, this episode intensified the anti-foreign sentiment among Confucian scholars, high government officials, and a court still dominated by the Prince Regent’s policies of anti-foreign resistance. His response was to erect stone tablets in front of government offices throughout the country inscribed with a stern warning: “Western barbarians are invading. Failure to fight amounts to appeasement. Appeasement is treason.”

A countering sentiment, however, was also forming among some influential scholar officials, led by none other than Pak Kyusu himself. Soon after the 1871 episode, Pak went on a diplomatic mission to Qing dynasty China. He returned with a resolve to convince the Korean court to break away from its policy of disengagement. Despite his central role in repulsing the
General Sherman
, Pak was actually intrigued by the possibilities of learning from the outside world. He belonged to a small circle of such advocates for greater opening, which included also two gentlemen who, unlike the aristocratic Pak, came from the secondary status group of technical officials: O Ky
ngs
k and Yu Honggi. O, an interpreter, had brought back books and stories from his trips to China that aroused the interest of both Pak and Yu. Together, these three men stood as the founders of the Korean enlightenment movement, tutoring the first group of young activists who would gain prominence in the 1880s and 1890s, and helping to drive a shift in government policy. Such a change in the court’s diplomatic stance finally materialized in 1875, when King Kojong, now with full royal authority, was persuaded to open formal trade relations with Japan instead of continuing to resist these forceful overtures. As officials, both Pak and O played key roles in the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Kanghwa the next year.