American Protestant Missionaries, the US Legation, and the Chosŏn State

International Journal of Korean History (Vol.17 No.1, Feb.2012) 67 Establishing the Rules of Engagement: American Protestant Missionaries, the U.S. Legation, and the Chosŏn State, 1884-1900 Paul S. Cha* Introduction The phrase “unequal treaties” and term extraterritoriality are evocative, conveying more than simply the stale concepts that treaties are unequal or that foreigners are not subject to local laws. Indeed, observing that nearly alltreaties are inherently unequal, Dong Wang, a scholar of China who has written extensively on the topic of unequal treaties and popular historical memory in China, has noted that during the twentieth century the phrase unequal treaties and term extraterritoriality have served both to refer to China’s history of past humiliation and as a clarion call for various socio-political mobilization projects in the country. 1 Likewise, these concepts hold a degree of symbolic meaning in Korea. In particular, they often refer to the weakness of the Chosŏn government during the “open ports” period, paint a picture of rapacious Western and Japanese nations hungering to devour the peninsula, and serve as harbingers of Korea’s pending colonization and division. To a degree, all of these characterizations are accurate and have advanced our understanding of late-nineteenth century Korea. Two drawbacks of these images and characterizations, however, have been a slowness to interpret this period * Assistant Professor, Samford University 68 Establishing the Rules of Engagement: ~ in a manner that paints the Korean state in terms other than fundamental weakness or decay, and the tendency to view Westerners and other foreigners as simply exploitive actors. The purpose of this article is to begin the process of going beyond simply casting unequal treaties as symbols of the Chosŏn(Joseon) government’s weakness or the imperialist deigns of foreigners.2 Although the signing of the unequal treaties set a framework of relations that favored foreign powers over Chosŏn Korea, how these relationships would actually be prosecuted and how citizens or subjects of these nations would be received on the peninsula involved a process of contestation. In order to demonstrate this process, this article focuses on how American Protestant missionaries and the Chosŏn state engaged in a struggle to define the terms of their relationship during the late nineteenth century. This article examines Americans because they represented the largest percentage of the missionary community in Chosŏn Korea during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For example, from 1884 to 1910, more than two-thirds of all Protestant missionaries in the country were American. 3 These missionaries were unlike most other groups of foreigners coming to the country during the late nineteenth century. Unlike merchants and traders, missionaries aimed to settle down in Chosŏn Korea as many spent years if not decades in the country. They traversed the countryside, created complex networks of relations, and became integral parts of many local communities. Furthermore, missionaries specifically attempted to spread a religion that the Chosŏn government had banned since the start of the nineteenth century. For these reasons, missionaries often became embroiled in conflicts with local officials and these conflicts often involved unequal treaties and extraterritoriality. The issues of the missionaries’ links to imperialist powers and of their activities in the political realm have been problematic for scholars of Christianity in Korea. Early scholarship generally minimized these points by focusing on the fact that the imperialist power in Korea was Japan and by arguing that American missionaries had maintained a policy of Paul S. Cha 69 separation of church and state.4 In contrast, more recent scholarship has increasingly criticized missionaries by pointing out that they had been active in political affairs and had intimate ties to American imperialism. These scholars have generally argued that missionaries turned to unequal treaties and extraterritoriality not only to secure a foothold in the peninsula, but also to wrest from the Chosŏn state religious freedom and the right to evangelize.5 Revisionist scholarship on the missionaries’ involvement in the political realm has served as an important corrective to studies that have either ignored this facet or overly praised the activities of these early missionaries. However, in general, these studies have assumed that missionaries operated from a position of strength and that they viewed the right to proselytize mainly as a religious issue.6 As this article will argue, these two assumptions are problematic. To begin with, early missionary activities on the peninsula are best described as having been cautious, as missionaries were wary that a mis-step might harm their fledgling efforts. Furthermore, they lacked any real power to coerce concessions from either local officials or the central state. Secondly, when acting in the political sphere, missionaries brought forth not abstract notions of religious freedom or their allegiance to a heavenly kingdom but instead their rights as guaranteed by treaty laws and principles of rational governance. For these reasons, the conflicts between missionaries and the Chosŏn government represented more than clashes over notions of religious freedom; they represented contests to define the proper rules, or laws, governing how missionaries as foreign residents would be received by the Chosŏn state. Stated differently, missionaries and the Chosŏn government contested both spoken and unspoken rules governing their engagement. What follows below is first a discussion of the necessity to view missionaries as “citizens” when examining their involvement in the political sphere. Although they came to Korea for a religious purpose, when missionaries entered the political realm to contest rights, they did so as citizens believing that they were entitled to certain legal “rights.” Not 70 Establishing the Rules of Engagement: ~ unexpectedly, conflicts arose between the Chosŏn government and missionaries. To offer concrete examples of these conflicts, this article examines two major clashes: the P’yŏngyang (Pyeongyang) Persecution (1894) and the Taegu (Daegu) Incident (1900). These two episodes help establish the presence of Americans in the interior. Scholars of Christianity typically refer to the P’yŏngyang Persecution as a major event that proved the power of Christianity to the Korean populace and as one major reason why so many in the P’yŏngyang area converted after 1894.7 But, the significance of the P’yŏngyang Persecution and the Taegu Incident extends beyond the issue of demonstrating the power of Christianity. These contests were struggles between missionaries and the Chosŏn state to define the grounds on which their relationships would proceed. As this article will demonstrate, missionaries were not as powerful, nor the Chosŏn government as weak, as is commonly believed. Missionaries as “Citizens” Since these missionaries went to Chosŏn Korea to engage in a specifically religious endeavor, many scholars and casual observers have viewed the missionaries’ political activities as a violation of the principle of “separation of church and state.” But, although missionaries were certainly motivated by religion, it is equally important to realize that when they entered the political realm, they consciously did so as private citizens. In arguing for religious freedom and advancing their mission, rather than relying on religious arguments, missionaries claimed rights that they were supposedly entitled to as defined by treaty laws. Thus, when approaching missionaries and politics, the issue of religion must be set aside, though not completely ignored. To start with a recap of conventional interpretations of early American Protestant missionary activities in Korea, missionaries entered the peninsula soon after the signing of U.S.-Chosŏn Treaty of Amity and Commerce (1882). The first was Horace N. Allen, who arrived Paul S. Cha 71 technically as a medical doctor attached to the U.S. legation in 1884. Though his treatment of Min Yŏngik, wounded during the Kapsin (Gapsin) Coup of the same year, had won Allen the good favor of the court, Christianity and evangelism were still strictly forbidden. Thus, missionaries primarily engaged in educational and medical work, and, as outlined by the treaty, remained restricted to Seoul or one of the treaty ports. Missionaries supposedly chafed at these restraints and probed for ways to secure the right to both practice and spread Christianity. They challenged these restrictions through a creative manipulation of the British-Chosŏn treaty of 1883 and the French-Chosŏn treaty of 1886. The former had included clauses allowing British subjects to travel outside of treaty ports with valid passports for the purpose of trade and to establish places of worship for British subjects. The latter had secured for French subjects the right to travel in the interior for the purpose of “teaching.” Because the U.S.-Chosŏn Treaty had included a Most Favored Nation clause, American missionaries likewise had the right to travel in the interior and engage in “teaching.”8 Thus, starting after 1886 they secured passports and proceeded to engage in month(s) long trips into the interior, where they sold religious tracts, provided medical services, and quietly evangelized. Importantly, while missionaries may have been permitted to travel in the interior and practice religion,

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