TRANSACTIONS ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY Korea Branch Volume 89 – 2014 COVER: The seal-shaped emblem of the RAS-KB consists of the following Chinese characters: 槿 (top right), 域 (bottom right), 菁 (top left), 莪 (bottom left), pronounced Kŭn yŏk Ch’ŏng A in Korean. The first two characters mean “the hibiscus region,” referring to Korea, while the other two (“luxuriant mugwort”) are a metaphor inspired by Confucian commentaries on the Chinese Book of Odes, and could be translated as “enjoy encouraging erudition.” SUBMISSIONS: Transactions invites the submission of manuscripts of both scholarly and more general interest pertaining to the anthropology, archeology, art, history, language, literature, philosophy, and religion of Korea. Manuscripts should be prepared in MS Word format and should be submitted in digital form. The style should conform to The Chicago Manual of Style (most recent edition). The covering letter should give full details of the author’s name, address and biography. Romanization of Korean words and names must follow either the McCune-Reischauer or the current Korean government system. Submissions will be peer- reviewed by two readers specializing in the field. Manuscripts will not be returned and no correspondence will be entered into concerning rejections. Transactions (ISSN 1229-0009) Copyright © 2015 Royal Asiatic Society – Korea Branch Room 611, Christian Building, Daehangno 19 (Yeonji-dong), Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-736 Republic of Korea Tel.: (82-2) 763-9483; Fax: (82-2) 766-3796; email: [email protected] Visit our website at www.raskb.com TRANSACTIONS of the ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY KOREA BRANCH Volume 89 – 2014 Contents The Shinmiyangyo. Thomas Duvernay 1 Reforestation in Korea. Victor K. Teplyakov 51 Marie Antoinette Sontag (1838-1922). Sylvia Braesel 69 A Korean Counterblaste to Tobacco. Boudewijn Walraven 85 The Muwisa Amitabha Triad Mural. Hal Swindall 97 The Remarkable Life of Hong Jong-U. Brother Anthony 115 Frank Carpenter’s Visit To Joseon. Robert Neff 133 Origins of the Catholic Church in Korea. Brother Anthony Annual RASKB Reports 2014 COUNCIL THE KOREA BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONORARY PRESIDENT Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador Scott Wightman OFFICERS Brother Anthony, President, Ms. Suzanne Crowder Han, Vice President, Mr. Jun Byung Geun, Treasurer, Ms. Elizabeth Kraft, Secretary, COUNCILLORS Mr. Peter Bartholomew, Mr. Andrew Salmon Mr. Tom Coyner, Mr. Fred Jeremy Seligson, Mr. Jang Song-Hyon, Mr. Alan Timblick, Mr. Robert Koehler, Mrs. Bae, Sue Ja, Prof. Park Jaesup, Prof. Michael Welles, Mr. Matt VanVolkenburg, Prof. Robert Fouser, Mr. John Nowell, Mr. Jun (Yong-Kyun) Shin, Prof. Kathryn Weathersby, Mr. David Gemeinhardt, Mr. Jeffrey D. Bohn, Mr. Patrick Wunderlich, Mr. Hank Morris, Mr. Jaebeom Kim, Mr. Eric Thorpe, Mr. Patrick Bourgo, Office Manager: Ms. Yonjoo Hong Room 611, Christian Building, Daehangno 19 (Yeonji-dong), Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-736 Republic of Korea Tel : +82 (0)2 763-9483 Fax : +82 (0)2 766-3796 Email: [email protected] Homepage: www.raskb.com The Shinmiyangyo The Shinmiyangyo Thomas Duvernay Introduction The story of the first American military action in Korea in 1871, known as the Shinmiyangyo in Korean, was not well known over the years except to those who had an interest in Korean history. Even then, most people only knew parts of the story, or things that were either misunderstood or even completely fabricated. Most stories are derived from the same source: The Annual Report to the Secretary of the Navy [ARSN] for the year 1871. It is with good reason that stories are based upon that source as it consisted of the after-action reports of the main American officers involved, and was very detailed. That is why most articles written about the action tend to sound the same. It is also a very biased source, so it does not give any consideration to the Korean view of what happened. Still, it is important to give the story structure, so it will also be frequently referred to in this paper. There was another article that was written on the subject, “United States-Korean Relations 1866-1871”, by Rev. E.M. Cable for Transactions of the RASKB back in 1938. It was an important research paper on the action, and used other sources along with the ARSN, some of which were from the Korean point of view, such as the Joseonyasa, or “Joseon’s hidden history”. It has numerous inaccurate details, but paints a much clearer picture as to what was going on in 1871. Cable’s work has been very important to the research of the Shinmiyangyo and many scholarly studies on the subject have referenced him at length. This paper will use many of the same sources, but diverges from the usual narration in that the author has conducted empirical field surveys over the course of twenty years to date of the entire approximately 4.5km line of march that the US took from the beginning to the end of the battles. During that time, many artifacts from the battle have been recovered, which sometimes changed common conceptions about what actually happened during the two days of fighting. Every artifact has a story to tell, as type of item, location, and historical context are very important. Finding a certain type of artifact, depending upon what it is and where it The Shinmiyangyo was found, can add to the historical record as much as any original participant’s journal. For example, if one finds spent bullet casings, or dropped bullets tied to a certain military, you know members of that military were probably there; if you find spent bullets or exploded shell fragments in another area tied to that same military, you know it is in the area where the people they were fighting were probably located. As such, this paper will include relevant information when applicable. This work will not go deeply into the reasons for the conflict, as others have, but concentrate on the battles themselves, along with what actually took place along the way. The short answer to most peoples’ question about why the US came to Korea is that the country was a bit of a missing puzzle piece. China and Japan had both earlier opened their doors to the West, but Korea was strangely still closed. It would have been a prize for any country to be the first to open it to trade. However, with a string of bad experiences with Western interlopers in the preceding five years1, Korea was in no mood to even consider relations with another country. Two incursions in 1866 and another in 1868 put off the Daewongun, the regent of the country, from having any type of interaction with the people from the “Flowery Flag” country (Hwagiguk). Still, the US Asiatic Squadron was tasked with the mission to try and make a connection. The Ship General Sherman Regarding one of the 1866 incursions, there is a long and often misunderstood story. An American naval ship, the USS Wachusett, visited Korea in 1867 for the official purpose of determining the fate of the crew of the General Sherman, a privately owned, US-flagged, British-leased vessel that, ostensibly, was for the purpose of conducting trade. Contrary to popular belief, the later 1871 US contact with Korea had no direct relationship to the General Sherman incident of 1866, although there was some indirect relation. For that reason, it is important to explain why that is the case before the story of the 1871 military action can be discussed. Although the General Sherman incident was not directly related to the 1871 action, it was directly related to the 1867 visit by the USS Wachusett, 1 The General Sherman incident took place in August 1866, and was soon followed by a French naval invasion the following month. Two years later, a German adventurer, Ernst Oppert, made his third and most notorious trip to Korea, in which he and a group of raiders attempted to clean out a royal tomb and hold everything for ransom. The Shinmiyangyo as Commander Robert Wilson Shufeldt—who later in 1882 successfully concluded a treaty with Korea—was tasked with finding out what happened and securing the release of any survivors. That meeting was, unfortunately, not successful as he encountered a less-than-helpful Korean official who just kept repeating that he knew nothing of the General Sherman, and that Shufeldt should “depart speedily and return to your own country” (ARSN, 1867-68, p.48). Eventually, Shufeldt did leave, and the following year another ship, the USS Shenandoah, under the command of Commander John C. Febiger, sought the same information as Shufeldt. In the end, it was concluded that all hands of the General Sherman were lost. Most of the people aboard the General Sherman (numbers vary from twenty to twenty-seven) were either Chinese or Southeast Asian, with only a handful being either American or British. Commander Shufeldt in a memorandum noted that the Chinese onboard came to “this coast to rob and plunder, to the great dread of the whole seaboard,” and “Mr. Hogarth, an English subject on board of the Sherman, was known throughout China for his reckless character; and his acquaintances suppose that if a riot occurred, he would be very likely to be one of the means of causing it” (ARSN, 1867-68, pgs. 49-50). So, even at that time, the General Sherman had a poor reputation, and was probably more just a convenient excuse for the US to survey Korea. As Commander Febiger in 1868 concluded and accepted that the crew of the General Sherman were all dead, so was the issue officially. That is not to say that all US officials were going to let it rest; Minister Low, in a June 15, 1871 message to Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State, talked about the General Sherman and even ventured that “It remains for the government of the United States to say whether further efforts shall be made to ascertain the facts, and if the government of Corea is found to be culpable, to demand and inforce (sic) means of redress, or whether the statements of the semi-barbarians and hostile people shall be received without question in justification of their acts or robbery and murder, committed upon the property and people of the United States” (Cable, 1938, p.149).