From: yeonwook@hardy.u.washington.edu (Mark Choi)
Subject: Re: Korean Slaves 
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 20:37:41 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.175411.3386@ttinews.tti.com> sophia@sophia.TTI.COM writes:
>In the middle of a conversation with my coworker about the similarity
>between Koreans and Italians, he mentioned that during his visit to
>Italy he stopped at a village that claims to be of Korean descent.
>Although they no longer carry Korean looks, they had pictures and
>ancient clothes, etc. that prove that their ancestors came from Korea.
>It seems that some hundreds of years ago, Koreans that were captured
>during a war with Japan were sold as slaves in this particular
>providence of Italy and settled down there for several hundred years. 

Hmm...I do not know of any such thing before colonial times. Perhaps it
could be during the Hideyoshi-Yi Sun Sin wars in the 16th century?
Maybe, but even that is highly doubtful because it was before Japan had
any contacts with the West, and she certainly didn't have any contacts 
with Italy (only with Portugal). Also, the captured Korean people during
the war were mostly intentially captured to be brought back to Japan as 
scholars, teachers, artisans, etc..definitely not slaves. The forced 
emigration of these Koreans sparked Japan's dramatically helped Japanese
technology and culture to advance from a primitive culture to a semi-advanced
one. So I don't think Koreans were captured as slaves then, since Korea and
Koreans were still highly regarded and respected as either scholars or 
Buddhists. Also, I doubt Koreans were captured at any other time before
the Hideyoshi wars of the 16th century because the only other war was during
the Koryo times, when Korea was still very Buddhist and Japan very much 
admired Korean culture and buddhism. And any other time before that, I 
highly doubt because Japan wasn't even a solid nation, and the rulers of
the Japanese people before the 12th century were Korean noble men and scholars
who emigrated to Japan. So if anyone, it would be Japanese slaves before the
12th century. The only time I could see Japan selling Korean slaves would be
around the 17-20th century, when Japan began to westernize and forget about
Korea's superior culture (in Eastern terms, which Japan admired before the
Western revolution).

>Can anybody clarify me what century or war this could have been? 
>
>While I was in Mexico, I met quite a lot Koreans that were also
>descendants of Korean slaves. These people though, were only 3rd or 4th
>generations. Their grandparents and great-grandparents were sold as
>slaves during Japanese colony in the early 1900's. These people still
>carried Korean features and a lot of Korean customs but they no longer
>considered themselves Koreans. Most of them were married with Mexicans
>or already only 1/2 or 1/4 Koreans and even 1/8 Koreans. I don't think
>it's only Mexico but there should be quite few Koreans sold out as
>slaves all over the world during and before the Japanese colony. 

I only think Japanese could have obtained Korean slaves either during the
colonial times, or only within 200 years of colonial times, nothing more 
past 200 years, because Japan still admired Korea and the Eastern cultures
(China, etc.).


-- 
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  --|--|      | Mark Yun Wook Choi              |
   /.\ |      | yeonwook@hardy.u.washington.edu |
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