The Korean Independence Movement

U.S. Protestant Mission, Japanese Empire, and Korean Independence Movement

U.S. Protestant mission work and the rise of Japanese power were concurrent developments in turn-of-the-century Korea. By many accounts, the missionaries and the Japanese colonial administrators had tense, if diplomatic, relations, particularly during the first decade of Japan’s official rule of Korea (1910s). The colonial government’s desire to establish political authority collided with the influence that the missionaries had accumulated in Korea through religious, educational, cultural, and medical activities since the 1880s. Often, the source of anxiety for the colonial government was the equivocal relationship between the Korean nationalist movement and Christian activities. The Korean nationalist movement was a heterogenous formation, but many of its early leaders were high-profile Protestants with connections to North American missionaries. Also, large Christian meetings, which were associated with mission work, had the look and sound of Korean nationalism as they enabled hundreds to congregate to sing and pray in Korean. This history of uncertain but plausible links has given rise to the debate on whether various missionaries sympathized with or abetted the cause of Korean independence, a debate that continues today.

Below we have selected a number of English-language sources highlighting the views of the Japanese government and missionaries. They exhibit a kind of war of pamphlets between the two Pacific powers. Japanese-authored English-language sources, directed at the foreign (especially Anglophone) community, aim to deny charges of violent suppression of the Korean independence movement, particularly the March 1st Movement, and communicate a desire to co-opt the missionaries’ influence to stabilize their regime. Missionaries’ views are harder to generalize, but common to them is an attempt to voice a tactful message that both recognizes Japanese authority and critiques its handling of the Korean independence movement. At times there is the feeling that missionaries were sympathetic to Koreans only for reasons of a threat to Christianity within the peninsula.

The Korean Conspiracy Case

Arthur J. Brown’s The Korean Conspiracy Case was published in the wake of a political scandal that shook Protestant and missionary communities in Korea in 1911. The Japanese colonial government convicted 105 Koreans on the charge of taking part in the conspiracy to assassinate Terauchi Masatake, the then Governor-General of Korea. The government suspected U.S. missionary involvement in this conspiracy case (also known as the 105 Incident), given the high number of well-connected Korean Christian figures among the convicted. In this context, The Korean Conspiracy Case presented itself as the official response of the U.S. mission boards. Its author, Arthur J. Brown, was not a missionary stationed in Korea but a U.S. Presbyterian mission board secretary with vast influence on foreign affairs in Asia. He may have been an ideal candidate to author such a document as the Japanese colonial government would have perceived him as a more official and objective spokesperson than missionaries living in Korea. On the one hand, The Korean Conspiracy Case reassures the Japanese administration of the U.S. Protestant missions’ political neutrality in countries where mission work is conducted. It also acknowledges that the missionaries in Korea could make more efforts to “cultivate friendly relations with Japanese officials” and to keep “the Korean Churches wholly apart from all political matters.” (p. 23) On the other hand, it denies the charge that some missionaries abetted or took part in the conspiracy, and argues that the accused Korean Christians are innocent. It also criticizes the proceedings of the colonial court from juridical and ethical standpoints. Overall, The Korean Conspiracy Case presages the often-equivocal position that the Anglophone missionaries would come to occupy in colonized Korea. More broadly, it also shows how early-twentieth-century U.S. religious mission work was entangled with the dynamics of imperialism.

Brown, Arthur Judson. The Korean Conspiracy Case. New York: Northfield Press, 1912.

The Korean Conspiracy case is available to read in full online. Click the green box to the left of the page.

The Korean “Independence” Agitation

The series of articles collected in The Korean “Independence” Agitation were originally published in The Seoul Press in the three months following the March 1st Movement in 1919. The March 1st Movement, a nation-wide display of Korean resistance against Japanese rule, was brutally suppressed by the colonial government. The Seoul Press was the colonial government’s English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1906 to legitimize Japan’s annexation and subsequent rule of the Korean peninsula. Thus, it is unsurprising that the articles collected in this pamphlet are unsympathetic to the cause of Korean independence.

The articles in this collection are directed at Anglophone missionaries and the larger foreign community in Korea at the time. They try to justify the suppression of the March 1st Movement, and there is a keen awareness that the stories of violent suppression released overseas were bringing attention and scrutiny upon the Japanese administration. Foreign publications and individual missionaries themselves were called out in some articles for discrediting the administration’s handling of Korea. The editorial staff make it clear that they suspect missionaries were involved in the movement but express hope that those involved were outliers rather than representative of missionaries as a whole. Calls are made to the missionaries to work with the Japanese administration in aiding it to stop pro-independence movements and in educating Koreans on why Japanese annexation was necessary.

Many articles reference other global movements and events. They connect the Korean independence movement to the global socio-political climate of the time – for example, comparisons are drawn between the movement and demonstrations in both Egypt and India against British colonial rule. Articles also quote many members of the Japanese administration, giving a glimpse into their perceptions and work in Korea at the time.

The Seoul Press. The Korean “Independence” Agitation. Seoul: Seoul Press, 1919.

Here is the online listing for the Korean “Independence” Agitation.

Relations Between the Government and Christianity in Chosen

Relations Between the Government and Christianity in Chosen was written by Kiyoshi Nakarai of the Educational Affairs Bureau of Chosen and published in 1921. The purpose of this pamphlet is to debunk the belief that Korean Christians were being actively persecuted by the Japanese colonial government, a common belief amongst Westerners and missionaries in Korea at the time. It has four chapters:

· Chapters 1 & 2: the history of Christianity in Korea before and after Japanese annexation

· Chapter 3: the colonial government’s reform in handling Christian and missionaries bodies in the aftermath of the “independence disturbances”

· Chapter 4: Christian activities in Korea under the Japanese administration

It also includes images of mid-nineteenth-century Korean Catholic martyrs, key Protestant sites, and religious events that suggest Japanese-Korean fellowship.

In making his case, Nakarai used a range of sources, including not only empirical evidence collected by the Japanese government but also missionary accounts. These carefully selected sources were deployed to articulate a stance sympathetic to Japan, blaming instances of violence and persecution against Koreans and Christians on Koreans themselves or lone actors within the Japanese police and military. Similarly, while Nakarai’s narrative of Christianity’s history in Korea in the early chapters appears to be neutral, it is used later to explain the violent outcome of the independence movement and to defend the Japanese administration. It is clear that Relations Between the Government and Christianity in Chosen was written for an audience of missionaries and Westerners in an attempt to persuade them into a more pro-Japanese way of viewing the political situation in the Korean peninsula. Statements by pro-Japanese U.S. missionaries are quoted. Nakarai’s writing suggests that the Japanese administration knew of the large influence that the missionaries had within Korean communities and sought to exploit this influence to suppress further independence movements.

Nakarai, Kiyoshi. Relations Between the Government and Christianity in Chosen. N.p.: Educational Affairs Bureau, Government-General of Chosen, 1921.

Relations Between the Government and Christianity in Chosen is available to read online in full.

The Independence Movement and Missionaries

“The Independence Movement and the Missionaries” was written by the scholar and missionary Samuel H. Moffett. The son of the early Protestant missionary in Korea Samuel A. Moffett, he was born in Pyongyang in 1916. This article, published in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1979, provides a description of both the personal and official missionary reactions to the March 1st Independence Movement. It draws on a range of primary sources, including an account of his personal experiences, letters, and private and public documents. He made a point to state that this is to provide an account that stands independent of Japanese media at the time of the movement.

The article aims to be representative of missionaries’ experience in Korea, even while acknowledging certain differences in their opinions and positioning. The sheer number of sources Moffet quoted makes this article a great starting point for any researcher looking to widen their understanding of those missionaries who lived and worked in colonial Korea. The article being written fifty years after the event also meant that Moffet could collate and collect these sources and provide a fuller picture of the missionary reaction to the March 1st Movement, particularly the reaction of the North Presbyterian missionaries.

In the first section, Moffett quoted mostly from private letters and letters meant for publication. The second section is based on a never-published, confidential position paper written by a group of North Presbyterian missionaries in Korea in 1919. This paper was sent to their mission board headquarters in New York. As analyzed by Moffett, this historical document shows that the authors “took special pains not to appear disloyal to constituted government” (p. 26) but clarified that their “religious convictions…could never allow them to equate loyalty to government with silent assent to observed injustices and oppression.” (p. 27)

Moffett, Samuel H. “The Independence Movement and the Missionaries.” Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society 54 (1979): 13-32.

The Independence Movement and Missionaries is available to read online. Click the “Get PDF” button the page.

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