It was two years after the opening of Korea to the West before the first missionary arrived. In 1884 Dr. Allen, a Presbyterian physician (afterwards United States Minister to Korea), arrived at Seoul. It was very doubtful at this time how missionaries would be received, or how their converts would be treated. The law enacting death against any man who became a Christian was still unrepealed, but it was not enforced.

THE MISSIONARIES

The strategic importance of Geomun-do, being a natural harbour that allowed control of the Korea Strait between Korea and Japan was recognised by the United States Navy, who considered seizing the islands in 1884.

Geomun-do

In the meantime, under the leadership of So Chae-p'il, who had exiled himself to the United States after participating in an unsuccessful palace coup in 1884, a massive campaign was launched to advocate Korean independence from foreign influence and controls. As well as supporting Korean independence, So also advocated reform in Korea's politics and customs in line with Western practices.

Loc:The Choson Dynasty

Largely because converts refused to perform Confucian ancestor rites, the government prohibited the proselytization of Christianity. Some Catholics were executed during the early nineteenth century, but the anti-Christian law was not strictly enforced. By the 1860s, there were some 17,500 Roman Catholics in the country. There followed a more rigorous persecution, in which thousands of Christians died, that continued until 1884.

Loc:Christianity

A small group of politically frustrated Korean aristocrats in the early 1880s came under the influence of the Japanese educator and student of Western knowledge, Fukuzawa Yukichi. This group of Koreans saw themselves as the vanguard of Korea's "enlightenment," a term that referred to their nation's release from its traditional subordination to China and its intellectual views and political institutions. The group, led by Kim Ok-kyun, included Kim Hong-jip, Yun Ch'i-ho, and Yu Kil-chun. Yun became an influential modernizer in the twentieth century, and Yu became the first Korean to study in the United States--at the Governor Drummer Academy in Byfield, Massachusetts. Kim Ok-kyun, impressed by the Meiji Restoration, sought to stage a coup d'état in 1884 with a handful of progressives, including Philip Jaisohn (S Chae-p'il, 1866-1948), and about 200 Japanese legation soldiers. Resident Chinese troops quickly suppressed it, however, and Kim fled to Japan.

Loc2:Korea in the 19th Century World Order

Koreans settled in Siberia prior to 1884 can claim rights as Russian subjects, and at this time those who can prove that they have been settled on purchased lands for ten years can do so, as well as certain others, well reported of as being of settled lives and good conduct. Owing to the steady influx of settlers from Southern Russia, the rich lands near the railroad are required for colonisation, and further immigration from Korea has been prohibited. The sending of Koreans who are either squatters or of unsettled lives to the Amur Province is under discussion.

Korea and Her Neighbours: The Korean Frontier