Ch 14 - Western Contacts

Strangers in a Strange Land

The Seoul government lost an opportunity to learn about the west when it exiled the Dutch survivors of the Sparrow Hawk to the southern peninsula and forgot about them. The Dutch experience in exile ultimately provided Japan and the western a unique glimpse inside the Hermit Kingdom.

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

- Rudyard Kipling

Hendrick Hamel and the thirty-five Dutch survivors of the shipwrecked VOC yacht de Sperwer, the Sparrow Hawk, must have felt as if they had landed on another planet. The cultural and religious differences between Choson and the Republic of Seven United Provinces (Holland, or the Netherlands) were enormous. While the Dutch roamed the oceans of the world and the Calvinistic Dutch Republic's open society attracted political and religious refugees seeking safe haven, Confucianist Choson remained a closed society where nobody entered by design and nobody left.

Near the end of May 1654, the Chindo district governor on Cheju Island finally received King Hyojong's long awaited answer to the report on the Dutchmen. The good news was the Dutch were to be released from their isolation on Cheju Island. The bad news was they were not going to Nagasaki, but to Seoul, Choson's capital. The men were split into four groups and put aboard junks with their hands and feet in chains to prevent them from somehow overpowering the ships and escaping. After being delyaed waiting for favorable winds, the four junks sailed separately to the southwest coast of Cholla Province in mid-June. The thirty-six Dutchmen were taken into custody and reunited in the city of Haenam, near Kangjin, where they began a journey into an Asian culture unlike anything they could have imagined.

The next morning, under close guard, the men rode from Haenam to Iesaen (Yongnam), where gunner's mate Paulus Janse Cool died from ill health. By order of the Yongnam governor, the Dutch were permitted to hold a funeral service for their shipmate the next morning . Averaging about 25 km (15 mi) a day on foot and horseback, the Dutch continued their trek north through Naedjoo (Naju), Sansiangh (Changsong), Tiongop (Chongup), Teijn (Tae'in), Kumge (Kumku), Chentio (Chonju), Iesaen (Yosan), Gunjiu (Unjin), and Congtio (Kongju). Eleven days after departing Haenam, the Dutch crossed the wide Han River and, about a mile later, entered the large walled city of Seoul, which appeared to the Dutch to be about as large as the city of Amsterdam.

The Dutch were housed in Seoul for two or three days before Jan Weltevree accompanied the men to Kyongbok Palace for their interrogation by King Hyojong, who asked all manner of questions. Answering the king as best they could, the Dutch pleaded to be sent to Nagasaki, Japan, where their countrymen on Deshima Island could help them return to Holland. The king ignored their pleadings, telling the Dutch they would have to resign themselves to the fact they would spend the rest of their lives in Choson;  "... it was not the Custom of Corea to suffer Strangers to depart the Kingdom;... ."  After the interrogation, Hyojong invited the Dutchmen to entertain the court with dancing, singing and clownish behavior. Their performance showed little talent and even less enthusiasm, but it pleased the king and his court. Upon leaving, the men were each given two pieces of linen so they could dress according to Choson custom.

The Dutch arrived in Seoul during a military buildup for a war of revenge against the Manchus and that would free Choson from the Qing Empire once and for all. King Hyojong, the former Lord of Pongmin, once spent eight years as a Manchu hostage in Shenyang. Surrounded by ministers hostile to Manchu domination, King Hyojong gathered resources wherever he could find them. Along with the Dutchmen, all the firearms and cannon recovered from the wreck of de Sperwer were taken to Seoul, where they were carefully examined by men from the Military Training Command. Choson's typical lightweight cannon was built up from "copper plates of a gauge of half a finger" tightly-wrapped in several layers of leather between two and five inches thick. The cannon averaged about six feet in length and were carried two to a horse at the rear of a marching column. The solid metal Dutch cannon, mounted on a wheeled carriage, was a far superior weapon. The old "fuse-lit" rifles used by the Choson army were no match for the Dutch muskets and pistols which used the ingenious Spanish "miquelet lock" developed near the end of the 16th century .

Every VOC ship had a blacksmith or an instrument maker who could make simple repairs to the muskets, pistols and 25 to 30 pieces of artillery aboard ship. In fact, everyone on board had to able to do a little bit of everything, which meant that everybody probably knew how to handle arms and knew how they were put together. The royal court concluded the Dutch were expert in both the manufacture and use of such weapons. The day after their interrogation, the Dutch learned through Jan Weltevree that King Hyojong had drafted them to serve in the Royal Guards, an elite military unit responsible for protecting the king whose members were selected from among the most important civilians in Seoul. Each man wore a round wooden disc bearing the stamps of the king and the commander-in-chief and engraved with his name, age, country of origin, and his functions in service of the king. Each man was issued a musket, gunpowder and lead balls, a monthly allowance of about 70 ounces of rice and assigned to train the Choson army in the use of the modern guns. In addition, they were ordered to pay respect to the king each new and full moon . Jan Weltevree, assisted by a Chinese sergeant, was appointed drill master over the Dutch and helped them learn Choson's language and customs.

The Dutch were a great curiosity in Seoul. Their fair complexion and strange mannerisms drew large crowds of curious, gaping followers wherever they appeared;  even slaves would taunt and ridicule them. One night, a mob broke into a Dutch residence and dragged a number of the men into the street outside and made fun of them. They immediately complained to the commander of the Royal Guards, who quickly forbid anyone from harassing the Dutch in any way and forbid anyone to come near them without his expressed permission. After that incident, the Dutch freely moved about the capital without attracting a crowd.

The Dutch began receiving daily invitations to dine in the homes of the city's notable yangban. Shortly after their arrival, rumors about the nam ban, "barbarians from the south," described the Dutch as monstrosities with heads like sea cows who could live under water. It was said the Dutch had to put their nose behind their ears when they wanted to drink. Being quite fond of novelties, they and their wives and children were anxious to see these "strange men" and watch their European table manners. Reality proved a disappointment for many yangban however, who discovered the Dutch were not as monstrous as they had expected, or even hoped. Most Koreans actually admired the Dutchmen's pale white skin and regarded it as something desirable.

As members of the Royal Guard, the Dutch quickly learned that commoners were forbidden to look the king in the face. Whenever the king approached, people hid their face or turned their back. The king was so rarely seen by people outside the environs of Seoul that many believed he was a superhuman figure. They believed the less the king traveled and was seen by the people, the more fruitful the year would be. Whenever he traveled, all streets over which the king passed were closed at both ends. No one was allowed to open a door or window or even peek over a fence at the procession. Not even dogs were allowed to run the streets where he appeared. The yangban and military along the king's route stood with their backs to him and were not allowed to look around or make the slightest sound. Many soldiers put a small stick in their mouth like a horse's bit to keep quiet. The passage of the king's procession was so silent, the only sounds were hoofbeats and the footsteps of soldiers.

Horsemen and infantry in full dress uniform led the royal procession with flags and music followed by the king's Royal Guards. A state minister rode just ahead of the king carrying a small chest into which he placed petitions hung on walls along the king's route or handed him by the public on the end of a long bamboo stem. The petitions usually dealt with matters of injustice by government officials or other civilians and asked for the king to intervene in the matter. The king's verdict in each case was final and executed immediately without appeal. The king rode in a beautifully decorated gilt sedan chair surrounded by the noblemen of his court who dressed in black silk garments embroidered with a coat of arms and badges of rank over which they wore a wide sash. Many of Choson's high-ranking officials wore a small pouch of poison on their waist, so that if, in their opinion, circumstances required a quick exit, they could immediately commit suicide.

The Dutch shared their housing with a group of Chinese fugitives who regularly demanded the Dutch fetch firewood for them, which meant a three mile hike to collect the wood and a three mile hike back. Unaccustomed to climbing mountainous country with wood strapped to their backs, the Dutch found the task extremely unpleasant, particularly in the bitter cold of winter. By the end of November 1653, with the Han River frozen solid, the Dutch asked their commanding officer for winter clothes. The king granted a request to supply them with some of the many hides taken from their shipwreck, dried and kept in a Seoul warehouse. Some of the hides had rotted or had been eaten by insects, so the Dutch decided to sell the useable hides and buy a house from the profits. They would willingly tolerate the cold if only to rid themselves of their Chinese roommates.

The hides brought enough money for the Dutch to buy three small houses and the winter clothes needed to get through the winter . The homes of Seoul's aristocrats were built of brick with multicolored tile roofs. Commoners frequently lived in mud-walled structures with thatched roofs. Windows were covered with oil-paper, since the Koreans were unfamiliar with glass. Glass objects like small glass bottles, brought to Japan by the Dutch and brought into Choson by the Japanese, were highly valued. The Koreans found it unbelievable that homes in Holland had window-panes made from glass.

The Choson government tried to keep the Dutchmen from attracting the attention of the Manchu envoys who traveled to Seoul two or three times each year to collect tribute payments for the Qing emperor. During the Manchu envoy's visit in August 1654, King Hyojong sent the Dutchmen to the mountain fortress at Namsan, about six or seven miles south of the city, where they remained until his departure on September 3rd. In March 1655, King Hyojong, as always, rode out to meet the Manchu envoy with all his noblemen to accord all necessary honors and escort him to his residence. In some respects, the Manchu envoy enjoyed more respect on these visits than the king himself. During his stay in Seoul, the street from the Manchus residence to the royal court was sealed by troops stationed five to ten yards apart. Two or three men acted as runners to carry messages between the envoy and the king, so he could keep abreast of the envoy's actions while in the capital. With the Dutch under house arrest in Seoul, Choson's royal court did everything in its power to ensure the envoy had a pleasant stay so he would make a favorable report to the Qing emperor in Beijing.

The day the Manchu envoy was scheduled to leave Seoul, Chief Pilot Hendrick Janse and Hendrik Janse Bos claimed they had no firewood and got permission to go to the woods. Instead, the two men hiked to a spot near the road along which the envoy would pass. As the mounted column of nearly one hundred horsemen rode by, they charged into the riders and grabbed the reins of the envoy's horse. They quickly tore off their outer garments to reveal their Dutch clothing and shouted they were Hollanders being held in Choson against their will. Stunned and frightened by the incident, the Manchu envoy understood nothing of what was being said and demanded to know what was happening. His escorts made no effort to clarify the situation, let alone admit to understanding it.

When word of the incident reached Seoul, the remaining Dutch were dragged from their houses and taken before the Crown Council, the king's board of advisors, whose members represented the most important men in the country. The council demanded to know if the Dutch had any prior knowledge of their shipmate's embarrassing behavior. The Dutch denied knowing anything about it, but were pronounced guilty for not immediately reporting the two men and sentenced to 50 blows on the bare buttocks for each man. King Hyojong, who understood the Dutch had not come to Choson as thieves or conquerors, but as victims of a shipwreck, nullified the sentence. Meanwhile, the Manchu envoy took Hendrick Janse to his residence and, with the help of his own interpreter, learned the full story of the Dutch situation, knowledge that put Choson in a very difficult position. The envoy was bribed with a large sum of money and the promise of more to come if he would keep word of the Dutch presence in Choson to himself. After the envoy finally departed for China, Hendrick Janse and Hendrik Janse Bos were thrown into the royal prison and never heard from again.

In late spring of 1655, the commanding officer of the Royal Guards informed the Dutch that a ship had been stranded on Cheju Island. Jan Weltevree was too old to take the trip, so three Dutchmen who knew the language best would be sent to act as interpreters. Johannis Lampen, Hendrick Cornelissen, the junior officer in charge of rigging, and a sailor left for Cheju Island a few days later. With another Manchu envoy due to arrive in June, the thirty men remaining in Seoul were put under strict orders to remain in their houses until the day after the Manchu envoy left. Any man who so much as stuck his nose out the door would be whipped mercilessly . Some time later the Dutch received a letter from their three shipmates on Cheju. Not only was there no shipwreck, but the three men were being held prisoner under tight guard on the southernmost tip of the island.

Following the last Manchu visit in 1655, the Crown Council, backed by a number of ministers and dignitaries fed up with the Dutch, insisted that King Hyojong execute them all. The king's brother called a series of meetings on the matter and for three days the Crown Council debated the Dutchmen's fate. The Dutch were terrified by a rumor that the army commander suggested that if the Dutch were to die, it had to be in a man-to-man fight with everyone armed the same:  one Dutch against two Koreans. He felt it would be more honorable than merely killing a group of foreigners who had entered Choson against their will. When the Dutch asked Jan Weltevree if he could confirm the story, Jan told them only that if they were still alive in three days the danger would be over. King Hyojong, his brother, the army commander, and other leading yangban felt no animosity towards the Dutch and resisted pressure to execute the Dutch. In order to keep peace in the Crown Council and his own government however, Hyonjong did make concessions. To prevent the possibility of a repeat encounter with a Manchu envoy, the Dutch were exiled from Seoul to Cholla Province in the south with a monthly allowance of 50 ounces of rice per man.

The presence of the Dutch in Choson presented the Yi dynasty with a unique opportunity to learn about the West. Instead, the Yi government isolated the Dutchmen from Seoul and soon forgot them. The Dutch left Seoul in early March 1656, accompanied to the Han River ferry crossing by Jan Weltevree and some friends. It was the last time they saw Weltevree and reportedly never heard anything from him again. Retracing the same route they took to Seoul two years earlier, the Dutchmen were handed over to the provincial military commander in the city of Pyongyong, near modern Kangjin in southern Cholla Province, where they were reunited with their three shipmates from Cheju Island. As the thirty-three Dutchmen settled in to their new life in exile, the district governor put them to work cutting grass in the market plaza in front of the city hall and keeping the area clean.

The governor of Cholla Province was removed from office on charges of bribery and reassigned to other duties in early 1657. It was only mediation by local yangban that prevented his execution. The Dutchmen's situation deteriorated with the arrival of a new governor in February. They no longer received free firewood, but had to cut it themselves, a job that required a six-mile round trip to the local mountains. There was no sadness among the Dutch when the governor suddenly died of a heart attack that fall. His replacement tended to stay out of the Dutchmen's lives for the most part, providing them only the rice ration ordered by the king. Left to fend for themselves, the Dutch purchased food and clothing with money earned by begging, a common practice at the time, especially by monks .

The Dutch went on "begging tours" four days each week and managed to earn enough to buy new clothes for the winter, which was far less severe in the south than in Seoul. The Dutch discovered that monks were far more inquisitive and much more generous than farmers and wanted to know everything about the customs of Holland and every other nation the Dutch had visited. Since the Dutch looked just like the Portuguese to Koreans, they referred to their homeland as Nampankuk, the same name the Japanese used for Portugal. The name was first used some fifty years earlier when the Japanese first taught Choson farmers how to plant and grow tobacco. The Japanese claimed that the seed of the tobacco plant, nampankoy, came from Nampankuk. Choson's men and women started smoking early in life and smoked heavily. Hendrick Hamel reportedly saw a four-year-old toddler smoke a pipe on numerous occassions.

Yet another governor took office in the spring of 1658. He restricted the Dutchmen's freedom of movement and wanted them to work for him daily in exchange for three pieces of linen per man. Instead, the Dutch negotiated an arrangement that let them take a periodical leave of twenty days, during which time they cut and sold firewood to local farmers to cover their living expenses. The duty to care for the lawn at city hall twice a month remained. Three years later, in the spring of 1661, a new governor arrived who, if it were in his power, would have gladly given the Dutch permission to return home. The Dutch enjoyed more freedom under his rule than at any time in the past. Unfortunately, the summer of 1661 marked the beginning of a long, severe drought that parched the southern peninsula and caused innumerable crop failures.

By the spring of 1662, thousands had died from starvation and famine. Those who survived ate tree bark, acorns and weeds. Were it not for the small amount of rice farming along the lower river banks, the entire population could have starved to death. In the north, where little or no rice is grown, people lived on barley and millet. Cotton, which was grown only in the south and supplied to the north, was hard hit by the drought, and those living in the north were left to dress in hemp, coarse linen or hides. The situation became critical in 1663, when military troops began to patrol the countryside to protect the population from roving gangs who had turned the roads into private hunting grounds.

Eleven of the Dutch died during the seven years of hardship in Pyongyong, reducing their number to just twenty-two. When the governor of Cholla Province realized he could no longer provide the Dutch their required monthly ration of rice, he wrote a letter to the king requesting the Dutch exiles be transferred elsewhere. The king responded in February 1663, with an order to divide the Dutch into three groups. Leaving their familiar surroundings to start over again in a time of dire shortages, Hendrick Hamel and 11 men traveled to Yosu Chwasuyong, 5 went to Sunchon and 5 moved to Namwon.

The arrival of a new, more lenient governor in 1664, marked a major turning point in the Dutch adventure. They were released from their obligation to work directly for the governor. He required only that they report to his office twice a month and advise his secretarial office any time they took a trip so he could find them if he needed them. The hospitable governor had a real interest in Holland and often invited the men to his residence. He sincerely pitied the Dutchmen's plight, wondering why they never tried to get to Japan. The Dutch always told him they had no permission to leave and furthermore, they had no suitable ship at their disposal. The governor remarked mischievously that there were more than enough ships available in local coastal villages. Fearing entrapment, the Dutch assured the governor they would never dare such an adventure. Being punished for attempting an escape was bad enough, but if they failed, they would be punished for stealing a ship as well. The governor always laughed at their response, but his conversations gradually encouraged the Dutchmen at Yosu Chwasuyong to begin making serious plans to escape.

Wherever they went, the Dutch inquired about buying a fishing boat, but no one wanted to sell. Having lived so long under the previous harsh governor, people feared doing anything for which they could later be blamed. Near the end of 1664, two comets appeared in the southeastern night skies one of which remained visible for almost two months. Similar celestial events preceded the Japanese invasions of Choson and the arrival of the Manchus. Choson ordered its war fleet on standby duty, reinforced security in its ports, stocked fortresses with extra provisions and ammunition, and trained its army almost daily. The tremendous fear and near panic that accompanied the heightened state of alert made it very difficult to get a ship and next to impossible to escape the attention of war junks patrolling the coastal waters. The Dutch resigned themselves to their fate as prisoners in a strange country and took comfort in the fact they still had a roof over their heads and could make a living.