Hwang Sa-yeong (黃嗣永, English: Hwang Sa Yeong, 1775 – 10 December 1801) was a Catholic martyr of Joseon. His baptismal name was Alexis.1 In February 1801, when the Sinyu Persecution began, he fled Seoul and hid at Baeron Holy Site (present-day Bongyang-eup, Jecheon, North Chungcheong Province). After Jeong Yak-yong, who was under interrogation, denounced him as a Catholic, an arrest order was issued.2 While in hiding, he learned of the persecution and wrote a "silk letter" (백서) to the Bishop of Beijing in China, requesting that Qing China send military forces to secure freedom of religion. The letter was never delivered, and he was arrested in September. He was executed by death by dismemberment outside Seosomun on 10 December 1801, and his family was subjected to total extermination.3
Early life
Birth and upbringing
His family seat was Changwon, and his courtesy name was Deokso. He was born in Ahyeon, Seoul, as the posthumous son of Hwang Seok-beom, who had served as Junior Secretary of the Seungmunwon.4 He belonged to the Namin Sipa faction. In 1790, at the age of 16, he passed the Jinsa examination, and King Jeongjo summoned him personally, encouraged him, and promised to grant him an office when he reached the age of 20. At that time, King Jeongjo reportedly took Hwang Sa-yeong's hand, and to mark this, he wrapped his wrist in silk and wore it.5 In the same year, he married Jeong Nanju, daughter of Jeong Yak-hyeon, the eldest brother of Jeong Yak-yong, and thus became Jeong Yak-yong's nephew-in-law. Through this marriage he became a relative by marriage of Yi Seung-hun, and he became a brother-in-law by marriage of Jeong Yak-jong, a figure who led the early church.6
Conversion to Catholicism
Hwang Sa-yeong came into contact with Catholic teaching through the influence of his in-laws' household, and he was baptized and entered the faith in 1791. Immediately after his conversion, in October 1791 (lunar calendar), during the Shinhae Persecution, many apostates appeared, but he kept his faith, firmly believing Catholicism to be a "good medicine for saving the world." Abandoning ancestor rites meant abandoning a career in officialdom, and although a successful career was assured under King Jeongjo's special encouragement, he had no ambition for worldly success. After Father Zhou Wenmo entered the country, he worked as one of his close associates, and he was active as a major member of the lay organization Myeongdo-hoe. After moving to Seoul in 1798, he also provided his house as a site for the Six Assemblies (六會), a subordinate organization of Myeongdo-hoe.4 In Seoul he taught the sons of believers letters and doctrine, and he diligently worked on copying Catholic books. Active in missionary work, he was among the key leaders of the church community around the time of the Sinyu Persecution.5
Catholicism and changes in the political situation
In the late Joseon period, the progressive young faction of the Namin used Western learning and Catholic teaching to supplement the limits of Confucianism. Joseon Catholicism followed a very unusual path: after Yi Seung-hun was baptized in Beijing in 1784 and returned home, the faith community he founded7 allowed the faith to take root and grow indigenously without missionaries. Although the church of Joseon was subjected to increasing repression through the Myeongnye-bang incident (1785), the Banhoe incident (1787), the Shinhae Persecution (1791), and the Eulmyo Persecution (1795), its membership continued to grow.
While the Noron faction gained power, Queen Jeongsun, the secondary consort of King Yeongjo, opposed the accession of King Jeongjo. When Jeongjo ascended the throne, she kept a low profile, and her family declined. In 1787, her brother Kim Gwi-ju died in exile, and she became an enemy of Jeongjo. The late king Jeongjo employed the Namin to check the ruling Noron Byeokpa faction, and he was at one time tolerant toward Catholicism.8 Immediately after the death of King Jeongjo, Queen Jeongsun, who took over as regent, broke the custom that prohibited state affairs during national mourning,9 and when she carried out personnel appointments favoring the Noron, dark clouds began to gather over the future of the Namin.
The Hwang Sa-yeong Silk Letter Incident
Sinyu Persecution
After King Jeongjo died suddenly, Queen Jeongsun filled the government with Noron Byeokpa through her regency and seized power. Then, under the pretext of eradicating heterodox learning, she ordered a decree suppressing Catholicism in 1801 in order to purge the Namin who had grown during King Jeongjo's reign.10 An order was issued nationwide to apply the Ogajakdong system and to punish the faith as a crime of treason. The goal of the Noron Byeokpa was to annihilate the Namin forces so that they could never recover.11 After Jeong Yak-yong was arrested and under interrogation denounced Hwang Sa-yeong,12 an arrest order was issued on 13 February.13
Hwang Sa-yeong hid in the house of Byeon Deuk-jung and Hong Pil-ju, then in the house of Song Jae-gi in Jeong-dong, and after disguising himself in mourning clothes and using the alias Yi Sang-in, he succeeded in escaping through Changuimun.14 At Pyeonggu Station he met Kim Han-bin, and passing through Yeoju and Wonju, he hid in the house of Kim Gwi-dong in Chucheon, North Chungcheong Province. Kim Gwi-dong was a Catholic who had fled to Jecheon to escape persecution that had occurred in the provinces. Afterward, Kim Han-bin and Kim Gwi-dong went to Baeron (舟論) in Bongyang-myeon, Jecheon, a village of Catholic believers who made pottery, dug an earthen cave, and disguised it as a kiln. When the cave was completed, Hwang Sa-yeong moved into it and hid there.15 Meanwhile, Queen Jeongsun repeatedly issued special orders to arrest Hwang Sa-yeong without fail and strengthened border defenses in preparation for an escape abroad. As the court's pressure grew intense, there was even an incident in which a false Hwang Sa-yeong was arrested in Hamgyong Province and escorted to Seoul.16
Composition of the silk letter
While hiding in the earthen cave and learning the situation through Kim Han-bin and Hwang Sim (黃心), Hwang Sa-yeong received the grievous news that more than 100 people, including Zhou Wenmo, Jeong Yak-jong, Yi Seung-hun, Choi Chang-hyeon, Kang Wan-suk, Choi Pil-gong, Yi Jon-chang, and the brothers Yu Hwang-geom, the heads of the church, had been executed.17 He also heard that massacres had taken place throughout the country, including Seoul, and that Catholics who had fled deep into the mountains to escape persecution were living in misery. Hwang Sa-yeong judged that if he reported the full account of this repression to the bishop in Beijing and emphasized the fact that Father Zhou Wenmo was Chinese, he could secure help from the Qing court and perhaps bring the persecution to an end. He therefore began to write the famous letter known as the Hwang Sa-yeong Silk Letter.18
Because it was written on white silk (white cloth), it is called the "silk letter" (帛書). Its size is 62 cm wide and 40 cm high. Written in extremely fine brush strokes in tiny characters, with 110 characters per line over 122 lines, it recorded a vast content of 13,311 characters.19 Because it was written not in black ink but in alum, the letters could be read only after water was applied to them.
Content of the silk letter
The content of the silk letter first briefly explains the state of the church since 1785 (the ninth year of King Jeongjo) and the origins of the persecution, and then records the detailed course of the Sinyu Persecution and brief biographies (略傳) of the martyrs. It also testifies to Zhou Wenmo's activities, his surrender, and his death. It requested the Qing emperor to force Joseon to accept Western missionaries, or otherwise to incorporate Joseon as a province of the Qing to be supervised, or to send several hundred Western warships and 50,000 to 60,000 troops to Joseon to force the court to submit and allow freedom of religion.20
Arrest and martyrdom
Discovery of the silk letter
The plan to deliver the silk letter was for Hwang Sim (黃沁) and Ok Cheon-hui (玉千禧) to join the envoy party departing in the tenth lunar month for the winter solstice mission and deliver it to the bishop of the Beijing diocese of the Chinese Catholic Church, but it failed.21 Hwang Sim (黃心) was arrested at Baeron, Jecheon, on 15 September 1801, and Hwang Sa-yeong was also arrested on 26 September and escorted to Seoul.22 When news arrived that Hwang Sa-yeong had been arrested after about eight months, the court reportedly rejoiced.23 When the rolled-up silk letter was found in the clothing of the arrested Hwang Sa-yeong, the Noron Byeokpa cheered again,23 and upon reading its contents they were horrified, because he had fallen into heterodoxy and attempted to hand the country over to foreigners.
Total extermination
A royal interrogation was convened and harsh questioning followed. What the Noron Byeokpa feared most was whether a copy of the silk letter had been delivered to China. They also tried to root out instigators or accomplices in the writing of the letter, but it was concluded that no one other than the three men, Hwang Sa-yeong, Hwang Sim, and Kim Han-bin, had been involved. On 5 November, Hwang Sa-yeong was executed by death by dismemberment outside Seosomun for the crime of treason against the king.3 His mother, Yi Yun-hye, was taken as a slave to Geoje Island, and his wife, Jeong Myeong-ryeon (a niece of Jeong Yak-yong), was taken as a slave to Daejeong-hyeon on Jeju Island. His two-year-old son, Hwang Gyeong-han, was exiled to Chuja Island in Yeonggwang County, and his uncle Hwang Seok-pil was exiled to Gyeongheung in Hamgyong Province. Even the household's servants and attendants suffered: the male servant Yuk-son was exiled to Gapsan, Dol-i to Samsu, the female servant Pan-rye to Wiwon, and Bok-deok to Hyungyang. The female servant Go Eum-yeon was exiled to Dansung, where she died the following year. The husband of the female servant, Park Sam-chui, was exiled to Geochang. Furthermore, on the day after Hwang Sa-yeong was executed for the extreme crime, his house was torn down and a pit was dug to let water collect in it.3
Later history
Suppression and spread of Catholicism
Through the Hwang Sa-yeong Silk Letter, the court's position of defining Catholicism as a heterodox teaching was guaranteed by the evidence, and Catholicism was branded as a religion that sold out the nation.24 When the contents of the "silk letter" became known, rural Confucian scholars sent letters to the court denouncing Catholicism, and in Gyeongsang and Jeolla Provinces, movements to reject Catholicism centered on Confucian academies broke out fiercely.25 As a social atmosphere rejecting Catholicism took shape, persecution of Catholics became even more severe. Surviving Catholics fled from the regime's persecution to the hilly areas of Gyeonggi Province, the mountain regions of Gangwon and Chungcheong Provinces, and the deep mountains and valleys of the Taebaek and Sobaek Mountain Ranges, which promoted the nationwide spread of Catholicism. As a result, the Catholic Church of Joseon, which had previously centered on intellectuals, took root among the common people around the time of the Sinyu Persecution.26
Jeong Yak-yong and Jeong Yak-jeon
Hong Nak-an, a Sahonbu official, and Shin Gu-jo, a Sagan-won official, petitioned the court that Jeong Yak-jeon, Jeong Yak-yong, Yi Chi-hun, and others were behind the production of the Hwang Sa-yeong Silk Letter, and asked that they be arrested again and interrogated.27 Accordingly, Jeong Yak-yong and Jeong Yak-jeon were arrested in their places of exile at Janggi and Sinji Island, respectively, and escorted to Seoul. Because Hwang Seo-yeong was the nephew-in-law of the Jeong brothers, the situation was grave. Hong Nak-an and other Noron Byeokpa said, "If you kill a thousand people but cannot kill Jeong Yak-yong, it is the same as killing no one," and they tried to kill Jeong Yak-yong on this occasion.28 However, no relevant evidence emerged, and because opinions within the Noron Byeokpa were divided, they were spared the death penalty.29 Jeong Yak-yong was sent back into exile at Gangjin, and Jeong Yak-jeon at Heuksando.30
Dispatch of the winter solstice envoy
Fearing that a copy of the Hwang Sa-yeong Silk Letter would be delivered to China and the execution of Father Zhou Wenmo would become known, Queen Jeongsun had the winter solstice envoy dispatched that October explain the justification of the Sinyu Persecution. The envoy delivered to the Qing a reduced version of the Hwang Sa-yeong Silk Letter, condensed to 16 lines and about 922 characters in total, together with the Tosa Gyomun.31 This reduced version, called the Gabaekseo (가백서), deleted content unfavorable to the Joseon court and recorded facts such as the request for Western ships and troops, using them as grounds to argue that the persecution was justified. Through this, it sought to urge Chinese understanding of the overall Sinyu Persecution, falsely claimed that they had executed Zhou Wenmo without knowing he was Chinese, and made clear that there would be no further repression.32
Discovery of the silk letter
The silk letter that survives today exists in two copies, the original and a transcript. For nearly a hundred years after the Sinyu Persecution, they were kept in the storehouse of the Uigeumbu, and in 1894, when old documents were destroyed during the Gabo Reform, the original was discovered by chance and passed into the hands of Bishop Mutel, who was then head of the Korean diocese. On 5 July (lunar calendar) 1925, when the beatification ceremony of 79 martyrs of the Korean Catholic Church was held in Rome, it was delivered to Pope Pius XI, and it is now preserved in the Vatican Ethnological Museum.33
Historic sites
At Baeron Holy Site in Bongyang-eup, Jecheon, North Chungcheong Province, the earthen cave where Hwang Sa-yeong lived in seclusion has been restored, and a full-size replica of the silk letter is displayed inside it.34 Hwang Sa-yeong was buried after being subjected to execution by dismemberment at the foot of Hongbok Mountain in Gamagol, Bugok-ri, Jangheung-myeon, Yangju County, Gyeonggi Province. In 1980, a descendant of the Hwang family, after reviewing historical materials and conducting textual research on the surrounding area, discovered a grave presumed to be Hwang Sa-yeong's in the ancestral grounds on Hongbok Mountain. When it was excavated, a jar containing a stone cross and silk ribbon was found, confirming that the occupant of the grave was Hwang Sa-yeong.35
References
- This article contains content based on the Global World Encyclopedia distributed under the GFDL or CC-SA license by Daum Communications (now Kakao).
Footnotes