Slavery in Korea

"Our state’s slave law is ancient, and the scholar-officials depend on [slaves] to survive ... Slaves are the hands and feet of the literati."

"In fact, it is in the oriental state of Korea that we find one of the most extraordinary cases of economic dependence on slaves among all peoples and all periods. Large-scale slavery flourished there for over a thousand years up to the nineteenth century. For several centuries the service population was proportionately higher than the one in the U.S. South at its peak of dependence on slavery in the nineteenth century."