From Liaodongese Refugee to Ming Loyalist: The Historiography of the Sanggok Ma, a Ming Migrant Descent Group in Late Joseon Korea

Abstract

This paper investigates the construction of biographies of Ming migrant descent groups during the Late Joseon as a product of the interaction of diverse social and political forces. With a focus especially on the biographies of one migrant-those of Ma Shunshang or Pengzhi, the founder of the Sanggok Ma descent group-this paper argues that the biographies were created by the interaction of the Joseon court and the Ming migrant descent groups themselves. Ming refugees to Joseon had been of little interest to the Joseon court at the actual time of their migration. However, during the mid-eighteenth century, ideological changes within the Joseon court resulted in the descendants of Ming migrants being reclassified as exemplars of Ming loyalism. This in turn resulted in the creation of hagiographic biographies of the original migrants. For the Joseon court, the presence in Joseon of the descendants of Ming loyalists with appropriate backgrounds was vital for official Ming loyalist ideology, while for the descendants of Ming migrants the claim to be remnant subjects of the Ming was a strategy for raising their social status. All of these elements leave traces within the text of the biographies themselves.