A Slave Family Climbed for Nearly 200 Years. Did They Really Move?

In 1678, a government register in Joseon Korea recorded a man named Subong in a single line: a first name, an age — and the name of the man who owned him. If you were born into a line like that, could you ever get out? We try five doors that might lead out, and follow one real family whose climb took nearly two hundred years — on paper. The Korean word was nobi — usually translated as “slave,” though historians still debate the label. CHAPTERS 0:00 One line in a register 1:28 Door 1: The record 2:19 Door 2: Work 3:08 Door 3: Your children 4:41 Door 4: Money 7:04 Door 5: Running 8:00 The climb 9:50 And you? 10:19 So — could you get out? ABOUT THIS VIDEO The second-person “you” is a composite viewpoint set in the 1780s. Subong and his descendants are real people documented in the Danseong household registers (Kwon Nae-hyun, 2012; 2014). Illustrations are AI-generated and stylized; they are not historical images. Document texts on screen are typeset from published transcriptions; no images of the original documents are shown. Narration is a synthetic (AI) voice. SOURCES Primary records — Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (Korean translation, online edition of the National Institute of Korean History) Annals of King Sukjong, 1677.11.13 — https://sillok.history.go.kr/id/ksa_1... Annals of King Sukjong, 1696.2.10 — https://sillok.history.go.kr/id/ksa_1... Annals of King Sukjong, 1699.11.16 — https://sillok.history.go.kr/id/ksa_1... Annals of King Sunjo, 1801.1.28 — https://sillok.history.go.kr/id/kwa_1... Annals of King Gojong, 1886.1.2 — https://sillok.history.go.kr/id/kza_1... Slave sale deed, Gurye, 1770 — as described on Gongu Madang (Korea Copyright Commission) Studies Kwon Nae-hyun, “Nobi,” Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (Academy of Korean Studies) — https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E... Lee Jae-ryong, “Nobi jongmobeop” [the rule that a child follows the mother], Encyclopedia of Korean Culture — https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E... Sun Joo Kim, “Slavery in Chosŏn Korea,” in D. A. Pargas & J. Schiel (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery throughout History (2023), ch. 18 (open access) Kwon Nae-hyun, “Yangban-eul hyanghan gin yeojeong” [The long road toward yangban], Yeoksa Bipyeong 98 (2012): 269–300 (in Korean) Kwon Nae-hyun, Nobi-eseo yangban-euro, geu meonameon yeojeong [From nobi to yangban: that long journey] (Yeoksa Bipyeongsa, 2014) (in Korean) Kwon Nae-hyun, “Joseon hugi hojeok-e daehan ihae” [Understanding late Joseon household registers], Hanguksa Yeongu 165 (2014) (in Korean) Jeon Kyung-mok, “Sinbun sangseung, eoneu nobi gamun-e tuyeongdoen yeonguja-ui roman” [Social mobility: a researcher’s romance projected onto a nobi family] (review), Yeoksa Bipyeong 109 (2014): 411–420 (in Korean) Titles in [ ] are our translations. MUSIC "In This Moment" by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au "Wildflowers" by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au "The Long Dark" by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au "Incredulity" by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au #KoreanHistory #Joseon #History