Nobi System In Korea Essay

The Practice of Slavery Within Korea At the nobi’s highest population they made up one third of medieval Korea’s population. The nobi were the enslaved people of Korea. As slaves, the nobi played an integral part in Korean society like many of other countries’ unfortunate. The nobi system was quite complex in it’s operation ; however, the nobi ended up being basic workers up until the practice was made illegal. In the Joseon period, Korea had a strict caste in place. The top class were called the yangban. This class consisted of nobles, officials, the social elite, and educated. Overall, they were the important and rich (Campbell 153). At times there are people that say there is a fourth class. However, most say there are three. The extra fourth is under the yangban class. Chungin is the name of the class and they are the upper middle class (Kim 116). They are not on the level of the yangban, but they are above the next class on the ladder. Yangmin are the commoners. Surprisingly, there is a low amount of information on the common folk of Joseon Korea. The Chonmin are the base people. The Chonmin were directly at the bottom of the caste system. This is the level of people like the nobi. In the caste,

Nobi were considered even more important than land to the yangban. Like slaves, the amount of nobi the yangban owned showed how powerful and rich they were. The nobi would then help to make the owner even wealthier and able to gain even more nobi. Since the nobi were so important, it often created controversy on how they were inherited. The rules for this were often changed and it was usually not in favor of the nobi. Surprisingly, there was not much of a nobi trade. There was a small amount of trading, but it was unlike the western civilizations where nobi had a commercial value. The people that owned nobi most likely did not trade for the nobi that they had (Campbell