The March First Movement was a series of protests against Japanese colonial rule that was held throughout Korea and internationally by the Korean diaspora beginning on March 1, 1919. Protests were largely concentrated in March and April of that year, although related protests continued until 1921. In South Korea, the movement is remembered as a landmark event of not only the Korean independence movement, but of all of Korean history.
The protests began in Seoul, with public readings of the Korean Declaration of Independence in the restaurant T'aehwagwan and in Tapgol Park. The movement grew and spread rapidly. Statistics on the protest are uncertain; there were around 1,500 to 1,800 protests with a total of around 0.8 to 2 million participants. The total population of Korea at the time was around 16 to 17 million.
Despite the largely peaceful nature of the protests, they were frequently violently suppressed. One Korean estimate in 1920 claimed 7,509 deaths and 46,948 arrests. Japanese authorities reported much lower numbers, although there were instances where authorities were observed destroying evidence, such as during the Jeamni massacre.
Japanese authorities then conducted a global disinformation campaign on the protests. They promoted a wide range of narratives, including outright denial of any protests occurring, portraying them as violent Bolshevik uprisings, and claiming that Koreans were in need of the benevolent rule of Japan. These narratives were publicly challenged by sympathetic foreigners and by the Korean diaspora.
The movement did not result in Korea's prompt liberation, but had a number of significant effects. It invigorated the Korean independence movement and resulted in the creation of the Korean Provisional Government. It also caused some damage to Japan's international reputation and caused the Japanese colonial government to grant some limited cultural freedoms to Koreans under a series of policies that have since been dubbed "cultural rule". Furthermore, the movement went on to inspire other movements abroad, including the Chinese May Fourth Movement and Indian satyagraha protests.
The anniversary of the movement's start has been celebrated since, although this was largely done in secret in Korea until its liberation in 1945. In South Korea, it is a national holiday. The North Korean government initially celebrated it as a national holiday, but eventually demoted it and now does not evaluate the movement's significance similarly. It now promotes writings about the event that seek to emphasize the role of the ruling Kim family in the protests.
Background
In 1910, Japan formally annexed Korea. Japanese rule was initially especially tight. Japan took control over Korea's economy, and began a process of Japanization: forced cultural assimilation. Land was confiscated from Koreans and given to Japanese people, and economic and administrative systems were created that were systemically discriminatory. Resistance was violently suppressed, and freedom of speech and press were tightly controlled.
Japanese colonial policies mandated that Koreans send increasingly significant portions of their economic output to Japan, for what was seen as inadequate compensation. This caused a significant decline in the quality of life for many farmers and laborers, who began publicly protesting their treatment. In 1916, there were 6 strikes with 362 participants. In 1917, there were 8 strikes with 1,128, and by 1918 there were 50 strikes with 4,442. Historians of the National Institute of Korean History argue that this reflected increasing discontent in Korea around the time of the movement.
Fourteen Points and philosophical developments
Japan had been successfully rapidly industrializing since the late 19th century. Around this time, Western theories surrounding social Darwinism and colonial civilizing missions gained significant traction in Japan. These theories were often used to justify and promote Japanese colonialism. The devastation during the 1914–1918 First World War was a shock to many, and motivated intellectuals in Korea and around the world to discuss liberal reforms, especially anti-colonialism, and ideals that would serve to discourage future such conflicts.
After the end of the war in 1918, United States President Woodrow Wilson announced his vision for establishing peace and the new world order. This vision was dubbed the Fourteen Points, and included the right of national self-determination. Koreans who learned of Wilson's vision were inspired, and interpreted it as signaling support for their independence movement. Their sympathy to the U.S. and the Allies reportedly greatly increased.
The sincerity behind Wilson's advocacy for self-determination is debated. Some scholars argue his advocacy was limited to the former colonies of the defeated Central Powers, which Japan was not a part of. Historian Ku Daeyeol argues Wilson's efforts were sincere, but frustrated by geopolitical realities. The U.S. would not begin openly advocating for Korean independence until decades later, after it joined World War II against Japan. The Japanese colonial government suppressed discussion of the Fourteen Points; for example, around this time it reportedly banned a foreign film from being screened in Korea because the film had images of President Wilson.
Paris Peace Conference and the death of Gojong
After the conclusion of the war, various nations participated in the 1919–1920 Paris Peace Conference, during which the sovereignty of a number of nations was discussed.
Koreans made a number of unsuccessful attempts to be represented at the conference. The Korean-American Korean National Association attempted to send Syngman Rhee and Henry Chung to the conference, but the U.S. government denied them permission to go. A group of Koreans in China, the New Korean Youth Party, managed to send Kim Kyu-sik with the Chinese delegation. Chinese leaders, hoping to embarrass Japan, attempted to put a discussion of Korea's sovereignty on the agenda, but did not succeed.
Koreans in China also created a plan to secretly extract former Korean emperor Gojong from his house arrest in Korea, and eventually bring him to the conference. Before that could happen, on January 21, 1919, Gojong suddenly died. Japan reported that Gojong had died from natural causes, but he had reportedly been healthy just until his death. Koreans widely suspected that Japan had poisoned him; these theories were in part motivated by knowledge of previous attempts on Gojong's life.
Public outrage at the possibility that Gojong had been murdered has since been evaluated as having a critical impact on the timing of, and even the altogether occurrence of, the March First Movement.
February 8 Declaration of Independence
By the mid-1910s, several hundred Korean students were studying in Japan as part of Japan's cultural assimilation efforts. While there, they were exposed to and developed a variety of ideas, which they discussed and debated. Of particular interest to them were ideas from the West, particularly liberal democracy, which they received in part via the Japanese Taishō Democracy movement and Wilson's Fourteen Points.
By early 1919, their ideas coalesced, and they also became angered by the rebuffing of the Korean representatives to the Paris Peace Conference, by the brutality of Japanese rule, and by the possibility that Gojong had been poisoned. In February, 8,600 students of the Korean Young People's Independence Organization (조선청년독립단; 朝鮮靑年獨立團) proclaimed and publicly distributed a declaration of independence, which they sent to the Japanese government, attendees of the Paris Peace Conference, and to representatives of various countries. The students were arrested en masse by Japanese authorities, although news of their act reached Korea.
Organization
In late 1918, leaders of the native Korean religion Cheondoism, including Kwŏn Tongjin, O Se-chang, and Son Byong-hi, reached a consensus that nonviolent resistance and turning international public opinion against Japan would be effective in advocating for Korea's independence. They also agreed that they needed assistance from other major groups in Korea.
They dispatched representatives to negotiate and secure the cooperation of major politicians and groups in Korea. Some negotiations were strained and took months; they became so disheartened by these setbacks that they reportedly even considered abandoning their plan. However, the events of January and February 1919 caused a spike in pro-independence activism; around this time, they were able to quickly secure a number of significant alliances. They found that some groups had already been independently planning protests. For example, Presbyterian leaders in Pyongyang reportedly had a plan to protest in the last week of January; these efforts were merged into the Cheondoist ones. They secured alliances from major Christian and Buddhist groups, as well as from several student organizations. They gained the support of several former government officials from the Korean Empire, although they were rebuffed by Joseon-era politicians Park Yung-hyo and Han Kyu-sŏl.
They decided to schedule their protest for March 1, the day of Gojong's public funeral, in order to capitalize on the significant number of people congregating in Seoul.
From February 25 to 27, thirty-three representatives from these various groups held a series of secret meetings in Seoul, during which they signed the Korean Declaration of Independence. From 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on February 27, they printed 21,000 copies of the declaration at the printing facilities of Posŏngsa, a publisher affiliated with Cheondoism. On the morning of the 28th, they distributed these copies around the peninsula. They also coordinated the distribution of copies to members of the Korean diaspora, to U.S. President Wilson, and to participants in the Paris Peace Conference. That day, they held a final meeting at Son Byong-hi's house and reviewed their plans for the protests.
They initially planned to start the protest by inviting thousands of observers to Tapgol Park in Seoul. However, they worried that if they were prominently arrested, angered Korean observers could possibly violently retaliate against authorities. In the interest of maintaining the non-violence of the protests, they decided to change the starting location to the less-visible restaurant T'aehwagwan in Insa-dong.
Role of foreigners in planning the protests
Foreigners also played a role in the planning of the protests. In mid-February, Robert Grierson allowed secret meetings about the protests to be conducted in his house in Sŏngjin. Protests in Sŏngjin went on to become the first in North Hamgyong Province. On February 28th, Canadian missionary Frank Schofield was asked to document the protests. Schofield's publicization of the protests proved so significant in influencing global public opinion, that he has since been described as the "Thirty-fourth Representative" (민족대표 34인), effectively equating his significance to that of the signers of the declaration.
Beginning
Around noon on March 1, 1919, 29 of the 33 signers of the declaration gathered in T'aehwagwan to start the protest. The signers conducted a prominent reading of the declaration in the restaurant. The Korean restaurant owner An Sunhwan (안순환; 安淳煥) rushed over and reported the event to the Japanese Government-General of Chōsen, which caused the signers to be arrested by around 80 Japanese military police officers.
Meanwhile, around 4,000 to 5,000 people assembled at Tapgol Park after hearing there was going to be an announcement made there. Around 2 p.m., an unidentified young man rose up before the crowd and began reading the Korean Declaration of Independence aloud. Near the end of the document's reading, cheers of "long live Korean independence" (대한독립 만세) erupted continually from the crowd, and they filed out onto the main street Jongno for a public march.
By the time the marchers reached the gate Daehanmun of the former royal palace Deoksugung, their numbers had swelled to the tens of thousands. From there, a number of splinter groups marched in different directions throughout the city. News of the protests spread rapidly in Seoul, and marching and public demonstrations continued for many hours afterwards. That day, around 3,000 copies of the declaration were distributed around Seoul.
These protestors were reportedly consistently peaceful. The declaration contains the text "We entertain no spirit of vengeance towards Japan... [L]et there be no violence". The protestors were often met with violent repression by Japanese authorities, which resulted in deaths and arrests.
Spread
That same day, similar protests were held in other cities in Korea, including in Pyongyang, Chinnamp'o, Anju, and Wonsan. Despite Japanese repression of information, news of the protest in Seoul reached these cities quickly, as they were connected to Seoul via the Gyeongui and Gyeongwon railway lines. On March 2, more protests were held in Kaesong and Keiki-dō (Gyeonggi Province). On March 3, more were held in Yesan and Chūseinan-dō (South Chungcheong Province). Protests continued to spread in this fashion, until by March 19, all thirteen provinces of Korea had hosted protests. On March 21, Jeju Island held their first protest. All but seven of the 218 administrative districts in Korea hosted protests.
Various locations often hosted multiple protests for weeks afterwards. Numerous small villages hosted three or four protests. For example, Hoengseong County held a series of protests from March 27 to mid-April. Protests often coincided with market days, and were often held at government offices. The protests were broadly supported across economic and religious spectrums, including groups such as merchants, noblemen, literati, kisaeng, laborers, monks, Christians, Cheondoists, Buddhists, students, and farmers.
Korean shop owners reportedly closed their doors in solidarity with the protests, with some reportedly refusing to reopen even after Japanese soldiers attempted to force them to. Some shop owners demanded the release of imprisoned protestors.