Abstract
IN THE LATTER years of the reign of the Korean King Seonjo (r. 1567– 1608), Europe's late sixteenth century and the Momoyama period in Japan, violent events provoked the dispersal of Korean women and men throughout the Asian region, some even further. The invasions by Japanese forces of the Korean kingdom, then ruled by the I (or Yi) dynasty and known as Joseon, represented perhaps the most intense military conflict among East Asian peoples before the late nineteenth century. Through these invasions, the effective if not official leader of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, had hoped to gain a strategic foothold from which he could conquer Ming China. When Seonjo refused to acquiesce to Hideyoshi's demands that the Joseon kingdom be used as a steppingstone for Japanese troops, in part because of Joseon's tributary relationship with the Ming emperors of China, Hideyoshi attempted to force access. Over six years, the Joseon kingdom suffered devastation to its lands and resources through violent conflict fought among Japanese, Joseon and Ming forces, and Joseon's people became spoils of war. Accounts of the experiences of Korean women and men in the conflict and diaspora were documented in many local sources as well as others that traversed the globe. Both Korean individuals, and the reports that narrated some of their activities within and beyond the borders of Joseon, travelled through organizations motivated by evangelism, the origins of which were in Europe. Chief among these were the Catholic mission orders.