earticle

영어

The aim of this paper is to investigate Dumin(頭民) who played an important role in a village(洞) in the late Joseon dynasty. I have endeavored to find out the main point about Dumin(頭民), such as who could be a Dumin, what was their role or duty in the village and what corrupt practices they aroused.
The Dumin, as pointed out by Oh Hoeng-Muk, the magistrate of Gido(智島) in 1897, was the man who take the responsibility for the life of village people. In generally Dumin was elected by village people. But if a man want to be a Dumin, he must be a man of learning and win the respect of all people in village. I presumed the role of Dumin in village was to collect taxes and to keep the security and property of the villager. In addition to that, Dumin communicated the order of the
magistrate of the county to villager, and reported the villager's demands to superior.
But after 1895, many misdoings which caused by Dumin came into existence, and these gave a baneful influence to the villager. For example, Dumin privatized the land which was in possession of nation and collected taxes from villager absurdly. Often The Dumin made the evil practices in conspiracy with Japanese who wanted to plunder economic wealthy from Korea. So sometimes the japanese took advantage of Dumin to achieve their goal.