Unearthing the Criminal Case Notifications and Reconstructing the March First Movement in Bupyeong-ri, Colonial Korea

This study presents a previously unexamined archival collection titled Criminal Case Notifications(Beomjoe Sageon Tongjiseo), compiled by the Jinjeop-myeon Office in Yangju-gun, colonial Korea, with the aim of enriching researches on the March First Movement. The collection consists of official notifications received from criminal justice authorities between the 1910s and 1940s. Such compilations have rarely come to light, and this particular volume is especially significant for preserving original source material directly related to Korea’s independence movement. The documents reveal that in March 1919, a large-scale Independence movement took place in Bupyeong-ri, Jinjeop-myeon, with participation from over 200 local residents. Of these, 89 individuals were arrested and subjected to criminal sentencing. Most of those punished were men in their thirties and forties, and the records point to patterns of collective mobilization rooted in kinship ties. Of the 89 individuals sentenced, 77 received corporal punishment administered at the Janghyeon-ri branch of the Gyeongseong Military Police. Despite formal legal restrictions, flogging was imposed on several boys in their early to mid-teens. One of the detainees reportedly died later that year from complications related to the punishment, and there is testimony that one of the protest leaders was subjected to brutal torture. These accounts underscore the lingering shadow of the repressive military rule that characterized the 1910s, persisting still in 1919.