淸代 錦屛縣 加池寨의 經濟的 有力層과 少數民族 社會 ― 『淸水江文書』의 加池寨 斷賣 文書를 중심으로 ―(1)

Abstract

This study is based on an analysis of 1,000 sale documents from the Jiachi village contained in the Documents of Qingshui River(淸水江文書). Located in the Qingshui River basin, the Jiachi village of Jinping district is a relatively late participant in forestry management compared to the Wendou village. In the case of sale document of the Jiachi village analysed in this paper, the sale of a certain share of ownership and the use of ‘tael(兩)’ instead of ‘share of ownership(股)’ to indicate the more detailed ownership are the same in sale documents of other local areas in Jinping district. The main purpose of this paper is to clarify the question of whether certain groups had been monopolizing wealth in minority communities such as Jiachi village, and whether such wealth was continuously transferred. This is because the existence of economically powerful people can be the key to revealing the special nature of the minority society in Qing dynasty, which is different from the Ming dynasty that had governed ethnic minorities with the chieftaincy system. The analysis of the Jiachi village documents of the Qing period provides the following facts. First of all, there obviously existed wealthy people who had bought forestry fields(山場), woods and rice paddy over a long period of time in this village. Although the genealogy of the Jiang family(姜氏) is incomplete in identifying the faces of numerous buyers of property, at least the two families of Jiang Tingde(姜廷德) and Jiang Zuozhang(姜佐章) were an economic heavyweights in this region, each with a few hundred up to thousands of tael. Of course, also can we see some of the Jiang families went bankrupt, but the richness of the two branches of the Jiang’s family remained intact until the Republican era. Secondly, besides the member of the Jiang family of Siheyuan(四合院) or the Jiang Zuozhang family, also existed another rich Jiang family. That is, Jiang Xianyi(姜獻義), Jiang Kairang(姜開讓), and Jiang Zhihao(姜之豪) also concentrated on buying a large amount of property. This implies the possibility that even the same Jiangs had different interests within the same village, a concrete example of which is the list of donors in the text of the Stele of Siban Bridge(石板橋碑). While it is necessary to shed light on the relationship between Jiang's families more closely in the future, some documents indicate that conflict and rivalry existed between them. Finally, although most of the documents are related to forestry management, certain documents deal with purchases that are virtually rice paddy. Whether this feature is unique to the Jiachi village or whether it can be seen in other areas is naturally possible only through comparison with other villages. But the rice paddy purchase by the rich in Jiachi village is good evidence that they had invested the profits generated from the sale of timber to buy rice paddy, and simultaneously shows that the spread of their economic power has been very limited. In this regard, the fact that Jiang Zuozhang had been a Xiangyue(鄕約) and a landowner since early Qing Period has a special connotation. The Jiang family of the Siheyuan(四合院) grew into a major wealthy group after the emergence of Jiang Tingde, and while their targets were mainly concentrated on buying the forest trees, Jiang Zuozhang, which was earlier than Jiang Tingde, mainly purchased rice paddy. Furthermore, at least there are no examples of Jiang Tingde appearing as surety(憑中), whereas Jiang Zuozhang appears as surety. The two were descendants of Jiang Dingbao(姜丁保), but the situation strongly suggests that the methods of accumulation of property within the same Jiang family were different and that the landlord class existed early on inside the Jiachi village. The discussions mentioned above can be said to be the unique economic dynamism of ethnic minorities in the Jinping district, which was not seen in other minority communities in the Ming-Qing period. However, it is necessary to examine the social presence of major buyers in order to determine the causes of these characteristics and their long-term retention of their properties in minority communities. Therefore, the analysis of the 1-2-5 series of the Jiachi documents, which entirely include litigations or conflicts between individuals, will be dealt with in the latter part.