Cheju-do

Early history

Cheonjiyeon Waterfall on Jeju Island

Waves crashing on Jeju seashore

Halla Mountain in Jeju

Cheonjiyeon Waterfall in Jeju

According to legend, three demi-gods emerged from Samsung-hyeol which is said to have been on the northern slopes of Mt. Halla and became the progenitors of the Jeju people who founded the Kingdom of Tamna.

It has also been claimed that three brothers—including Ko-hu—who were the 15th descendants of Koulla, one of the Progenitors of the Jeju people, were received by the court of Silla, at which time [when?] the name Tamna was officially recognized, while the official government posts of Commander, Prince and Governor were conferred by the court upon the three. However, there is no concrete evidence of when the "Three Names" (Samseong-Ko, Yang and Pu) appeared nor for the exact date of when Ko-hu and his brothers were received by Silla. It may be supposed that the "Three Names" Founding Period occurred during the Three Kingdoms (Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla) Period on the mainland of Korea.

Taejo, founder of Goryeo, attempted to establish the same relationship between Goryeo and Tamna as Tamna had had with Silla. Tamna refused to accept this position and the Goryeo court dispatched troops to force Tamna to submit. Ko ja-gyeon, chief of Tamna, submitted to Goryeo in 938 and sent his son, Prince Mallo, to Goryeo's court as a de facto hostage. In 1105 (King Sukjong's 10th year), the Goryeo court abolished the name Takna which had been used up to this time and, from that year on, the island was known as "Tamna-gun" (district) and Goryeo officials were sent to handle the affairs of the island.

Tamna-country was changed to Tamna-county in 1153 during the reign of King Uijong and Choi Cheok-kyeong was posted as Tamna-Myeong or Chief of Tamna. In 1121 during Huijong's reign, Tamna was renamed "Jeju" and the posts of Judiciary were established on the island.
In 1271, General Kim Tong-jeong escaped with what remained of his Sambyeolcho force from Jindo and built the Hangpadu Fortress at Kwiil-chon from where they continued their fight against the combined Korean government-Mongolian army but within two years, faced by an enemy army of over 10,000 troops, the Sambyeolcho was annihilated.

Modern history

Jeju Uprising, 1948

Main article: Jeju Uprising

On April 3, 1948, against a background of an ongoing ideological struggle for control of Korea and a variety of grievances held by islanders against the local authorities, the many communist sympathizers on the island attacked police stations and government offices. The brutal and often indiscriminate suppression of the leftist rebellion resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of both villagers and communist radicals and the imprisonment of thousands more in internment camps.

While claims have been made that the US government oversaw and supported "anti-communist" activities administratively if not openly in the field, validation remains to be made. It is a fact the US was heavily involved in counter-insurgence operations across Korea at this time leading up to the Korean War and UN involvement. Similarly, the Northwest Youth League, a Korean government sponsored watchdog group made up of refugees who had fled North Korea, actively repressed any and all "communist sympathizers" with a campaign of shooting on sight anyone entering or leaving the president's "enemy zone" and using open, armed violence and what would be labeled today as terrorist activities. This led to the deaths of hundreds of islanders, with many other islanders being raped and tortured. Intolerance by mainland Korean officials of islanders in general at the time, government- and organization-sponsored isolation of the island and a rumored cover-up of evidence linking the rebellion's suppressors with foreign powers and people who have gone unprosecuted is believed to be the primary cause of public ignorance, hedging on denial, over the April 3, 1948 genocide on Cheju-do. A documentary by the BBC and PBS, Korea: The Unknown War and many activities and publications, including Sun-i Samch'on by Hyun Ki Young, by organizations and persons from within Cheju-do and around the world continue to attempt shedding the light on this event. The Uprising has become a symbol of Jeju's Independence from Korean Peninsula.
The provincial administrative building was burned to the ground in September 1948 and a new building was completed in 1-do, 2-dong in December, 1952.

Construction of a naval base

Further information: Jeju-do Naval Base

In June 2007, the Korean government selected Gangjeong, a village on the southern coast of the island, as the site of a $970 million naval base. The base is to house twenty warships, including submarines.
In January 2010, the South Korean Navy signed two contracts with two construction firms to build pier facilities.;construction began in January 2011. By August, about 14 percent of the contract had been spent on initial construction work, but significant progress had not been made due to local resistance to the base.
Trying to prevent dredging and bulldozing, residents of Gangjeong have been living in tents in and near areas where construction is planned or ongoing. In addition to protests, the villagers have filed lawsuits to try to block construction and have widely publicized their opposition.

Before the Japanese annexation in 1910, the island was usually known as Quelpart to Europeans. The name apparently came from the first European ship to spot the island, the Dutch Quelpaert, which sighted it after being blown off course on its way to the Dutch trading base in Nagasaki, Japan, from Taiwan (then the Dutch colony of Formosa).

When Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910, Jeju then became known as Saishū, which is the Japanese reading of the hanja for Jeju.
Before 2000, when the Seoul government changed the official Romanization of Hangul, Jeju-do was spelled Cheju-do. Almost all written references to the island before that use that spelling.