Tsushima

• Japanese: 対馬 (Tsushima)

Tsushima is an island in the Korea Straits (aka the Tsushima Straits), roughly 33 miles from Busan, Korea, and 56 miles from Kyushu. The island has been, at least peripherally, incorporated into the Japanese state since ancient times, as Tsushima province, and was one of the "eight islands" referred to when the Japanese archipelago was referred to as Yashima or Ôyashima. The island, known as Daemado in Korean, was also claimed, however, by Joseon Dynasty Korea (1392-1897) and at times by modern Korean governments to have been Korean territory since ancient times. Kenneth Robinson suggests that the Joseon court recognized that the extents of its territory and of its jurisdiction were not identical - that there were places like Tsushima that were Joseon territory but not within the court's jurisdiction - and rarely if ever challenged the authority of the Muromachi shogunate or the Sô samurai clan over the island.

Ancient Times

Records in both Chinese and Japanese as old as the Wei zhi (c. 300 CE) and Man'yôshû (c. 760s CE) suggest a perception of the island as Japanese. The construction of Kaneta fortress on the island in 667, built explicitly against the potential threat of Tang-Silla invasion, indicates that Japanese (Yamato state) agents extended control to the island at least that early.

Medieval Period

For much of the premodern period, the island was generally administered as part of Kyushu (e.g. coming under the purview of the Chinzei bugyô in the Kamakura period). It is today part of Nagasaki prefecture.

Due to its prime position along maritime routes, and its peripheral location in both Korean and Japanese states, Tsushima was both a major intermediary point for regional trade, and was on numerous occasions the victim of foreign attacks, including in the 7th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th centuries. Both Mongol invasions (in 1274 & 1281) visited violence upon the island before moving on to Kyushu. In the 13th-16th centuries, the island was also a major center of pirate activity. Joseon sent a naval fleet to attack pirate bases on Tsushima in 1419, in what is known as the Ôei Invasion, claiming that the island had long been Korean territory. When the fighting was over, an envoy claiming to represent the Sô agreed to have the island incorporated into the territory of Korea's Gyeongsang province and to be granted a royal seal as a prefectural governor or administrator, a subject to the king of Joseon. However, the following year, a letter sent to Joseon bearing the name of Sô Sadamori contested and rejected this.

Regardless, the island - and the Sô lords - occupied a somewhat mixed status relative to the Joseon kingdom for the rest of the medieval period and into the early modern period. Tsushima continued to be represented as Korean territory on Korean maps. The court dispatched officials to Tsushima on sixteen occasions between 1392 to 1443; these were mostly domestic affairs officials, dispatched from the capital to meet with a regional administrator as if Tsushima were a region within Korean territory, though sometimes they were foreign affairs officials. The court also granted the governor of Tsushima the power to grant travel permits and perhaps certain other documents, bearing official authority within Joseon jurisdiction. Such travel permits were required for anyone traveling between the Korean peninsula and islands such as Jeju or Tsushima. However, conversely, no Korean officials were ever permanently stationed on Tsushima, and little if any orders were ever issued applying Joseon nationwide law or policies to Tsushima as a part of that political territory; to the contrary, the Sô clan and their (Japanese) retainers and others were left to govern and administer the island as they wished.

In 1443, the Sô and the Joseon court reached an agreement by which all Japanese travelers to Korea (or Korean waters) were obliged to obtain a travel permit from the Sô. This boosted the prestige and power of the governors of Tsushima, blocking out others who would seek to compete with, or skirt around, Sô authority in the area or the Sô family's exclusive relationship with the Joseon court. It was also attractive to the Joseon court, creating a stronger legal or political basis for discriminating between licensed, authorized, traders and travelers and, on the other hand, those they could prosecute as brigands, pirates, or smugglers.

Tokugawa Period

The Sô clan, governors of the island since the 12th century, were claimed as vassals by the kings of Joseon, as well as by the Tokugawa shogunate. During much of the medieval era, the Sô served as the chief intermediaries in Korean-Japanese diplomatic and trade relations, and under the Tokugawa, this position became even more formalized. At times in the 16th-17th centuries, the Sô also forged diplomatic documents, pretending to merely pass along communications from the shogunate, in order to either determine policy themselves, or to accrue the benefits of trade to themselves or their allies. While the Sô certainly negotiated for power against both the Joseon and Tokugawa courts, however, relations went smoothly for the most part in the 17th-19th centuries.

Throughout the medieval and early modern periods, the Sô made extensive use of merchants and others, formally brought into the service of the Sô as goyô shônin, to serve as interpreters and intermediaries. While the figures actually drafting communications and/or traveling to Korea were often samurai retainers, they were also often merchants, monks, or other such figures. Sixty-two families or individuals in particular were designated at one point, the "Tsushima 62 shônin." They were provided some degree of education and training in preparation for their roles as diplomatic intermediaries and interpreters, but it is said the emphasis was less on pursuing expert proficiency at language, diplomacy, or professional interpretation, and more on specifically representing Tsushima well (i.e. not causing the Sô clan to lose face), and on representing Tsushima (and by extension Japan) as a place of cultural refinement and education.

In 1861, the island became the site of diplomatic incident, as the Russian ship Posadnik dropped anchor and demanded to build a Russian base on the island, remaining for quite a few months and refusing requests by Sô, Tokugawa, and even British authorities to leave, until ultimately word came from the Russian consul in Japan, and from Russian naval command, and the ship finally departed.

The removal of the Sô as domainal lords, and as Korean vassals, and the concordant further formalization of the incorporation of Tsushima into the territory of the Japanese nation-state in 1869-1871, caused considerable diplomatic tensions between Korea and Japan. The disputed status of Tsushima was resolved by the 1876 Treaty of Ganghwa, in which Joseon formally recognized the island as Japanese territory.

In the meantime, in concert with the abolition of the han in 1871/7, the territory of the island was reorganized as Izuhara prefecture (Izuhara ken), then only two months later merged with Saga prefecture to create the short-lived Imari prefecture. In the 5th month of the following year (1872), the island was then separated from Saga prefecture again and attached to Nagasaki prefecture. That same year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimushô) took over control of the Waegwan in Pusan, and Tsushima's special role in managing relations with Korea ended.

In 1904-1905, Tsushima then became the site of conflict once again, as many of the battles of the Russo-Japanese War, the battle of Tsushima in particular, were fought in the Straits, and as many Japanese troops were transported across the Straits to fight in Korea.