Tokugawa clan

The Tokugawa kamon.

The Tokugawa served as the Shôgun of Japan from 1603 until 1867 and were therefore the longest - and most stable - of Japan's three bakufu. The Tokugawa's actual roots are obscure for while Ieyasu claimed descent from the Nitta and therefore the Seiwa-Minamoto, there seems to be little historical evidence of this. The genealogy Ieyasu commissioned claimed that a branch of the Kôzuke Nitta had taken the name Tokugawa and later transferred to Mikawa province, where it was adopted into the Matsudaira. In fact, Ieyasu also maintained an alternate family history that suggested Fujiwara roots - which supports the supposition that the Tokugawa's early family tree was largely made out of whole cloth. The Tokugawa were 'officially' restored when Ieyasu petitioned the court to allow him to use the name Tokugawa in 1566.

They became the new Shôgun following the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) and a formal endorsement by the court in 1603. Ieyasu established a number of branch families whose role it was to provide heirs when the main line was unable to do so - these included the Kii, Mito, and Owari lines (the last Shôgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, would be born into the Mito house). To these would in time be added the Hitotsubashi, Shimizu, and Tayasu, junior branches, the first of which was to provide the last Shôgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu (although Yoshinobu had actually been born into the Mito house.) These were to be known collectively as Shinpan Daimyo.

Generals of the Tokugawa clan during the Sengoku Period

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Nobuyasu Tokugawa Hidetada Yûki Hideyasu Matsudaira Ietada Matsudaira Tadaaki Abe Masakatsu Amano Yasukage Hattori Hanzo Hiraiwa Chikayoshi Honda Tadakatsu Honda Masanobu Honda Masazumi Honda Yasushige Ii Naomasa Ii Naotaka Ina Tadatsugu Ishikawa Kazumasa Ishin Sûden Koriki Kiyonaga Mizuno Nobutomo Naitô Ienaga Naitô Nobunari Natsume Yoshinobu Ogasawara Ujisuke Okubo Tadayo Okubo Tadachika Okubo Nagayasu Okudaira Sadamasa Sakai Tadatsugu Sakikabara Yasumasa Suganuma Sadamitsu Torii Tadayoshi Torii Mototada Uemura Masakatsu Watanabe Moritsuna

References

• Initial text from Sengoku Biographical Dictionary (Samurai-Archives.com) FWSeal & CEWest, 2005