• Japanese: 浦賀奉行 (Uraga bugyou)

The Uraga bugyô, or Uraga Magistrate, was an official in charge of overseeing maritime activity and coastal defenses at Uraga, and in the surrounding areas.

As part of the Tenpô Reforms in 1842 and subsequent years, the Uraga bugyô acted to crack down on illegal and underground prostitution. The port town had five brothels and eighty-eight prostitutes noted in official records prior to the reforms; the bugyô at that time took steps to impose sumptuary regulations and limits on the number of women per brothel. Other port cities took similar steps at the same time, however some, such as Niigata, had a far larger and up to that point far less regulated sex trade, making the imposition of controls difficult.[1]

List of Uraga Bugyô

References

  • Mitani Hiroshi, David Noble (trans.), Escape from Impasse, International House of Japan (2006), 258-259.
  1. Amy Stanley, Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan, UC Press (2012), 126-127.
  2. Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 1 (1937), 84, 347.
  3. Ishin Shiryô Kôyô, vol. 1, 61, 611.
  4. Ishin Shiryô Kôyô, vol. 1, 354, 410.
  5. Ishin Shiryô Kôyô, vol. 1, 410.
  6. Ishin Shiryô Kôyô, vol 1, 513.
  7. Ishin Shiryô Kôyô, vol 1, 582.; vol. 2, 161.
  8. Ishin Shiryô Kôyô, vol 1, 611.; vol 2., 304.
  9. Ishin Shiryô Kôyô, vol 2, 166.