Kikaigashima

• Japanese: 鬼界ヶ島 (Kikaigashima)

Kikaigashima is one of the Amami Islands, in the northern section of the Ryukyu Islands archipelago. The island was absorbed by the Shimazu clan of Satsuma province in the 16th century, along with most of the rest of the Amamis, and remains part of Kagoshima prefecture today.

Early History

Remains of gusuku sites on Kikaigashima, along with other archaeological finds, serve as evidence for Amami/Ryûkyû cultural activity on Kikaigashima in the pre-modern period, related but distinctive in character from Japanese culture.

In the premodern period, Kikai was among the islands to which court nobles, prominent samurai, or other elites were sometimes exiled by the shogunate or Imperial court. The monk Shunkan, who was caught plotting a coup against Taira no Kiyomori, was famously exiled to Kikai in 1177.

In the 15th-16th centuries, forces of the Shimazu clan of Satsuma province, and those of the Ryûkyû Kingdom, both sought to expand into the Amamis. For a time in the mid-15th century, the people of Kikaigashima raised significant resistance against such Ryukyuan forces, leading King Shô Toku to decide in 1466 to lead the invasion force himself. It was during this invasion that Ryûkyû is said to have first adopted the mitsu-domoe crest of Hachiman

Early Modern Period

Around 1800, the population of the island is believed to have been around 10,000 people. It is said that "the five grains" (i.e. all the major staples: rice, wheat, beans, awa millet, and kibi millet) were all grown on the island, but that the chief product grown there was sugar. This was in part due to Satsuma han policies, which forced the people of the Amamis to focus their efforts on growing sugar, which was then very heavily taxed. These policies have been compared to sugar plantations elsewhere in the world, and have been described as quite akin to "a structure of colonial extraction."