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, but was also claimed by Joseon Dynasty Korea (1392-1897) and modern Korean governments to have been Korean territory since ancient times.
Due to its prime position along maritime routes, and its peripheral location in both Korean and Japanese states, Tsushima has been the target of foreign attacks on numerous occasions, in the 7th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th centuries. 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; in 1443, the Sô and the Joseon court then reached an agreement by which the Sô would act to curb pirate activity, and to ensure that all merchants traveling to Korea were properly licensed (i.e. were not pirates, brigands, or smugglers), in exchange for stipends and trading rights from the Joseon court.[1] In 1861, the island became the site of diplomatic incident once again, 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.[2]
Throughout history, the island was meanwhile a major transfer point for trade travelling between Japan and the continent.
The Sô samurai clan, governors of the island since XXXX, 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. 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.[3]
