- For the samurai clan, see Sakai clan.
- Japanese: 堺 (Sakai)
Sakai is a port town near Osaka which, in the 15th-17th centuries was a major center of merchant activity, including especially maritime trade and the manufacture and trade in firearms; it was also a center of arts and culture, tea ceremony in particular. The merchant leaders of Sakai managed to maintain a considerable degree of independence from samurai control throughout much of the Sengoku period.
From 1469 until 1510, Sakai was the chief departure port for tribute missions to Ming Dynasty China.
The city was governed by a board of thirty-six merchant councilors called egôshû, and was walled off and surrounded with moats, not unlike some of the free cities of Europe.[1]
Though it enjoyed considerable freedom and prosperity for a time, the city fell to Oda Nobunaga in 1568.[1]
References
- Morgan Pitelka. "Art, Agency, and Networks in the Career of Tokugawa Ieyasu." in A Companion to Asian Art and Architecture. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, 451.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Eiko Ikegami, Bonds of Civility, Cambridge University Press (2005), 122.