- 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.
Arguments between merchants in Sakai and Hakata over trading rights led in the early or mid-15th century to Ryukyuan trade being directed only through Hakata and Bônotsu for a time.[1]
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.[2] After 1568, the more independent egôshû were replaced by Oda Nobunaga with families he selected; they gained power, favor, and protection for the city from Nobunaga in exchange for providing services and gifts of prized tea implements and other Chinese treasures to him.[2][3]
Despite the chaos and turmoil of the Sengoku period, Sakai reportedly saw little violence - even in the form of street brawls.[3]
Sakai remained a prominent port city, both culturally and economically, and at its Edo period peak, was home to roughly 50,000 people.[4]
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.
- ↑ Yokoyama Manabu 横山学, Ryûkyû koku shisetsu torai no kenkyû 琉球国使節渡来の研究, Tokyo: Yoshikawa kôbunkan (1987), 36.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Eiko Ikegami, Bonds of Civility, Cambridge University Press (2005), 122.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Morgan Pitelka, Spectacular Accumulation, University of Hawaii Press (2016), 28-30.
- ↑ Bezaisen to santo 「弁才船と三都」、Asahi hyakka Nihon rekishi 62, p7-46.