Ando clan

• Japanese: 安藤家 (Andou ke)

The Andô clan were a samurai clan of northern Tôhoku, particularly prominent in the 14th-15th centuries. Based at the active trading port of Tosaminato on the Sea of Japan (today, Goshogawara City, Aomori prefecture), they dominated the region around the Tsugaru Strait separating Honshû and Hokkaidô, and at times claimed to be "suzerains" over the Emishi.

According to some sources, the Andô may have themselves been descended from Emishi chiefs who had assimilated into Japanese identity. The borders of identity in this period are difficult to ascertain, however, and it is unclear whether the Andô, or various others sometimes labeled as Emishi were in fact ethnically or genealogically distinct from Japanese, or whether they came to be seen as Emishi only because they were politically, geographically, and/or culturally on the margins of, or outside of, the Japanese state.

Through Tosaminato and other ports, the Andô traded Chinese and Japanese ceramics, coins, and other items from elsewhere in Japan, or from Korea, to Ainu communities and others for furs and a variety of maritime products.

The Matsumae clan, who enjoyed a monopoly on authority over Hokkaidô and over relations with the Ainu in the 17th to 19th centuries, claimed descent from the Andô.

References

• David Howell, "On the Peripheries of the Japanese Archipelago: Ryukyu and Hokkaido," in Howell (ed.), The New Cambridge History of Japan vol 2 (2024), 616.