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Created page with "*''Japanese'': 奄美大島 ''(Amami Ooshima)'' Amami Ôshima is the largest of the Amami Islands, located to the north of Okinawa Island and administered as part of ..."
*''Japanese'': 奄美大島 ''(Amami Ooshima)''
Amami Ôshima is the largest of the [[Amami Islands]], located to the north of [[Okinawa Island]] and administered as part of [[Kagoshima prefecture]]. Linked with [[Kikaigashima]] in the premodern period, Amami first came under the authority of the [[Ryukyu Kingdom|Ryûkyû Kingdom]] (i.e. [[Okinawa Island]]) after [[1571]], and was then conquered by the [[Shimazu clan]] of [[Kagoshima han|Kagoshima]] in [[1609]]. Shimazu rule in Amami is known for its oppressive and extractive policies of intensive [[sugar]] production, which have been compared to colonialist European plantation practices elsewhere in the world.
Along with the other Amami Islands, Amami Ôshima boasts a distinctive culture reflective of both Ryukyuan and Kyushu influences and elements.
Sites of note on the island include Kasari (a peninsula at the northern end of the island, site of the first Shimazu landing in 1609, and today home to Amami Airport), Naze (now known as Amami City), and Uken. The islands of [[Kakeroma]], [[Ukejima]], and [[Yorojima]] lie just south of the main island of Ôshima.
==History==
===Early History===
People from Amami and the neighboring islands of Kikai and [[Tokunoshima]] are recorded as having presented [[tribute]] to entities on [[Kyushu]] several times in the 7th century. In the 990s, Japanese records indicate that "southern barbarians" (''[[nanban]]'') from Amami attacked multiple sites on Kyushu, making off with people and goods; the [[Dazaifu]] (the chief government office of the [[Heian period|Heian]] court on Kyushu) claimed authority or jurisdiction over Kikai at that time and ordered Kikai to suppress these raids, which seem to have ended by the year [[1000]].<ref>Gregory Smits, ''Maritime Ryukyu, 1050-1650'', University of Hawaii (2019), 18-20.</ref>
Some records suggest that as early as [[1266]], Amami was sending tribute to leaders on Okinawa Island.
The Ryûkyû Kingdom tried multiple times over the course of the 15th-16th centuries to bring Amami Ôshima under its authority, occasionally clashing with Shimazu forces attempting to do the same. One such clash occurred as early as [[1493]]. Ryûkyû launched another military expedition to Amami in [[1537]] during the reign of King [[Sho Sei (尚清)|Shô Sei]] of Ryûkyû; however, it was not until 1571 that the island formally submitted to Ryûkyûan (i.e. Okinawan) authority, marking the time and place where Ryûkyûan and Shimazu expansion met and blocked one another from moving further (for the time being). For the brief few decades when [[Shuri]] exercised authority over Amami, it did so lightly, assigning officials and extracting taxes but allowing the island a considerable degree of autonomy, like other relatively distant parts of its territory.<ref>Smits, "Examining the Myth of Ryukyuan Pacifism," ''The Asia-Pacific Journal'' 37-3-10 (September 13, 2010).; Smits, "Rethinking Ryukyu," International Journal of Okinawan Studies 6:1 (2015), 7.</ref> Perhaps in part simply because of its size, Amami Ôshima was one of the sites of the greatest resistance to Ryukyuan expansion in that period; when Shimazu forces [[invasion of Ryukyu|invaded Ryûkyû]] in 1609, as well, the island put up considerable resistance, falling to Shimazu control only after about nine days of fighting.
===Early Modern History===
Following the 1609 Shimazu invasion, the Shimazu appointed a ''[[daikan]]'' to oversee the administration of Amami. In the 1610s-1620s, the Amami ''daikan'' was granted authority over the neighboring islands of Kikai and Tokunoshima as well.<ref>Ono Masako, Tomita Chinatsu, Kanna Keiko, Taguchi Megumi, "Shiryô shôkai Kishi Akimasa bunko Satsuyû kikô," ''Shiryôhenshûshitsu kiyô'' 31 (2006), 244.</ref> Despite these circumstances, however, people continued to travel freely to some extent between Amami and islands to the south, and Kagoshima (at least in certain contexts) continued to regard Amami as part of the territory of the Ryûkyû Kingdom, even while denying Ryûkyû any actual administrative or political authority there.<ref>Gallery labels, Okinawa Prefectural Museum, August 2013.; Akamine Mamoru, ''The Ryukyu Kingdom: Cornerstone of East Asia'', University of Hawaii Press (2016), 69-70.</ref>
In a system which [[Robert Hellyer]] has described as "a structure of colonial extraction,"<ref>Robert Hellyer, ''Defining Engagement'', Harvard University Press (2009), 95.</ref> Satsuma obliged the people of Amami and the surrounding islands to focus their efforts on [[sugar]] production, to the detriment of all else. While the islanders were not indentured or enslaved, did not have their traditional lands taken away from them, and were to a certain extent allowed to maintain their traditional political and social structures, other crops were discouraged, [[currency]] was banned from the island, and islanders were forced to sell (trade) sugar to Shimazu authorities for far below a fair market rate. This system of policies forced islanders to work to ensure they could grow enough sugar to both pay their tribute taxes and to purchase (i.e. barter for) the foodstuffs and other things they needed to get by, leading to impoverishment and occasionally serious famines. This extractive and oppressive system of intensive sugar production reached its heights of severity in the 1820s-1830s, when Kagoshima domain ''[[karo|karô]]'' (elder) [[Zusho Shozaemon|Zusho Shôzaemon]] used Amami sugar as a key element in his efforts to rescue the domain's financial situation.<ref>Hellyer, 127-128.</ref>
Despite this strong Satsuma administrative control over the island, however, local Amami elites or those belonging to the Ryûkyû kingdom were still seen as possessing some rights or sovereignty in the land. When the entirety of the [[Ryukyu Islands|Ryûkyû Island]] chain was annexed by the Empire of Japan in the 1870s, explicit legal/political efforts were made to have the Ryukyuans officially declare that they relinquished claim to or authority over the islands.
In [[1771]], Amami briefly became a center of attention as a Hungarian man, [[Mauritius Augustus Count de Benyowsky]], landed there and conveyed to officials in Amami false but alarming reports of [[Russia]]n plans to attack [[Ezo]] (i.e. Hokkaidô).<ref>Hellyer, 102.</ref>
In the late 18th century, [[Shimazu Shigehide]], who had a strong interest in astronomy, botany, and other such pursuits, had botanical gardens established on Ôshima.
In the 1850s, [[Shimazu Nariakira]] briefly entertained ideas of making Amami Ôshima a new center of maritime trade with Western powers, thus allowing Kagoshima to skirt the [[Tokugawa shogunate|Tokugawa shogunate's]] policies of "[[maritime restrictions]]" and to compete economically against the shogunate's own trade at [[Nagasaki]].<ref>Hellyer, 166-167.</ref> Kagoshima signed an agreement with France in the mid-1860s which officially opened Naze and two ports on Okinawa Island to French trade, but it is unclear if anything came of this agreement prior to the dramatic political and administrative changes brought on by the [[Meiji Restoration]] in [[1868]] and the [[abolition of the han]] in [[1871]].<ref>Marco Tinello, "The termination of the Ryukyuan embassies to Edo : an investigation of the bakumatsu period through the lens of a tripartite power relationship and its world," PhD thesis, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia (2014), 380-381.</ref>
===Modern History===
Following World War II, while the Allied Occupation ended in mainland Japan in 1952, and continued in Okinawa and the islands to the south until 1972, protests in the Amami Islands resulted in a restoration of the Amamis to Japanese sovereignty on December 25, 1953.<ref>Richard Siddle, "Return to Uchinâ," in Siddle and Glenn Hook (eds.), ''Japan and Okinawa: Structure and Subjectivity'', Routledge Curzon (2002), 135.</ref>
Amami remains home to a number of unique species, including Amami rabbits, though these have become endangered due to the early 20th century introduction of the Indian [[mongoose]].<ref>Gallery labels, Okinawa Prefectural Museum.[https://www.flickr.com/photos/toranosuke/9511497423/sizes/l]</ref>
{{stub}}
==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Ryukyu]]
[[Category:Geographic Locations]]
Amami Ôshima is the largest of the [[Amami Islands]], located to the north of [[Okinawa Island]] and administered as part of [[Kagoshima prefecture]]. Linked with [[Kikaigashima]] in the premodern period, Amami first came under the authority of the [[Ryukyu Kingdom|Ryûkyû Kingdom]] (i.e. [[Okinawa Island]]) after [[1571]], and was then conquered by the [[Shimazu clan]] of [[Kagoshima han|Kagoshima]] in [[1609]]. Shimazu rule in Amami is known for its oppressive and extractive policies of intensive [[sugar]] production, which have been compared to colonialist European plantation practices elsewhere in the world.
Along with the other Amami Islands, Amami Ôshima boasts a distinctive culture reflective of both Ryukyuan and Kyushu influences and elements.
Sites of note on the island include Kasari (a peninsula at the northern end of the island, site of the first Shimazu landing in 1609, and today home to Amami Airport), Naze (now known as Amami City), and Uken. The islands of [[Kakeroma]], [[Ukejima]], and [[Yorojima]] lie just south of the main island of Ôshima.
==History==
===Early History===
People from Amami and the neighboring islands of Kikai and [[Tokunoshima]] are recorded as having presented [[tribute]] to entities on [[Kyushu]] several times in the 7th century. In the 990s, Japanese records indicate that "southern barbarians" (''[[nanban]]'') from Amami attacked multiple sites on Kyushu, making off with people and goods; the [[Dazaifu]] (the chief government office of the [[Heian period|Heian]] court on Kyushu) claimed authority or jurisdiction over Kikai at that time and ordered Kikai to suppress these raids, which seem to have ended by the year [[1000]].<ref>Gregory Smits, ''Maritime Ryukyu, 1050-1650'', University of Hawaii (2019), 18-20.</ref>
Some records suggest that as early as [[1266]], Amami was sending tribute to leaders on Okinawa Island.
The Ryûkyû Kingdom tried multiple times over the course of the 15th-16th centuries to bring Amami Ôshima under its authority, occasionally clashing with Shimazu forces attempting to do the same. One such clash occurred as early as [[1493]]. Ryûkyû launched another military expedition to Amami in [[1537]] during the reign of King [[Sho Sei (尚清)|Shô Sei]] of Ryûkyû; however, it was not until 1571 that the island formally submitted to Ryûkyûan (i.e. Okinawan) authority, marking the time and place where Ryûkyûan and Shimazu expansion met and blocked one another from moving further (for the time being). For the brief few decades when [[Shuri]] exercised authority over Amami, it did so lightly, assigning officials and extracting taxes but allowing the island a considerable degree of autonomy, like other relatively distant parts of its territory.<ref>Smits, "Examining the Myth of Ryukyuan Pacifism," ''The Asia-Pacific Journal'' 37-3-10 (September 13, 2010).; Smits, "Rethinking Ryukyu," International Journal of Okinawan Studies 6:1 (2015), 7.</ref> Perhaps in part simply because of its size, Amami Ôshima was one of the sites of the greatest resistance to Ryukyuan expansion in that period; when Shimazu forces [[invasion of Ryukyu|invaded Ryûkyû]] in 1609, as well, the island put up considerable resistance, falling to Shimazu control only after about nine days of fighting.
===Early Modern History===
Following the 1609 Shimazu invasion, the Shimazu appointed a ''[[daikan]]'' to oversee the administration of Amami. In the 1610s-1620s, the Amami ''daikan'' was granted authority over the neighboring islands of Kikai and Tokunoshima as well.<ref>Ono Masako, Tomita Chinatsu, Kanna Keiko, Taguchi Megumi, "Shiryô shôkai Kishi Akimasa bunko Satsuyû kikô," ''Shiryôhenshûshitsu kiyô'' 31 (2006), 244.</ref> Despite these circumstances, however, people continued to travel freely to some extent between Amami and islands to the south, and Kagoshima (at least in certain contexts) continued to regard Amami as part of the territory of the Ryûkyû Kingdom, even while denying Ryûkyû any actual administrative or political authority there.<ref>Gallery labels, Okinawa Prefectural Museum, August 2013.; Akamine Mamoru, ''The Ryukyu Kingdom: Cornerstone of East Asia'', University of Hawaii Press (2016), 69-70.</ref>
In a system which [[Robert Hellyer]] has described as "a structure of colonial extraction,"<ref>Robert Hellyer, ''Defining Engagement'', Harvard University Press (2009), 95.</ref> Satsuma obliged the people of Amami and the surrounding islands to focus their efforts on [[sugar]] production, to the detriment of all else. While the islanders were not indentured or enslaved, did not have their traditional lands taken away from them, and were to a certain extent allowed to maintain their traditional political and social structures, other crops were discouraged, [[currency]] was banned from the island, and islanders were forced to sell (trade) sugar to Shimazu authorities for far below a fair market rate. This system of policies forced islanders to work to ensure they could grow enough sugar to both pay their tribute taxes and to purchase (i.e. barter for) the foodstuffs and other things they needed to get by, leading to impoverishment and occasionally serious famines. This extractive and oppressive system of intensive sugar production reached its heights of severity in the 1820s-1830s, when Kagoshima domain ''[[karo|karô]]'' (elder) [[Zusho Shozaemon|Zusho Shôzaemon]] used Amami sugar as a key element in his efforts to rescue the domain's financial situation.<ref>Hellyer, 127-128.</ref>
Despite this strong Satsuma administrative control over the island, however, local Amami elites or those belonging to the Ryûkyû kingdom were still seen as possessing some rights or sovereignty in the land. When the entirety of the [[Ryukyu Islands|Ryûkyû Island]] chain was annexed by the Empire of Japan in the 1870s, explicit legal/political efforts were made to have the Ryukyuans officially declare that they relinquished claim to or authority over the islands.
In [[1771]], Amami briefly became a center of attention as a Hungarian man, [[Mauritius Augustus Count de Benyowsky]], landed there and conveyed to officials in Amami false but alarming reports of [[Russia]]n plans to attack [[Ezo]] (i.e. Hokkaidô).<ref>Hellyer, 102.</ref>
In the late 18th century, [[Shimazu Shigehide]], who had a strong interest in astronomy, botany, and other such pursuits, had botanical gardens established on Ôshima.
In the 1850s, [[Shimazu Nariakira]] briefly entertained ideas of making Amami Ôshima a new center of maritime trade with Western powers, thus allowing Kagoshima to skirt the [[Tokugawa shogunate|Tokugawa shogunate's]] policies of "[[maritime restrictions]]" and to compete economically against the shogunate's own trade at [[Nagasaki]].<ref>Hellyer, 166-167.</ref> Kagoshima signed an agreement with France in the mid-1860s which officially opened Naze and two ports on Okinawa Island to French trade, but it is unclear if anything came of this agreement prior to the dramatic political and administrative changes brought on by the [[Meiji Restoration]] in [[1868]] and the [[abolition of the han]] in [[1871]].<ref>Marco Tinello, "The termination of the Ryukyuan embassies to Edo : an investigation of the bakumatsu period through the lens of a tripartite power relationship and its world," PhD thesis, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia (2014), 380-381.</ref>
===Modern History===
Following World War II, while the Allied Occupation ended in mainland Japan in 1952, and continued in Okinawa and the islands to the south until 1972, protests in the Amami Islands resulted in a restoration of the Amamis to Japanese sovereignty on December 25, 1953.<ref>Richard Siddle, "Return to Uchinâ," in Siddle and Glenn Hook (eds.), ''Japan and Okinawa: Structure and Subjectivity'', Routledge Curzon (2002), 135.</ref>
Amami remains home to a number of unique species, including Amami rabbits, though these have become endangered due to the early 20th century introduction of the Indian [[mongoose]].<ref>Gallery labels, Okinawa Prefectural Museum.[https://www.flickr.com/photos/toranosuke/9511497423/sizes/l]</ref>
{{stub}}
==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Ryukyu]]
[[Category:Geographic Locations]]