Tokushima han

• Territory: Awa province + Awaji Island
• Castle: Tokushima castle
• Lords: Hachisuka clan
• Kokudaka: 258,000
• Japanese: 徳島藩 (Tokushima han)

Tokushima was a 258,000 koku tozama domain located on Shikoku. The domain, based at Tokushima castle and ruled by the Hachisuka clan, controlled all of Awa province, along with Awaji Island, making them one of the ten or so hon-kunimochi ("true country holding") daimyô in the realm, and one of the only ones to hold two entire provinces. The domain has been characterized as possessing a highly commercialized economy, specializing in particular in the production & export of indigo, and a relatively small samurai population compared to many other domains. By the late Tokugawa period, indigo represented roughly 20% of all agricultural production in the domain.

Hachisuka Yoshishige was the first Edo period lord of Tokushima, being restored in his family's domain by Tokugawa Ieyasu. The family had been officially enfeoffed in Tokushima in 1585 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, with an official kokudaka of 181,000, but had later lost the domain to Toyotomi Hideyori. Following the Hachisuka's loyal service to the Tokugawa in the battle of Sekigahara and the 1615 Osaka Campaign, Yoshishige was also given Awaji Island as part of his domain, raising his total omotedaka to 250,000.

During the reign of the third lord of Tokushima, Hachisuka Tadateru, misconduct on the part of one of the karô led to a succession dispute known as the Amabe Dispute; another incident known as the Inada Dispute occurred in the Bakumatsu period, throwing the governance of the domain into chaos.

Demography & Economics

Tokushima had considerably more commoners per retainer than some other prominent domains, and furthermore saw population growth over the course of the Edo period, and not as severe instances of depopulation as many other domains, resulting in a comparatively stable and secure financial base. Whereas domains like Hirosaki and Yonezawa struggled to collect enough taxes to pay their retainers, this presented less of a difficulty for Tokushima. By the end of the Edo period, each Tokushima retainer on average was supported by twice as many peasants as in Hirosaki, and six times as many as in Yonezawa. The average stipend was also higher, even as the amount extracted from each peasant (on average, per capita) was less. This also meant that the domain did not need to rely as heavily on commercial exports as some other domains did for tax revenues, and could instead focus on supporting the industry to produce high quality products at proper prices.

Beginning in the 18th century, the development of the industry in cotton textiles at Osaka created an expanded demand for indigo, leading Tokushima to focus on indigo as a specialty export, much as many other domains did in other products, seeking a monopolistic control over the market in that one good in order to maintain a strong domainal economy. Tokushima managed this by encouraging a notion that Tokushima indigo was of particularly high quality, and thus blocking out any competitors, whose products thus came to be seen as inferior. The domain faced challenges with this approach, however, as Osaka merchants formed cartels in the mid-1700s to exert their power as consumers over the market, in order to drive prices down. The domain fought back in the 1760s, instituting a short-lived system in which Osaka merchants had to bid against one another to buy Tokushima indigo; this did succeed in raising the prices, but was shut down by the shogunate before long. The domain then responded by upping its use of cartels of suppliers, in order to combat the power of the Osaka merchants' purchasing cartels. Salt and tobacco were also significant products of the domain.

Bakumatsu & Meiji

Pro-Imperial loyalism in Tokushima was largely espoused only by the Inada clan separatists and their followers, many of whom went on to fight in the Boshin War.

References

• Mark Ravina, Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan, Stanford University Press, 1999.