Hokkaido
- Japanese: 北海道 (Hokkaidô)
Hokkaidô is the northernmost of the four main islands of the Japanese archipelago and the northernmost prefecture in the country. Long existing on the borders of, or outside of, the Japanese state, the land of Hokkaidô (and surrounding islands) was long home to the Ainu and other indigenous peoples; while the Ainu referred to the territory as Ainu Mosir ("Ainu land") or Yaun Mosir ("the country land"), Japanese long referred to it as Ezo or Ezochi, a barbarian land.
In the Edo period, the Matsumae clan, based at Matsumae castle near the southern tip of the island, was the sole samurai clan handling relations with the Ainu. At times, they expanded their administrative efforts to organize extraction from Ainu fishing groups, and at times to assimilate the Ainu into Japanese ways. Japanese (Wajin) expansion into greater settlement of Ezochi and stronger administration of it came in large part in reaction to Russian expansion into the territory beginning in the 1790s.
Matsumae domain and the Tokugawa shogunate claimed control of the entire territory for brief periods early in the 19th century, but their de facto on-the-ground control was always rather less than total. The Empire of Japan (Meiji government) formally claimed and annexed the territory, however, in 1869, renaming it Hokkaidô ("Northern Sea Route") and establishing formal colonial settlement and land development efforts. Over the ensuing decades, the Ainu people were thoroughly dispossessed of their lands and livelihoods, and subjected to harsh assimilation policies.
History
The Jômon peoples who were the first inhabitants of the Japanese islands, going back as early as roughly 10,000 years ago, extended across nearly the entirety of what is today considered the Japanese archipelago, from Hokkaidô in the north to Okinawa and its immediately surrounding islands in the south. Some degree of interaction across the Tsugaru Strait - between Hokkaidô and Honshû - and quite possibly across longer distances within the archipelago, took place as early as this time.[1]
Trade between Hokkaidô and the central parts of the Japanese state is documented in some of the earliest Japanese texts, including the Nihon shoki, Shoku Nihongi, and Engishiki. Japanese traded iron tools and other products for bear and sable furs, seal skins, bird feathers, kombu seaweed, and other natural products.[2]
The Yamato state launched expeditions into Emishi ("barbarian") lands in northeastern Japan as early as the 7th century; though these largely took place in what is now considered the Tôhoku region of Honshû, Tôhoku at that time was in significant ways an extension of the same cultural area as Hokkaidô; these expeditions contributed to pushing the indigenous peoples north, out of Tôhoku and into Hokkaidô, as the Yamato state gradually expanded its influence over the region. As the term "Emishi" was used not only for "barbarian" peoples who were ethnically or culturally distinct from the Japanese (Wajin), but also for people who were simply politically distinct - those outside the sway of the Yamato state or those actively rejecting the authority of that state - it is difficult to make blanket statements about whether "the Emishi" as a whole were or were not Ainu. However, scholars such as Tessa Morris-Suzuki have noted that very few, if any, sources prior to the 14th century employ the term "Ainu," and very few after that time employ the term "Emishi." In other words, there is an argument to be made that these are different terms for the same people - to at least some extent - and not for wholly distinct groups.[3]
One particularly notable Ainu revolt took place in 1457. Led by a chieftain named Koshamain, Ainu attacked a Japanese settlement headed by the samurai Kakizaki (Takeda) Nobuhiro. Though this would be one of the largest Ainu revolts in all of history, it ultimately ended in defeat for the Ainu. Though the Japanese still did not claim or exercise anything approaching total control of the territory, nevertheless, Nobuhiro and his settlement remained, additional settlements were established, including Katsuyama castle in 1462, and some groups of Ainu or other local native populations were obliged to begin paying tribute to samurai settlement heads.
Edo Period
Kakizaki Yoshihiro, a descendant of the Kakizaki Nobuhiro who defeated Koshamain's Revolt in the 15th century, was the predominant power-holder in the southern tip of Hokkaidô at the end of the 16th century. Submitting to the authority of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he then later submitted to the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate as well, and in 1606 changed his name from Kakizaki to Matsumae.
Yoshihiro built Matsumae castle that same year, and made it the primary seat of governance and administration for his newly-renamed Matsumae clan. The shogunate granted the clan exclusive rights and responsibilities by the shogunate for overseeing relations with the Ainu, management of the vast northern frontier zone, and defense of the realm against threats from the north. However, unlike all other daimyô clans, the Matsumae were not formally enfeoffed in any designated territory, nor associated with a specified kokudaka (numerical ranking of power or wealth based on a presumed rice productivity of their land).
Throughout this period, while Wajin and Ainu remained distinct populations for the most part, that distinction was porous. Ainu could come to be regarded as Wajin, by adopting Wajin names and lifeways, and Wajin could abandon such lifeways and come to be regarded by Wajin communities as having become Ainu, though it is unclear to what extent such individuals were ever accepted and incorporated into Ainu communities. In response to Russian encroachment, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries the Matsumae (or the shogunate) made explicit efforts at times to promote Ainu assimilation into Wajin lifeways and communities - or even to force this upon Ainu communities - incorporating the Ainu and their land more strongly and more explicitly into Wajin territory. At times, this was relaxed or even reversed, however, as suited the political expediencies of the moment.
The 1855 Treaty of Shimoda resolved these tensions between Russia and Japan to a certain extent, as it declared Iturup and all the islands to the south of it, including Hokkaidô, to be Japanese territory, though it left the question of Sakhalin unresolved.
Meiji Period
In the final stages of the Boshin War that accompanied the Meiji Restoration, some pro-Tokugawa loyalists were pushed back farther and farther north by pro-Imperial forces until they reached Ezochi; they regrouped there, nominally declaring a separate government - the Republic of Ezo. The Republic fell quickly, however.
Ezochi was formally incorporated into the Japanese state and renamed Hokkaidô in the 8th month of 1869. The Hokkaido Development Office, or Kaitakushi, was established at the same time.
