Innai
- Established: c. 1600
- Japanese: 院内 (Innai)
Innai was a mining town in Akita han, said to have been founded by four rônin who, after fighting on the losing side in the battle of Sekigahara, fled up north, and discovered silver in the mountains. Granted permission by the Satake clan lords of Kubota han (aka Akita han) to open mines in the area, the rônin's community quickly became a prosperous mining town. In 1608, the Satake appointed ginzan bugyô (silver mine magistrates) to oversee operations, and before long miners from the Chûgoku region, refiners and metalworkers from Kansai, and others came to work in, or otherwise seek to benefit from, the mines. Though a rather remote area, only the manual laborers in the mines were chiefly local people, while others involved in the mining operations or in the town otherwise largely came originally from other parts of the realm.
As was likely the case in many other places throughout the realm, there was little source of law and order in Innai in the early decades, outside of the rule of brute force. Mountain bandits raided the mine and the village, and escaped into Yamagata han, where what little authorities there were could not pursue them; criminals and bandits from within the domain likewise preyed on the community, and where samurai authorities were able to gain the upper hand, they did so only through violence.
References
- Amy Stanley, Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan, UC Press (2012), 27-44.
