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Jahana Noboru was a prominent [[Meiji period]] political activist for Okinawan rights, one of the leaders of the [[Freedom and People's Rights Movement]] (''Jiyû minken undô'').

Jahana Noboru was a prominent [[Meiji period]] political activist for Okinawan rights, one of the leaders of the [[Freedom and People's Rights Movement]] (''Jiyû minken undô'').

Jahana was one of the first five Okinawan students sent to Tokyo on official government scholarships in [[1882]]. Of the five, he was the only one not from the gentry class. Rather, he was from a middle-class peasant family from [[Kochinda]]. While the other four studied liberal arts in Tokyo, Jahana focused on agriculture and forestry. In [[1891]], after studying at [[Gakushuin]] Middle School, ''Tokyo Sanrin Gakkô'' (Tokyo Forestry College), and ''Tokyo Nôrin Gakkô'' (Agriculture and Dendrology College), he became the first Okinawan to ever graduate from [[University of Tokyo|Tokyo Imperial University]].

As a young man, Jahana was selected to attend Okinawa's first modern-style teacher-training school for elementary schoolteachers. The following year, in [[1882]], he was one of the first five Okinawan students sent to Tokyo on official government scholarships. Of the five, he was the only one not from the gentry class. Rather, he was from a middle-class peasant family from [[Kochinda]]. While the other four studied liberal arts in Tokyo, Jahana focused on agriculture and forestry. In [[1891]], after studying at [[Gakushuin]] Middle School, ''Tokyo Sanrin Gakkô'' (Tokyo Forestry College), and ''Tokyo Nôrin Gakkô'' (Agriculture and Dendrology College), he became the first Okinawan to ever graduate from [[University of Tokyo|Tokyo Imperial University]].

While in Tokyo, he also came to interact with prominent figures in socialist thought and movements, including [[Nakae Chomin|Nakae Chômin]] and [[Kotoku Shusui|Kôtoku Shûsui]]. He then returned to Okinawa, where he worked as an engineer in the employ of the [[Okinawa prefecture|prefectural]] government, and pressed for reform in civil law, agricultural policy, and land taxes; this included working to see the tax system of payment in kind (in [[sugar]]) abolished. This brought him into conflict with Prefectural Governor [[Narahara Shigeru]]. In one incident particularly indicative of Narahara's autocratic and highly classed approach, the governor arranged to sell vast tracts of forestland, at inappropriately low prices, to Japanese capitalists and bureaucrats and to members of the Okinawan gentry, where previously Okinawan peasants enjoyed free access to what was, in a manner of speaking, public land. Jahana used his position on the project to block it from going forward, but was simply removed from the project and replaced with a Satsuma man who approved it immediately and helped it go forward. After becoming the head of the Agriculture and Industry Bank in [[1898]], Jahana resigned from working for the prefecture.

While in Tokyo, he also came to interact with prominent figures in socialist thought and movements, including [[Nakae Chomin|Nakae Chômin]] and [[Kotoku Shusui|Kôtoku Shûsui]]. He then returned to Okinawa, where he worked as an engineer in the employ of the [[Okinawa prefecture|prefectural]] government, and pressed for reform in civil law, agricultural policy, and land taxes; this included working to see the tax system of payment in kind (in [[sugar]]) abolished. This brought him into conflict with Prefectural Governor [[Narahara Shigeru]]. In one incident particularly indicative of Narahara's autocratic and highly classed approach, the governor arranged to sell vast tracts of forestland, at inappropriately low prices, to Japanese capitalists and bureaucrats and to members of the Okinawan gentry, where previously Okinawan peasants enjoyed free access to what was, in a manner of speaking, public land. Jahana used his position on the project to block it from going forward, but was simply removed from the project and replaced with a Satsuma man who approved it immediately and helped it go forward. After becoming the head of the Agriculture and Industry Bank in [[1898]], Jahana resigned from working for the prefecture.

*"[http://www.ndl.go.jp/portrait/e/datas/512.html?cat=165 Jahana, Noboru]," Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures, National Diet Library, 2013.

*"[http://www.ndl.go.jp/portrait/e/datas/512.html?cat=165 Jahana, Noboru]," Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures, National Diet Library, 2013.

*[[Mitsugu Sakihara]], "Okinawans in Hawaii: An Overview of the Past 80 Years," in ''Uchinanchu'', University of Hawaii (1981), 105-106.

*[[Mitsugu Sakihara]], "Okinawans in Hawaii: An Overview of the Past 80 Years," in ''Uchinanchu'', University of Hawaii (1981), 105-106.

[[Category:Meiji Period]]

[[Category:Meiji Period]]

[[Category:Ryukyu]]

[[Category:Ryukyu]]

[[Category:Other Historical Figures]]

[[Category:Other Historical Figures]]