was a feudal domain under the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

Japan, located in

Shimōsa Province was a province of Japan in the area modern Chiba Prefecture, and Ibaraki Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Shimōsa''" in . It lies to the north of the Bōsō Peninsula (房総半島), whose name takes its first ''kanji'' from ...

(modern-day

Chiba Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama Prefecture to t ...

), Japan. It was centered on

Sakura Castle was a 17th-century castle, now in ruins, in Sakura, Chiba, Sakura, Chiba Prefecture. It was designated one of Japan's Top 100 Castles by the Japanese Castle Foundation. History Sakura Castle fell to Honda Tadakatsu and Sakai Ietsugu of the To ...

in what is now the city of Sakura, Chiba. It was ruled for most of its history by the Hotta clan.

History

Sakura Domain was originally created for Takeda Tadateru, the fifth son of

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fello ...

in 1593, near the site of an ancient castle of the

Chiba clan The Chiba clan (千葉氏 ''Chiba-shi'') was a Japanese '' gōzoku'' and samurai family descending from the Taira clan. The clan was founded by Chiba Tsunetane, the son of Taira no Tadatsune. The Chiba governed in Shimōsa Province, and the cl ...

, which had fallen into ruins in the early

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

. The domain subsequently passed through a bewildering number of hands during the 1600s, before coming under the control of the Hotta clan in the mid-18th century. During the

Bakumatsu period was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji govern ...

, Hotta Masayoshi was one of the major proponents of''

rangaku ''Rangaku'' (Kyūjitai: /Shinjitai: , literally "Dutch learning", and by extension "Western learning") is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of West ...

'' and an ending to the country’s national isolation policy. He was one of the signers of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the United States. His son, Hotta Masatomo was a key supporter of the

in the early stages of the Boshin War. After the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

, he was pardoned, and eventually made a count (''hakushaku'') in the ''

kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. They succeeded the feudal lords () and court nobles (), but were abolished with the 1947 constitution. Kazoku ( 華族) should not be confused with ...

'' peerage.

Holdings at the end of the Edo period

As with most domains in the

han system ( ja, 藩, "domain") is a Japanese historical term for the Estate (land), estate of a daimyo in the Edo period (1603–1868) and early Meiji (era), Meiji period (1868–1912).Louis Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Han"in ''Japan En ...

, Sakura Domain consisted of several discontinuous territories calculated to provide the assigned '' kokudaka'', based on periodic

cadastral A cadastre or cadaster is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes-and-bounds of a country.Jo Henssen, ''Basic Principles of the Main Cadastral Systems in the World,'/ref> Often it is represented graphically in a cad ...

surveys and projected agricultural yields.Elison, George and Bardwell L. Smith (1987)
''Warlords, Artists, & Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century,'' p. 18
*

**31 villages in Chiba District **146 villages in Imba District ** 26 villages in Shimohabu District **3 villages in Katori District **3 villages in Sōsa District **2 villages in Kaijō District **8 villages in Sōma District *

Dewa Province was a province of Japan comprising modern-day Yamagata Prefecture and Akita Prefecture, except for the city of Kazuno and the town of Kosaka. Dewa bordered on Mutsu and Echigō Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . History Early per ...

( Uzen) **45 villages in Murayama District *

Hitachi Province was an old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Hitachi fudoki''" in . It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Shimōsa (Lower Fusa), Shimotsuke, and Mutsu ( Iwase -17 ...

**3 villages in Tsukuba District **3 villages in Makabe District *

Shimotsuke Province was a province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today Tochigi Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''SHimotsuke''" in . Shimotsuke was bordered by Kōzuke, Hitachi, Mutsu and Shimōsa Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was ...

**16 villages in Tsuga District **10 villages in Shioya District * Musashi Province ** 3 villages in Saitama District **1 village in Koma District **2 villages in Iruma District **14 villages in Yokomi District *

Sagami Province was a province of Japan located in what is today the central and western Kanagawa Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kanagawa''" at . Sagami Province bordered the provinces of Izu, Musashi, and Suruga. It had access to the Pac ...

**5 villages in Kōza District **10 villages in Ōsumi District **2 villages in Aiko District

List of daimyō

References

* *Bolitho, Harold (1974). ''Treasures among men; the fudai daimyo in Tokugawa Japan''. New Haven: Yale University Press. *Kodama Kōta 児玉幸多, Kitajima Masamoto 北島正元 (1966). ''Kantō no shohan'' 関東の諸藩. Tokyo: Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha.

External links

Genealogy of the lords of Sakura

Notes

{{Authority control Domains of Japan 1593 establishments in Japan States and territories established in 1593 1871 disestablishments in Japan States and territories disestablished in 1871 Shimōsa Province History of Chiba Prefecture Hotta clan Inaba clan Matsudaira clan Nagasawa-Matsudaira clan Ogasawara clan Ogyū-Matsudaira clan Ōkubo clan Takeda clan