250px, Reconstructed portion of Kuwana Castle was a Japanese feudal domain under the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, located in Ise Province. It was centered on Kuwana Castle in what is now the city of Kuwana,

Mie Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 () and has a geographic area of . Mie Prefecture is bordered by Gifu Prefecture to the north, Shiga Prefecture an ...

. It was controlled by a '' fudai daimyō'' clans throughout its history.

History

During the late

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

and

Muromachi period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

, the area of modern Kuwana was known as and was a major seaport on the east coast of Japan, controlled by a guild of merchants. The poet Socho described it in 1515 as a major city with over a thousand houses, temples and inns. During the

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

, the area came under the control of

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...

, who assigned it to his retainer, Takigawa Kazumasu. After Nobunaga’s death, the area came under the control of

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

, who initially installed Nobunaga’s younger son Oda Nobukatsu as ruler as all of Ise Province. However, following the 1590 Battle of Odawara, Hideyoshi demoted Oda Nobukatsu, divided Ise Province into several domains, and assigned Hitotsuyanagi Naomori as ruler of Kuwana. In 1595, the area was reassigned to Ujiie Yukihiro as a 22,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

'' domain. Ujiie Yukihiro sided with the pro-Toyotomi armies in the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was an important battle in Japan which occurred on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu Prefecture, ...

and was dispossessed by

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

. In January 1601, one of Ieyasu’s main generals, Honda Tadakatsu was installed as ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of Kuwana Domain, with a '' kokudaka'' of 100,000 ''koku''. The

Tokugawa Shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

recognized the strategic value of the location as both a seaport, and also as Kuwana-juku, a post station on the vital Tōkaidō highway connecting Edo with

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

. In 1609, Tadakatsu was succeeded by his son Honda Tadamasa, who distinguished himself at the

Siege of Osaka A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...

and was rewarded with a transfer to the more lucrative Himeji Domain in 1617. The strategic Kuwana Domain was then assigned to Ieyasu’s half-brother, Hisamatsu Sadakatsu, whose descendants ruled until they were transferred to Takada Domain in

Echigo Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province in north-central Japan, on the shores of the Sea of Japan. It bordered on Uzen Province, Uzen, Iwashiro Province, Iwashiro, Kōzuke Province, Kōzuke, Shinano Province, Shinano, and Etchū Province, ...

in 1710, and their place taken by the Okudaira branch of the

Matsudaira clan The was a Japanese samurai clan that descended from the Minamoto clan. It originated in and took its name from Matsudaira village, in Mikawa Province (modern-day Aichi Prefecture). During the Sengoku period, the chieftain of the main line of the ...

, who ruled to 1823, when a branch of the Hisamatsu returned to Kuwana from Shirakawa Domain in Mutsu Province. The Hisamatsu continued to rule Kuwana until the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. Matsudaira Sadaaki, the next-to-last ''daimyō'' of Kuwana served as the last '' Kyoto shoshidai'' and supported his brother, Matsudaira Katamori, ''daimyō'' of

Aizu Domain was a Han (Japan), domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1601 to 1871.Ravina, Mark. (1998) ''Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan,'' p. 222 The Aizu Domain was based at Aizuwakamatsu Castle, Tsuruga Castle in M ...

. He fought in the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a coalition seeking to seize political power in the name of the Impe ...

, finally surrendering to the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji ...

after the fall of the Republic of Ezo.The final ''daimyō'' of Kuwana, Matsudaira Sadanori, was still a child during the Boshin War. He capitulated Kuwana Castle to the Satchō Alliance forces without a battle. He was later educated in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and joined the Meiji government, serving as Japanese ambassador to Italy. He was later ennobled with the ''

kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. It was formed by merging the feudal lords (''Daimyo, daimyō'') and court nobles (''kuge'') into one system modelled after the British peerage. Distin ...

'' peerage title of ''shishaku'' (

viscount A viscount ( , for male) or viscountess (, for female) is a title used in certain European countries for a noble of varying status. The status and any domain held by a viscount is a viscounty. In the case of French viscounts, the title is ...

). With the

abolition of the han system The in the Empire of Japan and its replacement by a system of prefectures in 1871 was the culmination of the Meiji Restoration begun in 1868, the starting year of the Meiji period. Under the reform, all daimyos (, ''daimyō'', feudal lords) ...

in July 1871, Kuwana Domain became “Kuwana Prefecture”, which later became part of Mie Prefecture.

Territory

As with most domains in the

han system (, "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 Encycloped ...

, Nagashima 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, metes-and-bounds of a country.Jo Henssen, ''Basic Principles of the Main Cadastral Systems in the World,'/ref> Often it is represente ...

surveys and projected agricultural yields. At the end of the Edo period, it consisted of numerous villages in Ise Province and also in

: Ise Province *64 villages in Kuwana District *83 villages in Inabe District *30 villages in Asake District *9 villages in Mie District

*4 villages in Koshi District *22 villages in Uonuma District *82 villages in Kariwa District *30 villages in Santō District *7 villages in Kanbara District In addition to the above, Kuwana Domain also administered 212 villages within Echigo Province which were ''

tenryō The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil war ...

'' territory on behalf of the shogunate.

List of daimyō

Simplified family tree

I. * 1. Honda Tadakatsu, 1st Lord of Kuwana (1st creation, cr. 1601) (1548-1610; Lord: 1601, r. 1601-1609) ** II. Honda Tadamasa, 2nd Lord of Kuwana (1st creation) (1575-1631; r. 1609-1616) - see below 2. * O-dainokata (1528–1602). She married twice and had issue, including: **

, 1st Tokugawa Shōgun (1543-1616; r. 1603-1605) (by O-dainokata's first husband

Matsudaira Hirotada was the lord of Okazaki Castle in Mikawa province, Japan during the Sengoku Period of the 16th century. He is best known for being the father of Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. Biography Hirotada was the son of Matsudaira ...

(1526–1549)) ***Matsudaira Nobuyasu (1559-1579) **** Myokoin (1577-1626), m. II. Honda Tadamasa, 2nd Lord of Kuwana (1st creation) - see above ***Kamehime (1560-1625), m. Okudaira Nobumasa, Lord of Kamo, Kyōto Shoshidai (1555-1615) **** Matsudaira Tadaaki, Lord of Ise-Kameyama (1583-1644) ***** Matsudaira Tadahiro, Lord of Himeji (1631-1700) ****** Matsudaira Kiyoteru (1652-1686) ******* I. Matsudaira Tadamasa, 1st Lord of Kuwana (3rd creation, cr. 1710) (1683-1746; Lord: 1710, r. 1710-1746) ******** II. Matsudaira Tadatoki, 2nd Lord of Kuwana (3rd creation) (1718-1783; r. 1746-1771) ********* III. Matsudaira Tadahira, 3rd Lord of Kuwana (3rd creation) (1747-1787; r. 1771-1786) ******** Ii Naoari, 4th Lord of Yoita (1719-1760) ********* Ii Naoakira, 6th Lord of Yoita (1750-1820) ********** VI. Matsudaira Tadasuke, 6th Lord of Kuwana (3rd creation) (1780-1821; r. 1802-1821) *********** VII. Matsudaira Tadataka, 7th Lord of Kuwana (3rd creation) (1801-1864; r. 1821-1823) ***Tokugawa Yorinobu, 1st Lord of Kishū (1602–1671) ****Tokugawa Mitsusada, 2nd Lord of Kishū (1627-1705; r. 1667-1698) ***** Tokugawa Yoshimune, 5th Lord of Kishū, 8th Tokugawa Shōgun (1684-1751; Lord of Kishū: 1705-1716; Shōgun: 1716-1745) ****** Tokugawa Munetake, 1st head of the Tayasu-Tokugawa line (1716-1771) ******* Matsudaira Sadanobu, 3rd Lord of Shirakawa (1759-1829) ******** I. Matsudaira Sadanaga, 1st Lord of Kuwana (4th creation, cr. 1823) (1791-1838; Lord: 1823, r. 1823-1838) ********* II. Matsudaira Sadakazu, 2nd Lord of Kuwana (4th creation) (1812-1841; r. 1838-1841) ********** III. Matsudaira Sadamichi, 3rd Lord of Kuwana (4th creation) (1834-1859; r. 1842-1859) *********** V. Matsudaira Sadanori, 5th Lord of Kuwana (4th creation), 5th family head, 1st Viscount (1857-1899; Lord: 1868; Governor:1869-1871; family head:1868-1899; Viscount: cr.1884) **** Matsudaira Yorizumi, 1st Lord of Saijō (1641-1711) ***** Tokugawa Munenao, 6th Lord of Kishū (1682–1757) ****** Tokugawa Munemasa, 7th Lord of Wakayama (1720-1765) ******* IV. Matsudaira Tadakatsu, 4th Lord of Kuwana (3rd creation) (1756-1830; r. 1787-1793) ******* V. Matsudaira Tadatomo, 5th Lord of Kuwana (3rd creation) (1759-1802; r. 1793-1802) ***Tokugawa Yorifusa, 1st Lord of Mito (1603-1661) **** Matsudaira Yorishige, 1st Lord of Takamatsu (1622-1695) ***** Matsudaira Yoritoshi (1661-1687) ****** Matsudaira Yoritoyo, 3rd Lord of Takamatsu (1680-1735) ******* Tokugawa Munetaka, 4th Lord of Mito (1705-1730) ******** Tokugawa Munemoto, 5th Lord of Mito (1728-1766) ********* Tokugawa Harumori, 6th Lord of Mito (1751-1805) ********** Matsudaira Yoshiyori, 9th Lord of Takasu (1776-1832) *********** Matsudaira Yoshitatsu, 10th Lord of Takasu (1800-1862) ************ IV. Matsudaira Sadaaki, 4th Lord of Kuwana (4th creation) (1847-1908; r. 1859-1868) ************* Matsudaira Sadaharu, 6th family head, 2nd Viscount (1885-1953; family head: 1899-1953; 2nd Viscount: 1899-1947) ************** Matsudaira Sadaaki (1910-1945) *************** Matsudaira Sadajun, 7th family head (b. 1940; family head: 1953-) ** I. Hisamatsu Sadakatsu, 1st Lord of Kuwana (2nd creation, cr. 1616) (1560–1624; Lord: 1616; r. 1616-1624) (by O-dainokata's second husband Hisamatsu Toshikatsu (1526-1587) *** II. Matsudaira Sadayuki, 2nd Lord of Kuwana (2nd creation) (1587-1668; r. 1624-1635) **** Matsudaira Sadayori, 2nd Lord of Iyo-Matsuyama (1607-1662) ***** V. Matsudaira Sadashige, 5th Lord of Kuwana (2nd creation) (1644-1717; r. 1657-1710) *** III. Matsudaira Sadatsuna, 3rd Lord of Kuwana (2nd creation) (1592-1652; r. 1635-1651) **** IV. Matsudaira Sadayoshi, 4th Lord of Kuwana (2nd creation) (1632-1657; r. 1652-1657) Genealogy (jp)
/ref>

References

*

{{Authority control 1871 disestablishments in Japan Domains of Japan Domains of Mie Prefecture Hisamatsu-Matsudaira clan Honda clan Okudaira-Matsudaira clan