was a politician and journalist in

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

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 ...

.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Numa Morikazu" in .

Biography

Born to a ''

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

'' family in Edo in 1843, Numa was involved in scholarship at an early age. He learned English from James Curtis Hepburn in

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

, and was later sent to study western military science at

Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...

. He translated a text on English-style infantry warfare in 1866 and, in 1867, he was commissioned as a ''hohei-gashira nami'' (歩兵頭並; roughly equivalent to a

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...

) in the Shogunate's elite '' Denshūtai'' unit. Numa fought on the Tokugawa side in the Boshin War. Following 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 Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

, after a brief period in prison, he was released due to a favor he had once done for Itagaki Taisuke, and was hired by the new

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 ...

as an infantry warfare instructor for the

Tosa Domain The was a Han (Japan), feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, controlling all of Tosa Province in what is now Kōchi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. It was centered around Kōchi Castle, and was ruled throughout its ...

. He also taught English in Tōkyō. Among his students were Takamine Hideo and Shiba Shirō, the sons of former Aizu ''samurai'' who would later become famous in academia. Numa entered the Finance Ministry in 1872, and later worked for the Justice Ministry, and elsewhere within the government. In 1873, together with

Kōno Togama Viscount was a Japanese statesman in Meiji period Japan. Biography Kōno was born in Kōchi, Tosa Province (present-day Kōchi Prefecture) as the eldest son of a local low-ranking ''samurai''. He was sent to Edo in 1858 where (along wit ...

, he founded Horitsu Koshukai (the predecessor of Omeisha). Following peasant unrest, Numa was sent to investigate the situation in Sakata Prefecture late in 1875. Dissatisfied with government policies restricting freedom of speech, he retired from the Genrōin in 1879 and decided to devote his energies to the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. He purchased a newspaper, the ''Yokohama Mainichi Shinbun''. Reorganizing it into the ''Tōkyō-Yokohama Mainichi Shinbun'', he used it as a mouthpiece for the liberal ideas he always supported, and used it to call for the establishment of a

national assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

. In 1881, he prepared the foundation of

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...

with Itagaki Taisuke but joined the '' Rikken Kaishintō'' with Ōkuma Shigenobu following year. At the same time, from 1882 until his death, he was head of the Tōkyō Prefectural Assembly. Numa died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

in 1890, at the age of 46.

Notes

References

* Jansen, Marius B. (2000). ''The Making of Modern Japan.'' Cambridge: Harvard University Press. /
OCLC 44090600
* Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005)
''Japan encyclopedia.''
Cambridge:

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

. ;
OCLC 58053128
* Sims, Richard L. (1998). ''French Policy Towards the Bakufu and Meiji Japan 1854–1894''. London: RoutledgeCurzon. * ___________. (2001). ''Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868–2000''. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. /; /
OCLC 45172740
{{DEFAULTSORT:Numa, Morikazu Samurai 1843 births 1890 deaths Meiji Restoration Japanese journalists Politicians from Tokyo Journalists from Tokyo People of the Meiji era Hatamoto People of the Boshin War Japanese educators Rikken Kaishintō politicians 19th-century Japanese politicians Deaths from pneumonia in Japan 19th-century journalists Japanese male journalists 19th-century male writers

Biography

See also

Notes

References