270px, Shimazu Tadahiro, final ''daimyō'' of Sadowara Domain was a 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, in what is now central

Miyazaki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Miyazaki Prefecture has a population of 1,028,215 as of 1 January 2025 and has a geographic area of 7,735 Square kilometre, km2 (2,986 sq mi). Miyazaki Prefectur ...

. It was centered around Sadowara Castle in what is now the city of Miyazaki and was ruled by a cadet branch of the ''

tozama daimyō was a class of powerful magnates or ''daimyō'' (大名) considered to be outsiders by the ruler of Japan during the Edo period (江戸時代). ''Tozama daimyō'' were classified in the Tokugawa shogunate (江戸幕府) as ''daimyō'' who becam ...

Shimazu clan The were the ''daimyō'' of the Satsuma han, which spread over Satsuma, Ōsumi and Hyūga provinces in Japan. The Shimazu were identified as one of the '' tozama'' or outsider ''daimyō'' familiesAppert, Georges ''et al.'' (1888). in contr ...

for all of its history.

History

In 1603, Shimazu Mochihisa, the son of

Shimazu Takahisa , a son of Shimazu Tadayoshi, was a ''daimyō'' during Japan's Sengoku period. He was the fifteenth head of the Shimazu clan. Biography In 1514, he is said to have been born in Izaku Castle. On 1526, Takahisa was adopted as the successor to ...

's younger brother, Shimazu Tadamasa, was given 30,000 ''

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 ...

'' in Naka District and Koyu District, Hyuga Province, and allowed to establish a cadet branch of the

based at Sadowara Castle. This land was originally the territory of

Shimazu Iehisa was a Japanese samurai of the Sengoku period, who was a member of the Shimazu clan of Satsuma Province. He was the fourth son of Shimazu Takahisa. He served in a command capacity during his family's campaign to conquer Kyūshū. His sons were ...

and Shimazu Toyohisa, but after Toyohisa died at 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, ...

in 1600, the territory was seized by the

. The aim of the shogunate in establishing Sadowara as a domain was not only to ensure the succession of the Shimazu clan, but to favor the Tarumi faction within the clan as a potential rival to the main clan in Kagoshima. The relationship with

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a Han system, domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of ...

is similar to that between

Sendai Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Sendai Domain was based at Aoba Castle in Mutsu Province, in the modern city of Sendai, located in the Tōhoku region of ...

and

Uwajima Domain file:Date Munenari coloured.jpg, 270px, Date Munenari file:Uwajima Date Museum 1.jpg, 270px, Uwajima Date Museum was a Han (Japan), feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, in what is now western Ehime Prefecture on the is ...

, or

Morioka Domain 300px, Ruins of Morioka Castle was a '' tozama'' feudal domain of Edo period Japan. It was ruled throughout its history by the Nanbu clan. It was called during the early part of its history. It was located in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū ...

and

Hachinohe Domain was a ''tozama'' Han (Japan), feudal domain of Edo period Japan It is located in Mutsu Province, in northern Honshū. The domain was centered at Hachinohe Castle, located in the center of what is now the city of Hachinohe, Aomori, Hachinohe in ...

. While there is a view that Sadowara is not a subsidiary domain of Satsuma Domain, it was subject to repeated interference from Satsuma Domain in its internal affairs. The Sadowara ''

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 ...

'' was from the Tarumi Shimazu clan, who were regarded as retainers, rather than relatives, of the ruling Satsuma clan. On the other hand, the Satsuma clan had to officially recognize that the Tarumi-Shimazu ruling Satowara were not in fact their retainers, but were recognized by the shogunate as co-equal ''daimyō''. Many of the legal wives of the generations of Sadowara ''daimyō'' were from Satsuma, including not only the princesses of the head of the Shimazu clan but also the daughters of Satsuma Domain chief retainers. On the other hand, until the end of the Edo period, no son of the Satsuma ''daimyō'' was adopted by the Sadowara ''daimyō'' as his successor. The 6th ''daimyō'', Korehisa became ''daimyō'' as an infant, so Tadataka's cousin Hisatoshi was adopted as ''daimyō'' until Tadahisa came of age. Within the domain, this resulted in an ''

O-Ie Sōdō O-Ie Sōdō (, "house strife") were noble family disputes within the samurai and aristocratic classes of Japan, particularly during the early Edo period (17th century). The most famous is the ''Date Sōdō'', which broke out among the Date family in ...

'', which in turn led to the intervention of Satsuma Domain in 1686 (Matsunoki Riot). In 1690, Korehisa had finally come of age, but according to the wishes of the shogunate, the ''

kokudaka refers to a system for determining land value for taxation purposes under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo-period Japan, and expressing this value in terms of ''koku'' of rice. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Koku"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 5 ...

'' of the domain was reduced to 27,000 ''koku''. On the other hand, the domain was granted the prestige of being a "castle-holding domain" in 1699. On June 7, 1839 (April 7, 1839), the 10th ''daimyō'', Shimazu Tadatetsu, died suddenly at the

Kusatsu-juku 260px, The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō">Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō'' series was the fifty-second of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō as well as the sixty-eighth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō. ...

honjin image:Ohara-juku01s3200.jpg, The ''honjin'' at Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku. is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials, generally located in post stations (''shukuba'') during the later part of the Edo period. Evolution of ''Honjin ...

'' (in present-day

Kusatsu, Shiga file:Kusatsu City Hall 01.JPG, 260px, Kusatsu City Hall is a Cities of Japan, city located in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 139,913 in 63,942 households and a population density of 2100 persons per km2. The to ...

) en route to

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

to fulfill his ''

sankin-kōtai ''Sankin-kōtai'' (, now commonly written as ) was a policy of the Tokugawa shogunate during most of the Edo period, created to control the daimyo, the feudal lords of Japan, politically, and to keep them from attempting to overthrow the regi ...

'' obligation. As he had not yet appointed a successor, there was a strong possibility that the domain would face

attainder In English criminal law, attainder was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and hereditary titles, but ...

, so his vassals kept the death a secret until permission was granted for the succession to be passed to his third son, Shimazu Tadahiro. On the following day, Tadatetsu's death was officially announced. In the

Bakumatsu period were the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, under foreign diplomatic and military pressure, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunat ...

, Shimazu Tadahiro worked closely with Satsuma Domin, and in 1869, he was awarded 30,000 ''koku'' for his efforts in the fierce battles of 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 ...

. He also promoted moving the seat of the domain from Sadowara Castle to Hirose Castle. However, 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 1871, construction of Hirose Castle was discontinued, and Sadowara Domain became "Sadowara Prefecture". Tadahiro subsequently relocated to

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, and Sadowara Prefecture was abolished and incorporated into Mimitsu Prefecture. Later, Mimitsu Prefecture was incorporated into Miyazaki Prefecture, merged with Kagoshima Prefecture, and then re-incorporated into the reconstituted Miyazaki Prefecture. The Sadowara Shimazu clan was 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 viscount in 1884. In 1891, Shimazu Tadahiro was elevated to Count. Shimazu Hisanaga, the spouse of

Emperor Shōwa , posthumously honored as , was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. He remains Japan's longest-reigning emperor as well as one of the world's longest-rei ...

's daughter Takako, was his descendant.

Yuba-gumi

Sadowara Domain had an unusual social structure created by the second ''daimyō'', Shimazu Tadaoki. Originally it was intended to foster

martial arts Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defence; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; ...

and to strength the domain's samurai against attacks from

Obi Domain 270px, Ito Sukeyori, final ''daimyō'' of Obi Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, in what is now central Miyazaki Prefecture. It was centered around Obi Castle in what is now Nichinan, Miyazaki and was ...

or even Satsuma Domain, it was organized into groups based on young men between the ages of 15 and 30, with associate members are between the ages of 30 and 59, each responsible for one of the four inner and five outer gates of Sadowara Castle. Each group practiced archery and horsemanship in addition to

swordsmanship Swordsmanship or sword fighting refers to the skills and techniques used in combat and training with any type of sword. The term is modern, and as such was mainly used to refer to smallsword fencing, but by extension it can also be applied to an ...

. However, what began as groups to strength martial arts and defenses evolved into rival political discussion groups, which were further divided by differences in the social standing of its membership. Rivalries between these groups also inflamed various riots and disturbances within the domain. It was largely in an effort to escape from the pervasive influence of these political cliques that Sadowara Domain took the unusual step of attempting to change its seat to a new castle at Hirose Castle even after the start of the Meiji period.

Holdings at the end of the Edo period

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 ...

, Sadowara Domain consisted of several discontinuous territories calculated to provide the assigned ''

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

Hyūga Province was a province of Japan in the area of southeastern Kyūshū, corresponding to modern Miyazaki Prefecture Hyūga bordered on Ōsumi to the south, Higo to the west, and Bungo to the north. Its abbreviated form name was , although it was als ...

**11 villages in Naka District **15 villages in Koyu District

List of daimyō

References

{{Authority control Domains of Japan History of Miyazaki Prefecture Hyūga Province Kyushu region Shimazu clan

History

Yuba-gumi

Holdings at the end of the Edo period

List of daimyō

See also

References