Enomoto Takeaki
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For the Japanese Spaceflight participant of Soyuz TMA-9, see Enomoto Daisuke.
Enomoto Takeaki (榎本 武揚 Enomoto Takeaki, August 25, 1836–August 26, 1908) was a Japanese Navy admiral faithful to the Tokugawa Shogunate, who fought against the new Meiji government until the end of the Boshin War, but later served in the government.
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[edit] Studies in Europe
Enomoto was born as a member of a retainer family of the Tokugawa clan. In the era of isolationist policy (Sakoku), Japan had strictly limited contacts with only a few foreign countries, like Korea, China and the Netherlands. Enomoto started learning Dutch in the 1850s, and after Japan’s ‘opening’ by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1854, he studied Dutch naval warfare in the Bakufu’s Naval Training Center in Nagasaki and at the Tsukiji Warship Training Center in Edo. By the age of 26, he was sent to the Netherlands, where he studied naval warfare, 1862-1867. He reportedly became fluent in both the Dutch and English languages.
He returned to Japan onboard the Kaiyō Maru, a state-of-the-art steam warship purchased from the Netherlands by the Shogun government. Upon his return, Enomoto Takeaki was promoted to Kaigun Fukusosai (海軍副総裁), the second highest rank in the Tokugawa Shogunate Navy, at the age of 31.
During his stay in Europe, Enomoto had realised that the telegraph would be an important means of communication in the future, and started planning a system to connect Edo and Yokohama when he returned to Japan in 1867 on board the Kaiyō Maru.
[edit] "The last loyalist"
In 1868, when the Meiji government defeated the forces of the Shogun and occupied Edo, Enomoto refused to deliver his warships, and escaped to Hakodate with the whole Shogun fleet and a handful of French military advisers and their leader Jules Brunet. His fleet, made of eight steam warships, was the strongest in Japan at the time.
They hoped to found a state under the rule of the Tokugawa family in Hokkaidō, but the Meiji government refused their request. In December 25, they declared the foundation of the Republic of Ezo and elected Enomoto as president.
The next year, the Meiji Governmental Army and Navy invaded Hokkaidō and defeated the former Shogunate Army, as well as the Navy of the Republic in the Naval Battle of Hakodate. On 18 May 1869 the Republic gave in, and Hokkaidō accepted the Meiji Emperor's rule.
[edit] The Meiji politician
Enomoto was imprisoned and accused of high treason, but in 1872 he was pardoned by the new Meiji government. The Meiji leaders had realized that a man of Enomoto’s talents could be of use to them. Enomoto - under the protection of the Satsuma leader Kuroda Kiyotaka - rose astonishingly fast within the new ruling clique, faster and higher than any other member of the former Tokugawa clan. He was to become one of the few former Tokugawa retainers who could exert political influence in Meiji Japan as well, since politics in these days were dominated by the anti-Tokugawa clans from Chōshū and Satsuma.
In 1874, Enomoto was appointed vice-admiral, and, as a special envoy, he was sent to Russia to negotiate the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (Treaty of exchange of the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin), which was signed the next year. The conclusion of the treaty was very well received in Japan and further raised Enomoto’s prestige within the ruling circles. On the other hand, the appointment of Enomoto as envoy was seen as adding to the sense of national unity.
In 1880, Enomoto rose as high as Navy Minister (海軍卿) of the Imperial Japanese Navy. In 1885 he again showed his skills as a diplomat by assisting Ito Hirobumi in concluding the Tientsin Treaty with Qing China. Afterwards, Enomoto frequently held high posts in the Japanese government. He was Japan’s first minister of communications (1885-1888) after the introduction of the cabinet system in 1885. He was also minister of agriculture and commerce in 1888 and again from 1894 to 1897, minister for education in 1889-1890 and foreign minister in 1891-1892. In 1887, Enomoto was granted the rank of a viscount as well as membership in the Privy Council, one of Meiji Japan’s most prestigious institutions.
He successively held several ministry positions in the government, and was especially active in promoting Japanese expansionism through settler colonies in the Pacific Ocean and South and Central America. In 1891 he established - against the will of the cabinet of Matsukata Masayoshi - a 'section for emigration' in the foreign ministry, with the task of encouraging emigration and finding new potential territories for Japanese settlement overseas. Two years later, after leaving the government, Enomoto also helped to establish a private organization, the 'Colonial Association', to promote external trade and emigration.
He died in 1908 at the age of 72.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Kamo, Giichi. Enomoto Takeaki. Chuo Koronsha ISBN: 412201509X (Japanese)
- Yamamoto, Atsuko. Jidai o shissoshita kokusaijin Enomoto Takeaki: Raten Amerika iju no michi o hiraku. Shinzansha (1997).ISBN: 4797215410 (Japanese)
- Hane, Mikiso. Modern Japan: A Historical Survey. Westview Press (2001). ISBN: 0813337569
- Hillsborough, Romulus. Shinsengumi: The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps. Tuttle Publishing (2005). ISBN: 0804836272
- Jansen, Marius B. Emergence of Meiji Japan, The (Cambridge History of Japan). Cambridge University Press (2006). ISBN: 0521484057
- Keene, Donald. Dawn to the West. Columbia University Press; 2Rev Ed edition (1998). ISBN: 0231114354
- Ravina, Mark. The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori. Whiley (2003). ISBN: 0471089702
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