Satsuma Domain

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Satsuma domain was largely contiguous with today's Kagoshima Prefecture.

The Satsuma domain (Satsuma Han 薩摩藩) was one of the most powerful feudal domains in Tokugawa Japan, and played a major role in the Meiji Restoration and in the government of the Meiji period which followed. Controlled throughout the Edo period by the tozama daimyō of the Shimazu clan, its territory spanned the provinces of Satsuma, Osumi and the south-west region of Hyūga on the island of Kyūshū, and had the Ryūkyū Kingdom as a vassal state. The territory is largely contiguous with today's Kagoshima prefecture, and parts of Miyazaki prefecture.

Officially called Kagoshima han, the domain was ruled from Kagoshima castle in Kagoshima city. Its kokudaka, the official measure of the domain's production, and therefore its wealth and power, was assessed at 770,000 koku for most of the period, the second highest kokudaka after that of Kaga Domain.

The Shimazu family controlled Satsuma province for roughly four centuries prior to the beginning of the Edo period and the establishment of the han, and towards the end of the 16th century, controlled nearly all of Kyūshū. Despite being chastised by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in his 1587 Kyūshū Campaign, and forced back to Satsuma, they remained one of the most powerful clans in the archipelago. During the decisive battle of Sekigahara, which took place in 1600 and put an end to the long period of war, the Shimazu stayed home in Satsuma, consolidating and protecting their power. While a great many clans fought and lost at Sekigahara, the Shimazu remained one of the few who, alone, possessed sufficient military might to resist the shogun's armies, had he tried to forcibly seize their territory. Unlike many clans who were assigned and reassigned han over the course of the Edo period, the Shimazu maintained their territory, and a great degree of autonomy.

In 1609, the Shimazu requested permission from the shogunate to invade the Ryūkyū Kingdom which lay to its south. After a brief invasion which met little resistance, Satsuma seized a number of the Ryukyu Islands, annexing them to the han, and claimed the Ryūkyū Kingdom as a vassal state. For the remainder of the Edo period, Satsuma exacted tribute from Ryukyu, influenced their politics, and dominated their trading policies. As strict maritime prohibitions were imposed upon much of Japan beginning in the 1630s, Satsuma's ability to enjoy a trade in Chinese goods, and information, via Ryukyu, provided it a distinct and important, if not entirely unique, role in the overall economy and politics of the Tokugawa state. The degree of economic benefits enjoyed by Satsuma, and the degree of their oppression of Ryukyu, are subjects debated by scholars, but the political prestige and influence gained through this relationship is not questioned. The Shimazu continually made efforts to emphasize their unique position as the only feudal domain to claim an entire foreign kingdom as its vassal, and engineered repeated increases to their own official Court rank, in the name of maintaining their power and prestige in the eyes of Ryukyu.

Though not the wealthiest han in terms of kokudaka (the official measure of the wealth and therefore power of a han, measured in koku), Satsuma remained among the wealthiest and most powerful domains throughout the Edo period. This derived not only from their connection to Ryukyu, but also from the size and productive wealth of Satsuma province itself, and from their extreme distance from Edo, and thus from the Shogun's armies. The Shimazu exercised their influence to exact from the shogunate a number of special exceptions. Satsuma was granted an exception to the shogunate's limit of one castle per domain, a policy which was meant to restrict the military strength of the domains; the Shimazu then formed sub-fiefs within their domain, and doled out castles to their vassals, administering the domain in a manner not unlike a mini-shogunate. They also received special exceptions from the shogunate in regard to the policy of sankin kōtai, another policy meant to restrict the wealth and power of the daimyō. Under this policy, every feudal lord was mandated to travel to Edo at least once a year, and to spend some portion of the year there, away from his domain and his power base. The Shimazu were granted permission to make this journey only once every two years. These exceptions thus allowed Satsuma to gain even more power and wealth relative to the majority of other domains.

Though arguably opposed to the shogunate, Satsuma was perhaps one of the strictest domains in enforcing particular policies. Christian missionaries were seen as a serious threat to the power of the daimyo, and the peace and order of the domain; the shogunal ban on Christianity was enforced more strictly and brutally in Satsuma, perhaps, than anywhere else in the archipelago. The ban on smuggling, perhaps unsurprisingly, was not so strictly enforced, as the domain gained significantly from trade performed along its shores, some ways away from Nagasaki, where the shogunate monopolized commerce.

Towards the end of the Edo period, the shogunate's power waned, and contacts with Westerners increased dramatically, particularly for Satsuma, as Western ships frequently landed in the Ryukyus and sought not only trade, but formal diplomatic relations. Frustration and tensions arose in Satsuma and other domains over the shogunate's failure to repel these Western incursions, and over a number of other issues. In the Namamugi Incident of 1862, an Englishman was killed by retainers of Satsuma, leading to the bombardment of Kagoshima by the British Royal Navy the following year.

A number of powerful retainers of the Shimazu, foremost among them Saigō Takamori, along with samurai of a number of other domains, then pushed forward the events which led to the Meiji Restoration. The events of the 1860s are in fact far more complex than most accounts indicate, but in short, Saigō and his comrades, against the wishes of the Satsuma daimyō at the time, sought to overthrow the shogunate. A number of political discussions and petitions led to skirmishes, and ultimately, Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu agreed to step down and put an end to the shogunate.

The Meiji government which was established in the aftermath of these events was largely dominated by people from Satsuma and Chōshū Domain. Though the samurai class, domain system, and much of the political and social structures surrounding these were abolished shortly afterwards, figures from these two areas dominated the Japanese government roughly until World War I. It is said, however, that these two areas continue to exert a disproportionately powerful influence over politics even today.