Sakakibara family

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The Sakakibara family (榊原氏, Sakakibara-shi) was a samurai (warrior nobility) family which held a number of feudal domains over the course of Japanese history.

The family was descended from Nikka Sadanaga of the Seiwa Genji branch of the Minamoto clan. The first to take the name Sakakibara was Sadanaga's son, who resided in Sakakibara in Ise Province, and took the name Sakakibara Toshinaga.

Sakakibara Yasumasa (1548-1606) was a vassal of Tokugawa Ieyasu who fought with him at the end of the Sengoku period, and whose sons would later fight for Tokugawa in the Siege of Osaka. He was granted the han (fief) of Tatebayashi in Kozuke Province.

Sakakibara daimyō (feudal lords) controlled a number of different domains over the centuries, including Himeji, and survived as a noble family into the 20th century.

One branch of the Sakakibara, located at Takada han in Echigo Province, was a local power center during the Echigo Theater of the Boshin War. Following the war, Takada served as a detention center for defeated samurai of the Aizu domain.

In the Meiji era, the Sakakibara took the title of Viscount in the kazoku system of peerage.

[edit] References

• Papinot, Edmond (1910). Historical and geographical dictionary of Japan. Tokyo: Librarie Sansaisha.