Kameda Domain

Kameda Domain (亀田藩, Kameda-han) was a Japanese domain of the Edo period, located in Dewa Province (modern-day Akita Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Kameda Castle in what is now the city of Yurihonjō, Akita.

History

Much of Dewa Province was controlled by the powerful Mogami clan during the Sengoku period. The Mogami established a subsidiary holding centered on Honjō Castle in the center of the Yuri region of central Dewa Province in 1610. However, the Mogami were dispossessed by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1622, with the majority of their holdings going to the Satake clan, who were transferred from Hitachi Province to their new (and much smaller) holdings at Kubota Domain.

The Iwaki clan was originally a 120,000 koku samurai clan from Iwaki Province with close ties to the Date clan of Sendai. Iwaki Shigetaka’s daughter married Date Harumune, and the eldest son of that union was adopted back into the Iwaki clan as Iwaki Chikataka. However, during the Battle of Odawara, Iwaki Shigetaka died of illness, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered that he be succeeded by the 3rd son of Satake Yoshishige, who was adopted into the Iwaki clan as Iwaki Sadataka. Iwaki Chikataka was ordered to return to the Date clan. Although the Iwaki clan sided with Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara, due to their close familial ties with Satake Yoshinobu, they refused to participate in attack on Uesugi Kagekatsu at Aizuwakamatsu and were consequently dispossessed of their holdings. In 1616, the Tokugawa shogunate relented, and allowed the clan to have the 10,000 koku Shinano Nakamura Domain. In 1623, they were transferred to the newly created 20,000 koku Kameda Domain with 71 villages in Yuki County where his descendants ruled for 13 generations to the Meiji restoration. Relations remained very strong between with the Satake clan, almost to the extent that Kameda Domain became a semi-subsidiary domain under Kubota Domain. This due unfavorable attention from the Tokugawa shogunate, and in 1718, when Iwaki Hidetaka died, his successor was selected from a branch of the Date clan. Ties between the Iwaki and Date clans strengthened over the next several generations.

During the Boshin war, Kameda Domain sided with the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei; even after Kubota Domain switched sides. Despite its meager military resources, the domain fought against the forces of pro-Imperial Shinjō Domain until an agreement was reached. The new Meiji government penalized the domain with a reduction in revenues to 18,000 koku. With the abolition of the han system in July 1871, and the absorption of Kameda Domain into Akita Prefecture, Iwaki Takakuni relocated to Tokyo. In 1884, he and his descendents were granted the title of viscount (shishaku) in the kazoku peerage.

List of daimyō

• Iwaki clan (tozama) 1623-1871

Further reading

• Papinot, E (1910). Historical and Geographic Dictionary of Japan. Tuttle (reprint) 1972. 
• Sasaki Suguru (2004). Boshin Sensō 戊辰戦争. Tokyo: Chuokōron-shinsha.

External links

• (Japanese) Kameda on "Edo 300 HTML"