was a

feudal domain A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. The concept or ...

under the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

Japan, located in

Kawachi Province was a province of Japan in the eastern part of modern Osaka Prefecture. It originally held the southwestern area that was split off into Izumi Province. It was also known as . Geography The area was radically different in the past, with Kawachi ...

in what is now the southeastern portion of modern-day

Osaka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Osaka Prefecture has a population of 8,778,035 () and has a geographic area of . Osaka Prefecture borders Hyōgo Prefecture to the northwest, Kyoto Prefecture ...

. It was centered around the Sayama '' jin'ya'' which was located in what is now the city of Ōsakasayama and was controlled by the ''

tozama daimyō was a class of powerful magnates or ''daimyō'' (大名) considered to be outsiders by the ruler of Japan.Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, ''Tozama daimyō'' were classified in the Tokugawa Shogunate (江戸幕府) as ''daimyō'' w ...

Hōjō clan The was a Japanese samurai family who controlled the hereditary title of ''shikken'' (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate between 1203 and 1333. Despite the title, in practice the family wielded actual political power in Japan during this period ...

throughout all of its history.

History

The Later Hōjō clan descendent from Hōjō Sōun were among the greatest of the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

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 n ...

'', ruling most of the

Kantō region The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa. Slight ...

of Japan from their massive stronghold at Odawara Castle. However, the clan's power was destroyed by

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

in the 1590 Siege of Odawara.

Hōjō Ujinao Hōjō Ujinao (北条氏直: 1562 – December 19, 1591) was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the late Sengoku period, and the final head of the Later Hōjō clan. An important figure in the history of Azuchi-Momoyama politics, he lost his entire d ...

was spared since he was married to

Tokuhime Tokuhime may refer to: * Tokuhime (Oda) (徳姫) (1559–1636), daughter of Oda Nobunaga; also known as Gotokuhime * Tokuhime (Tokugawa) Tokuhime (督姫: 1565 – March 3, 1615) (''Hime'' means "princess", "lady") was a princess during the ...

, the second daughter of

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

, and the couple were exiled to

Mount Kōya is a large temple settlement in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan to the south of Osaka. In the strictest sense, ''Mount Kōya'' is the mountain name ( sangō) of Kongōbu-ji Temple, the ecclesiastical headquarters of the Kōyasan sect of Shingon Budd ...

, where Ujinao died the following year. Ujinao had no son, but the Hōjō lineage was continued through the adoption of

Hōjō Ujinori was the fourth son of Hōjō Ujiyasu. Very early in his life he became an acquaintance of Tokugawa Ieyasu, because he alike was also at the time a hostage of the Imagawa. Far later in 1590, he was persuaded to surrender when Odawara Castle was a ...

, the fourth son of

Hōjō Ujiyasu was a ''daimyō'' (warlord) and third head of the Odawara Hōjō clan. Known as the "Lion of Sagami", he was revered as a fearsome warrior and a cunning man. He is famous for his strategies of breaking the siege from Takeda Shingen and Uesugi K ...

. Tokugawa Ieyasu had given him estates with a ''

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. 54 ...

'' of 7000 ''koku'' in

, thus raising him to the status of '' hatamoto'', and his son

Hōjō Ujimori Hojo or Hōjō may refer to: Hojo or HoJo: * Howard Johnson's, a U.S. chain of restaurants and hotels *A nickname for Howard Johnson *A nickname for Howard Jones *A nickname for Howard Jones * MGR-1 Honest John, the first nuclear-capable missi ...

has estates with a ''kokudaka'' of 4000 ''koku'' in Shimotsuke Province. On Ujinori's death in 1600, Ujimori inherited his father's fiefs, thus giving him a combined ''kokudaka'' of 11,000 ''koku'', which qualified him for the title of ''daimyō'' under the

. This marked the start of Sayama Domain, which the Hōjō clan would rule for 12 generations until the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

. Hōjō Ujimori ruled from his residence in

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

, it was his son, Hōjō Ujinobu, who constructed the '' jin'ya'' in Sayama. The third ''daimyō'', Hōjō Ujimune, was an alcoholic, and was unable to fulfill his duties at

Edo Castle is a flatland castle that was built in 1457 by Ōta Dōkan in Edo, Toshima District, Musashi Province. In modern times it is part of the Tokyo Imperial Palace in Chiyoda, Tokyo and is therefore also known as . Tokugawa Ieyasu established the ...

, and his adopted son Hōjō Ujiharu, was not able to receive official confirmation of his succession, largely due to the opposition of the '' rōjū'' Inaba Masanori, who sought to use Hōjō Ujimune's illness as a cause for attainder. Inaba succeeded in having the domain abolished; however almost simultaneously, the '' tairō'' Sakai Tadakiyo granted a new fief with a ''kokudaka'' of 10,000 ''koku'', thus preserving the clan's status. In 1760, the 7th ''daimyō'', Hōjō Ujiyoshi, unsuccessful attempted political and fiscal reforms in the domain over entrenched opposition. In 1848, the 11th ''daimyō'', Hōjō Ujiyoshi, built the han school, "Kanshukan" which he opened also to samurai from other domains. During the

Bakumatsu period was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji govern ...

, the domain was called upon to dispatch troops to quell the Oshio Heihachiro uprising of 1837, to guard Osaka Bay during the incursion of Russian Admiral

Yevfimiy Putyatin Yevfimiy Vasilyevich Putyatin (russian: Евфи́мий Васи́льевич Путя́тин; November 8, 1803 – October 16, 1883), also known as was an admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy. His diplomatic mission to Japan r ...

in 1849, and to suppress the Tenchūgumi in 1863. At the start 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 clique seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperi ...

, the domain pledged fealty to the imperial side; however, the domain's finances (which had been in a state of near collapse since the middle of the Edo period due to huge debts) could not support further military spending or dispatch of troops. The final ''daimyō'', Hōjō Ujiyasu, surrendered the domain to the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji o ...

in 1869 without waiting for 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 and refused the position of imperial governor. The domain was annexed to Sakai Prefecture. The north gate of the ''jin'ya'' was relocated to the temple of Hongan-ji Sakai Betsuin in 1881.Sakai prefecture was later absorbed into Osaka Prefecture, and Hōjō Ujiyasu became a

viscount A viscount ( , for male) or viscountess (, for female) is a title used in certain European countries for a noble of varying status. In many countries a viscount, and its historical equivalents, was a non-hereditary, administrative or judicial ...

under the ''

kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. They succeeded the feudal lords () and court nobles (), but were abolished with the 1947 constitution. Kazoku ( 華族) should not be confused with ' ...

'' peerage in 1884.

Holdings at the end of the Edo period

As with most domains in the

han system ( ja, 藩, "domain") is a Japanese historical term for the estate of a daimyo in the Edo period (1603–1868) and early Meiji period (1868–1912). Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Han"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 283. or (daimyo domain) s ...

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

'', based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields.Elison, George and Bardwell L. Smith (1987)
''Warlords, Artists, & Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century,'' p. 18
*

**13 villages in Nishigori District **2 villages in Furuichi District **2 villages in Ogata District **1 village in Kawachi District **5 villages in Tannan District **5 villages in Tanboku District * Ōmi Province **1 village in Shiga District **3 villages in Kurita District **2 villages in Yasu District **1 village in Koga District

List of daimyō

References

{{Authority control Domains of Japan 1601 establishments in Japan 1869 disestablishments in Japan States and territories disestablished in 1869 Kawachi Province History of Osaka Prefecture

History

Holdings at the end of the Edo period

List of daimyō

See also

Further reading

References