was a king of the

Ryukyu Kingdom The Ryukyu Kingdom, Middle Chinese: , , Classical Chinese: (), Historical English names: ''Lew Chew'', ''Lewchew'', ''Luchu'', and ''Loochoo'', Historical French name: ''Liou-tchou'', Historical Dutch name: ''Lioe-kioe'' was a kingdom in the ...

from 1835 to 1847. He was the eldest son of

Shō Kō (14 July 1787 – 5 July 1834) was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, who held the throne from 1804 to 1828, when he was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Shō Iku. This was only the second time in the history of the kingdom that a king abdicated ...

. According to ''

Chūzan Seifu was an official history of the Ryūkyū Kingdom compiled between 1697 and 1701 by a group of scholar-officials led by Sai Taku. It was a Kanbun translated version of ''Chūzan Seikan''. Later, it was rewritten into Classical Chinese by Sai Tak ...

'', he was appointed regent in 1828, in place of his ailing father who was supposedly afflicted by a mental illness. Shō Kō died in 1834, and Shō Iku was installed as the king. Shō Iku was a

Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...

scholar, and had dedicated his life to education. But during his reign, the financial crisis grew more and more serious. When a French ship arrived in

Naha is the capital city of Okinawa Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture of Japan. As of 1 June 2019, the city has an estimated population of 317,405 and a population density of 7,939 persons per km2 (20,562 persons per sq. mi.). The total area ...

in 1844, Ryukyu was forced to trade with France. It was the first contact with Western countries. Théodore-Augustin Forcade, a French priest sent by

Paris Foreign Missions Society The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (french: Société des Missions Etrangères de Paris, short M.E.P.) is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons de ...

, came to Ryukyu to spread the Christian

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

. Bernard Jean Bettelheim, a British

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

missionary, also arrived in Ryukyu in 1846. Bettelheim established the first foreign hospital on the island at the Naminoue Gokoku-ji Temple. The king died in 1847, and his second son

Shō Tai was the last king of the Ryukyu Kingdom (8 June 1848 – 10 October 1872) and the head of the Ryukyu Domain (10 October 1872 – 27 March 1879). His reign saw greatly increased interactions with travelers from abroad, particularly from Europe ...

succeeded him as the last king of the Ryukyu Kingdom.

References

1813 births 1847 deaths 19th-century calligraphers Kings of Ryūkyū Second Shō dynasty {{RyukyuKingdom-stub