The were a ''

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

'' kin group which rose to prominence in the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. Under the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

, the Ōoka, as hereditary vassals of the

Tokugawa clan The is a Japanese dynasty which produced the Tokugawa shoguns who ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868 during the Edo period. It was formerly a powerful ''daimyō'' family. They nominally descended from Emperor Seiwa (850–880) and were a branch of ...

, were classified as one of the '' fudai'' ''daimyō'' clans.Appert, Georges. (1888)
''Ancien Japon,'' p. 75
/ref> The Ōoka claimed descent from the

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

'' kampaku'' Kujō Tadanori, settling in Ōoka Village in Yana District of northern

Mikawa Province was an Provinces of Japan, old province in the area that today forms the eastern half of Aichi Prefecture.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Mikawa''" in . Its abbreviated form name was . Mikawa bordered on Owari Province, O ...

(in what is now part of the city of Shinshiro, Aichi. During the Sengoku period, Ōoka Tadato (1522–1594) was a general in the armies of Matsudaira Hirohada during the Battle of Azukizaka (1564). His son Ōoka Tadamasa (1548–1629) subsequently accompanied

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

to the

Kantō region The is a geography, geographical region of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures of Japan, prefectures: Chiba Prefecture, Chiba, Gunma Prefe ...

and was given a small 220 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

'' holding in Kōza District of

Sagami Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan located in what is today the central and western Kanagawa Prefecture.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kanagawa''" at . Sagami Province bordered the provinces of Izu Province, Izu ...

, which he gradually built up into 600 ''koku'' in what is now part of the city of Hiratsuka, Kanagawa. His descendants continued to assist the

as ''

hatamoto A was a high ranking samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the Shōgun, shogunates in History of Japan, Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred ...

.'' The clan’s fortunes went into eclipse when Ōoka Tadashina (1667–1710) so displeased Shōgun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi that he was exiled to Hachijojima and Ōoka Tadafusa (1650–1696) was forced to commit ''

seppuku , also known as , is a form of Japanese ritualistic suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honor, but was also practiced by other Japanese people during the Shōwa era (particularly officers near ...

'' for killing a retainer of the

Shimazu clan The were the ''daimyō'' of the Satsuma han, which spread over Satsuma, Ōsumi and Hyūga provinces in Japan. The Shimazu were identified as one of the '' tozama'' or outsider ''daimyō'' familiesAppert, Georges ''et al.'' (1888). in contr ...

in a brawl. However, the clan’s fortunes revived under Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshimune, with the appointment of the talented

Ōoka Tadasuke was a Japanese samurai in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate. During the reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune, as a magistrate () of Edo, his roles included chief of police, judge and jury, and Yamada Magistrate () prior to his tenure as South Ma ...

to the position of Edo Machi-bugyō. Tadasuke performed his duties with brilliance, and was awarded with promotions within the Tokugawa bureaucracy, cumulating in the position of

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 no ...

of Nishi-Ohira Domain (10,000 ''

'' ) in Mikawa Province in 1748. The Ōoka remained at Nishi-Ohira 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 Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

."Miyake-shi" on Harimaya.com
/ref> The final daimyō of Nishi-Ohira Domain, Ōoka Tadataka (1828–1887), was made a

viscount A viscount ( , for male) or viscountess (, for female) is a title used in certain European countries for a noble of varying status. The status and any domain held by a viscount is a viscounty. In the case of French viscounts, the title is ...

(''shishaku'') in the ''

kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. It was formed by merging the feudal lords (''Daimyo, daimyō'') and court nobles (''kuge'') into one system modelled after the British peerage. Distin ...

'' peerage system in the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

Cadet lines

* A cadet branch was created in 1751 for Ōoka Tadamitsu (1709–1760), a distant relative of Ōoka Tadasuke. Starting as a 300 ''koku'' ''hatamoto'', Ōoka Tadamitsu provided close assistance to Ōoka Tadasuke and rose rapidly through ranks. He was assigned Iwatsuki Domain (20,000 ''koku'') in

Musashi province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan, which today comprises Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis, most of Saitama Prefecture and part of Kanagawa Prefecture. It was sometimes called . The province encompassed Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Kawasaki and Yokohama. ...

, where his descendants remained until the Meiji Restoration. The final daimyō of Iwatsuki, Ōoka Tadatsura (1847–1920) sided with the pro-imperial forces in 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 coalition seeking to seize political power in the name of the Impe ...

and made a viscount (''shishaku'') in the ''kazoku'' peerage system in the Meiji period.

References

Notes

* Appert, Georges and H. Kinoshita. (1888)
''Ancien Japon.''
Tokyo: Imprimerie Kokubunsha. * Papinot, Edmond. (1906) ''Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du japon.'' Tokyo: Librarie Sansaish
..Click link for digitized 1906 ''Nobiliaire du japon'' (2003)

External links

(24 March 2008) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ooka clan Japanese clans