was a feudal domain in

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 ...

Japan, located in

Dewa Province was a province of Japan comprising modern-day Yamagata Prefecture and Akita Prefecture, except for the city of Kazuno and the town of Kosaka. Dewa bordered on Mutsu and Echigō Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . History Early per ...

(modern-day

Akita Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Provinces and prefectures" in ; "Tōhoku" in . Its population is estimated 915,691 as of 1 August 2023 and its geographi ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It was centered on

Honjō Castle is a Japanese castle located in Yurihonjō, southern Akita Prefecture, Japan. At the end of the Edo period, Honjō Castle was home to the Rokugō clan, ''daimyō'' of Honjō Domain. The castle was also known as or . History Tateoka Mitsush ...

in what is now the city of Yurihonjō, Akita.

History

Much of

was controlled by the powerful

Mogami clan were Japanese ''daimyōs'', and were a branch of the Ashikaga family. In the Sengoku period, they were the Sengoku ''daimyōs'' who ruled Dewa Province which is now Yamagata Prefecture and part of Akita Prefecture. The Mogami clan is derived ...

during the

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

. 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 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 ...

in 1622, with the majority of their holdings going to the

Satake clan The was a Japanese clan, Japanese samurai clan that claimed descent from the Minamoto clan. Its first power base was in Hitachi Province. The clan was subdued by Minamoto no Yoritomo in the late 12th century, but later entered Yoritomo's serv ...

, who were transferred from

Hitachi Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture.Louis Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Hitachi fudoki''" in . It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Shimōsa Province, S ...

to the much smaller holding of

Kubota Domain was a Han (Japan), feudal domain in Edo period Japan, located in Dewa Province (modern-day Akita Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Kubota Castle in what is now the city of Akita, Akita, Akita and was thus also known as the . It was governe ...

Rokugō Masanori was born in 1567 in Dewa Province, Japan, and entered into the service of Onodera Yoshimichi at Yokote Castle, subsequently fighting against Akita Sanesue. For services rendered during the Siege of Odawara in 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi rewarded ...

, a relatively minor

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 ...

from Senboku Country in Dewa Province served

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

at the Battle of Odawara in 1590 and was confirmed in his ancestral holdings of 4,500 ''

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 ...

'' in Dewa Province. He sided with

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 ...

at the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was an important battle in Japan which occurred on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu Prefecture, ...

against his nominal overlords, the Onodera clan, and was promoted to the status of a 10,000 ''koku'' ''

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 ...

'', based at

Hitachi-Fuchū Domain was a Han (Japan), feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Hitachi Province (modern-day Ibaraki Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Fuchū Jin'ya in what is now the city of Ishioka, Ibaraki. It was also know ...

, with his holdings scattered between Dewa and

s. When the Mogami clan was dispossessed, the

transferred him in 1623 from Hitachi to the newly created Honjō Domain, and increased his revenues to 20,000 ''koku'', which were all consolidated in the form of 103 villages in Yuki County where his descendants ruled for 11 generations to 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 ...

. The domain has a population of 23,911 people in 3784 households per the 1674 census. It was 11-days travel time from

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

, where the clan maintained its primary residence (''kamiyashiki'') at Kita-Inari-cho, in Shitaya.
Edo daimyo.net The clan's Edo temple was Tessho-ji in Nishi-Asakusa. During 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 ...

, the final ''daimyō'' of Honjō Domain, Rokugō Masakane sided with the

Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei The was a Japanese military-political coalition established and disestablished over the course of several months in early to mid-1868 during the Boshin War. Its flag was either a white interwoven five-pointed star on a black field, or a black ...

; however, the domain had scant military resources and was quickly overrun by forces of the pro-Imperial

Satchō Alliance The , or was a powerful military alliance between the southwestern feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū formed in 1866 to combine their efforts to restore Imperial rule and overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. History The name ''Satc ...

, which destroyed Honjō Castle. The new

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 ...

reinstated him as domain governor in 1868, but halved his revenues to 10,000 ''koku''. With 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 July 1871, and the absorption of Honjō Domain into Akita Prefecture, Rokugō Masakane relocated to Tokyo. In 1884, he and his descendants were granted the title of

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.

List of ''daimyōs''

* Rokugō clan (''tozama'') 1623–1871

External links

* ww.asahi-net.or.jp/~me4k-skri/han/mutudewa/honjou.htmlHonjō on "Edo 300 HTML"

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Honjo Domain Domains of Japan 1623 establishments in Japan States and territories established in 1623 1871 disestablishments in Japan States and territories disestablished in 1871 Dewa Province History of Akita Prefecture Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei

History

List of ''daimyōs''

Further reading

External links

Notes