were officials of 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 ...

responsible for administration of the mining operations at Sado. Sado Island is the sixth largest in the

Japanese archipelago The is an archipelago of list of islands of Japan, 14,125 islands that form the country of Japan. It extends over from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to the East China Sea, East China and Philippine Sea, Philippine seas in the southwest al ...

. It is located in the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it ...

off the west coast of

Echigo Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province in north-central Japan, on the shores of the Sea of Japan. It bordered on Uzen Province, Uzen, Iwashiro Province, Iwashiro, Kōzuke Province, Kōzuke, Shinano Province, Shinano, and Etchū Province, ...

in northwest

Honshu , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the list of islands by area, seventh-largest island in the world, and the list of islands by ...

. For much of its pre-modern history, exiles were banished to the island.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Sado''" in ; n.b., Louis-Frédéric is pseudonym of Louis-Frédéric Nussbaum, ''see'
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Authority File
. The island was noted for its deposits of gold and silver since at least the 12th century; however, intensive mining operations did not begin until the opening of the Aikawa Mine in 1601. This same year, Sado was placed during the direct control of the

, and in 1603 Ōkubo Nagayasu was appointed the first "commissioner". The title was officially Sado ''

daikan ''Daikan'' (代官) was an official in ancient Japan that acted on behalf of a ruling monarch or a lord at the post they had been appointed to. Since the Middle Ages, ''daikan'' were in charge of their territory and territorial tax collection. In ...

'' until 1618, and ''

bugyō was a title assigned to ''samurai'' officials in feudal Japan. ''Bugyō'' is often translated as commissioner, magistrate, or governor, and other terms would be added to the title to describe more specifically a given official's tasks or jurisdi ...

'' afterwards. The post was occupied by ''

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 ...

'' assisted by a staff of up to a hundred ''

yoriki were members of the ''samurai'' class of feudal Japan. ''Yoriki'' literally means ''helper'' or ''assistant''. Description and history ''Yoriki'' assisted ''daimyō'' (feudal lords) or their designated commanders during military campaigns in the ...

'' and ''dōshin'' constables. The mines at Sado were worked vigorously; and were a major source of revenue for the early Tokugawa shogunate, producing approximately 100 tons of gold and silver from 1616 to 1627; however, by the 1730s the deposits were largely exhausted and production was less than a ton of silver until the mid-18th century. The post of Sado bugyō was abolished with 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 ...

List of Sado bugyō

: * 1603-1613 Ōkubo Nagayasu

Notes

References

* Beasley, William G. (1955)
''Select Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy, 1853–1868''.
London:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. eprinted by RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2001. (cloth)">RoutledgeCurzon.html" ;"title="eprinted by RoutledgeCurzon">eprinted by RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2001. (cloth)* Cullen, Louis M. (2003)
''A History of Japan, 1582–1941: Internal and External Worlds''.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005)
''Japan encyclopedia''.
Cambridge:

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

. ; Government of feudal Japan Officials of the Tokugawa shogunate Sado, Niigata {{Japan-hist-stub

List of Sado bugyō

See also

Notes

References