The Tokugawa Period and the Emergence of Modern Japan (1600-1868) Teacher Resource Guide Georgetown University East Asia National Resource Center By Kelly Hammond
The Tokugawa
years a military-like government would rule Japan with a Tokugawa clan member at its head.
The Tokugawa? The Tokugawa Régime? The Tokugawa Period? The Tokugawa Polity? The Tokugawa Bakufu? The Tokugawa Shogunate? The Edo Bakufu? The Edo period? With all theses names floating around, it is no wonder people get confused about the period in Japanese history that historians usually describe as lasting from 1600 to 1868. Hopefully we can clear this up with a little explanation.
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Ashikaga Takauji
“Tokugawa” is the clan name of the family who managed to bring an end to continuous war and destruction that plagued the Japanese archipelago for centuries and began the process of unifying Japan into the modern polity that we imagine it to be today. Following the disunity and chaos of the Warring States Period, Oda Nobunagu managed to reestablish a centralized government, but it was only after a decisive battle in 1600 that the authority of the state fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu (“EE-eh-ya-su”). Tokugawa Ieyasu inherited and expanded the political structures that Oda Nobunagu had put into place. This event marks the beginning of the Tokugawa period and for the next 268
There were many changes to Japanese society during the Tokugawa period—the lasting peace meant that the population grew, urbanization increased, infrastructure (like roads and canals) and communications got better, and an often contentious relationship with Qing China and western missionaries meant that Japan constantly re-imagined its position in the emerging global order of the 18th and 19th centuries. Before taking a closer look at some of these changes to Japanese society, a few more terms need to be explained and defined.
Edo vs Tokugawa Sometimes you might see the Tokugawa period referred to as the “Edo period”. Edo 江 戸—which literally means “entrance to the bay” or “estuary”—is the old name for Tokyo. The Tokugawa clan established their government— or the bakufu—there and, although Kyoto remained the official capital, Edo became the de facto capital of Tokugawa Japan and the center of political power.
Court Life in Edo
Before this, Edo had been a small village, but during the Tokugawa, it grew to about 1,000,000 inhabitants—rivaled only by Beijing for the largest city in the world at the time. In 1868, the city was renamed Tokyo, which means “Eastern capital” (in relation to Kyoto) and the emperor moved there to take up residence in Edo castle. This is all to say that sometimes people refer to the Tokugawa Period as the Edo Period because it was during this time that Edo rose to prominence as the center of politics and social life in Japan at the time. Who knows if Tokyo would be the global city that it is today if the Tokugawa had not established their de facto capital there in 1600!
The tent originally symbolized that the shōgun was a field commander, who often moved locations, and it also indicated that the position of this office was meant to be temporary. The shōgun’s officials were as a collective the bakufu and were those who carried out the actual duties of administration while the imperial court retained only nominal authority. During the Tokugawa Period, the effective power of government rested with the Tokugawa shōgun, not with the emperor who stayed in Kyoto, even though he gained his legitimacy from being recognized as shōgun by the emperor. The shōgun controlled foreign policy, the military, and the feudal lords—or the daimyō.
Shogun? Bakufu? Daimyō? Samurai? Map of Regional Breakdown of the Daimyō
Translated into English, shōgun 将 軍 literally means “military commander” or “generalissimo.” The shōgun was usually a hereditary military leader of Japan throughout the early modern period. When Portuguese explorers arrived in Japan, they described the relationship between the emperor and the shōgun in an analogy that likened the emperor—with great symbolic but little political power—to the Roman Catholic Pope, and the shōgun to a European King. The shōgun’s office or their administration is known as the bakufu 幕府, which literally means "tent office." Sometimes the bakufu is also called the “Shogunate” in English.
Daimyō is a generic term referring to powerful hereditary lords who ruled large territories and clans in early modern Japan. In the term “daimyō,” “dai” 大 literally means “large” and the “myō” stands for myōden 名田 meaning “private land.” The daimyō of early modern Japan are often compared to powerful feudal lords, who ruled kingdoms in early modern Europe. Like feudal lords, the daimyō were subordinate only to the shōgun and the emperor. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu was recognized as shōgun. He then reorganized the 200 or so daimyō based on their rice production output and whether or not they had supported the Tokugawa Clan in their rise to the top.
Tokugawa that required the families of daimyō to live in Edo permanently, while the daimyō were forced to travel back and forth between the capital and their private lands, visiting Edo every other year. By keeping the daimyō families in Edo as "hostages," the shogunate ensured that the daimyō would not rise in rebellion or do anything against the wishes of the Shogun. However, in reality, the daimyō families led very normal and pleasant lives in the capital.
Photograph of a Samurai with a sword
Representation of Kabuki Theater
The Shogunate was never static and power shifted constantly throughout the Tokugawa— each shōgun encountered competition and challenges to their authority. Daimyō often hired samurai to guard their land, and they paid the samurai in land or food. In contrast with European feudal knights, samurai were not landowners, but they were the military nobility of early modern Japan. Samurai 侍 came to mean “someone who serves the nobility”. During the Tokugawa, the lasting peace meant that samurai were less and less known as warriors and fulfilled more bureaucratic and administrative roles.
The daimyō, of course, did not travel alone: they brought large retinues numbering in the hundreds and had to maintain permanent staff in Edo as well as in their homelands. Because the men brought very few women with them to Edo (apart from their wives and daughters, who were left as hostages), the gender ratio in the capital was extremely skewed, with almost two men for every woman. This, in turn, led to the establishment of brothels and the expansion of courtesan culture. The policy of Sankin-kōtai had numerous other important impacts on Japanese society: it increased the political control of the Tokugawa shōgun over the daimyō as they were forced to spend time away from their lands and spend great deals of their money to maintain a home at their castle and in the capital; it increased the need for roads and infrastructure between Edo and the daimyō’s lands; and it also meant that Edo would develop as a cultural center around the many lords and their families, who now had to spend time in the capital and had large incomes to spend on entertainment, fashion, and food.
The Tokugawa Bakufu and the Policy of Alternate Attendance Sankin-kōtai, or the policy of “alternate attendance,” was a system established by the
Imperial Procession in Edo
Samurai and the Story of the FortySeven Ronin Samurai were the military nobility of early modern Japan. By the end of the 12th century, samurai became almost entirely synonymous with bushi, a word that was closely associated with the middle and upper echelons of the warrior class. The idea of bushi originates from the samurai moral code, stressing frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honour. The samurai followed a set of rules that came to be known as bushido —or the way of bushi. While samurai numbered less than 10% of Japan's population in the early modern era, samurai teachings can still be found today in both everyday life and in modern Japanese martial arts. The philosophies of Buddhism and Zen, and to a lesser extent Confucianism and Shinto, influenced the samurai culture. Zen meditation became important in samurai training, and Confucianism played an important role in samurai philosophy by stressing the importance of the lord-retainer relationship, or the loyalty that a samurai was required to show his feudal lord. By the nineteenth century, there was a paradoxical shift in the samurai culture: it became more codified as an elite social class, but also, their role as violent warriors was cutback by the Shogun, who was nervous about rebellion. When the Tokugawa Bakufu forced the daimyō to reduce the size of their armies, ronin 浪人—or master-less samurai—became
a large problem in Japanese society. One of the most famous legends in Japan is the story of the "Forty-Seven Ronin," which took place in Japan at the beginning of the 18th century. The story tells of a group of ronin, who saught revenge for their lord after he was forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide). Upon getting their revenge, the ronin are captured and obliged to commit seppuku. This true story was embellished and gained a sort of mythical quality within Japanese culture and the "FortySeven Ronin" came to embody all the virtues of a samurai: loyalty, sacrifice, and honor.
The “Forty-Seven Ronin”
Society and Culture in Tokugawa Japan During the Tokugawa Period, the peace that followed the Warring States Period brought a new era of prosperity and growth. The continuous warfare that ended with the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate meant that the population quickly expanded in the peacetime to around 17 million people by 1650. This growth was also facilitated by less frequent epidemics and the introduction of
a single religion; rather, they incorporate elements of various religions in a syncretic fashion known as Shinbutsu shugou—or the amalgamation of Shinto kami and Buddhism. Shinto and Japanese Buddhism are therefore best understood not as completely separate and competing faiths, but rather as a multi-faceted and rather complex religious system.
Japanese farmers with Mount Fuji in the background
new, stronger rice strains. As prosperity and the population grew, commercial activity flourished connecting regions that had previously been politically divided. This growth in population also led to the concentration of large numbers of people in urban areas, which in turn led to the growth of cities. Before, daimyō had lived in walled castles, but wary of rebellion, Tokugawa Ieyasu had redesigned castles to have smaller walls and to be more open, allowing more fluid flow of traffic and to be less defensive structures. In tandem with the increased agricultural output owing to new types of grains, changes in both urban and rural Japan contributed substantially to the process of building a strong state and an industrial economy in the nineteenth century. In a way, then, the changes that happened in Japanese society throughout the Tokugawa Period can be understood as developments that led up to the Meiji Restoration in 1868 rather than seeing the Meiji Restoration as a rupture or a break with the past. (The next module discusses the Meiji Restoration.)
Religion, Christianity, and the Tokugawa Shogunate Today, most Japanese people do not exclusively identify themselves as adherents of
Map of Japan -Mount Fuji - Edo Period
This more syncretic approach to religion means that Japanese were often open and receptive to new religious ideas, so when Christian missionaries showed up, the Japanese were open and receptive to the Christian teachings. However, this did not last long as the missionaries quickly began to manoeuvre politically, much to the chagrin of the Tokugawa Shogun. After a few failed attempts at banning Christianity, the Tokugawa Shogunate crucified 26 Christians—some were Europeans and some were Japanese—and finally managed to expel all the western missionaries, forcing the remaining Japanese Christians underground. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Japan was producing about onethird of the world’s silver. Most of it was heading to China in exchange for luxury goods like silk and fine teas, but when Europeans got
wind of the fact that there were large silver mines in Japan, they wanted in on it.
In any case, the expulsion of the Christians had a lasting impact not only on the development of Japan as a nation, but also on the way that Europeans wrote about Japan. Until recently, this event was seen as a “rejection” of the west and as the “closing” of Japanese society to the world during the Tokugawa and that society was stagnant and non-changing. However, as we have seen in this module, that was not the case at all.
Matthew Perry and his “Black Ships” The Martyrdom of 26 Christians
In 1543, two Portuguese ships arrived from Macao, establishing trade relations with the local daimyō and introducing the locals to muskets. In the endemic warfare of the time period, daimyō quickly realized the value of these muskets and placed large orders for them. Following right behind the merchants were the missionaries, who at first received a relatively free reign and began converting large numbers of Japanese to Christianity. Initially, they were tolerated, but soon after they were expelled. It is likely that some of the daimyō had become allied with some powerful Jesuits and converted to Christianity, so the Shogun saw Christianity as a threat to his political order, not as some sort socio-religious problem.
In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay with a number of war ships and demanded that the Tokugawa open trading ports to the Americans. He left the Tokugawa with an ultimatum: he would return in one year with more ships and more guns, and if the Japanese did not concede to his demands, he would attack. The Tokugawa Shogun, aware of the humiliation that the Chinese had suffered in the Opium Wars with the British and the subsequent treaties they had been forced to sign, conceded to Perry’s demands. In the past, this event was explained by historians as “the opening” of Japan after centuries of isolation and stagnation, but today, many historians now argue that the idea that Tokugawa Japan was a “closed” society is not a legitimate claim but rather a vestige of an out-dated way of writing and thinking about history.
Monument dedicated to the 26 Christian Martyrs who were crucified Japanese depiction of Commodore Perry’s Black Ships
In 1854, the Treaty of Peace and Amity allowed the United States to begin trading with the Japanese and offered a promise of good and fair treatment to shipwrecked Americans. Five years later, another act was forced on the Tokugawa Shogunate, opening even more ports for trade with the United States.
Steam train at Nagasaki
While there were anti-western feelings among the population, many people realized the benefits of western sciences and military advancements. This led to division within the country as different groups vied to have their viewpoints heard about how to approach modernization. In an attempt to keep up with western weapons and defense, a naval training academy was established in Nagasaki in 1855 with Dutch instructors. The following year a military school that embraced western ideas was launched in Edo. By 1868, changes that had been set in motion throughout the Tokugawa—and perhaps quickened by Perry’s arrival in Edo—led to the Meiji Restoration and the effective end of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Useful Websites
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3V5gVL PEvI
Accompaniment website for most popular college level textbook for teaching introductory courses for Modern Japan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOGyzG WW7j4
http://www.oup.com/us/companion.websites/ 9780195339222/ Narrative of the history of the Tokugawa period from Asian History, a reliable source for information about Asia on the Internet: http://asianhistory.about.com/od/japan/p/H istory-Tokugawa-Shogunate-Japan.htm A lesson about the different Shoguns and periods in the Tokugawa presented by a PhD student in Japanese history http://sakurazen.blogspot.com/2011/01/lesson-in-historyshogunates-and.html A link to images from the Tokugawa period with good descriptions of the images, their sources and context http://www.artelino.com/articles/tokugawa _bakufu.asp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRrDg0u DJWQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vHvmA VSyUI History of the Tokugawa (Edo) Period hosted by the Government of Japan http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2128.html Art from the Tokugawa (Edo) Period presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/edop/ hd_edop.htm Art from the Tokugawa (Edo) Period presented by the Honolulu Museum of Fine Art http://honolulumuseum.org/art/exhibitions/1 1649edos_zagat_guide_hiroshiges_grand_series_ famous_tea_houses
List of all the Tokugawa Shoguns and their concubines and wives.
Anatomical and Scientific Illustrations from the Tokugawa Period showing medical methods before and after the arrival of Europeans
http://www.lesleydowner.com/journalism/se crets-of-the-shoguns-harem/the-tokugawashoguns/
http://pasolininuc.blogspot.com/2013/02/an atomical-illustrations-from-edo.html
Short documentary about the Tokugawa Period
Great Maps of Japan—searchable and great ability to zoom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjovMjP U9ug
http://www.bigmapblog.com/2012/japanesemap-of-tokyo-bay-1852/
Five-part series about the Tokugawa Period
Blog about women and material culture in late Tokugawa Japan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQlxcz9U 2x0
http://www.tokyoedoradio.org/Project/Links
/edoCombs/edoCombs.html Explaination and description of state and society in the Edo Period http://www.grips.ac.jp/teacher/oono/hp/lect ure_J/lec02.htm Information about individual samurai and samurai culture in general http://www.samurai-archives.com/edo.html Interesting and thoughtful module hosted by the Asian education program at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco http://education.asianart.org/exploreresources/background-information/edoperiod-1615-1868-culture-and-lifestyle Faculty posting about the decline of the Tokugawa http://bhoffert.faculty.noctrl.edu/HST263/15. TokugawaDecline.html Naval Documents from the US Navy website of Commodore Perry’s visits to Edo http://www.history.navy.mil/library/special /perry_openjapan1.htm
Suggested Further Reading Ambros, Barbara and Duncan Williams, eds. Local Religion in Tokugawa History. Nagoya: Nanzan Institute of Religion and Culture, 2001. Ambros, Barbara. Emplacing the Pigrimage: The Oyama Cult and Regional Religion in Early Modern Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Pres, 2008.
Benedict, Ruth. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. Berry, Mary Elizabeth. Japan in Print: Information and Nation in the Early Modern Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Boxer, Charles. The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Brown, Phillp C. Central Authority and Local Autonomy in the Formation of Early Modern Japan: The Case of Kaga Domain. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. Davis, Julie Nelson. Utamoro and the Spectacle of Beauty. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007. Dower, John with Timothy S. George. Japanese History and Culture from Ancient to Modern Times: Seven Basic Bibliographies. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1995 (Second Edition). Elison, George. Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan. 1988. Farris, William Wayne. Japan’s Medieval Population: Famine, Fertility, and Warfare in a Transformative Age. 2006 Ferejohn, John A. and Frances McCall Rosenbluth, eds. War and State Buildng in Medieval Japan. 2010. Friday, Karl, ed. Japan Emerging: Premodern History to 1850. New York: Westview Press, 2012.
Goodman, Grant. The Dutch Impact on Japan, 1640-1853. Leiden: Brill, 1967. Gordon, Andrew. A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009 (Second Edition). Gramlich-Oka, Bettina, and Gregory Smits, eds. Economic Thought in Early Modern Japan. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Guth, Christine. Art of Edo Japan: The Artist and the City, 1616-1868. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Hellyer, Robert. Defining Engagement: Japan and Global Contexts, 1640-1868. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009. Hurst, Cameron G. III. Armed Martial Arts of Japan. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. Jansen, Marius B. China and the Tokugawa World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. Jansen, Marius B. The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. Katsu Kokichi. Masui’s Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993. Maruyama Masao. Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974. McClain, James L. A Modern History: Japan. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002.
McCLain, James L. and Osamu Wakita, eds. Osaka: The Merchants’ Capital of Early Modern Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. McMullin, Neil. Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth-Century Japan. 1984 Moran, J.F. The Japanese and the Jesuits: Alessandro Valignano in SixteenthCentury Japan. New York: Routledge, 1993. Nakane Chie and Oishi Shinzaburo, eds. Tokugawa Japan: The Social and Economic Antecedents of Modern Japan. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1990. Nosco, Peter, ed. Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Ooms, Herman. Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Perez, Louis G. Daily Life in Early Modern Japan. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002. Ravina, Mark. Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Rubinger, Richard. Popular Literacy in Early Modern Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007. Ruch, Barbara, ed. Engendering Faith: Women and Buddhism in Premodern Japan. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. Toby, Roland. State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the
Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Totman, Conrad. Politics in the Tokugawa Bakufu, 1600-1843. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967. Totman, Conrad. The Collapse of the Tokugawa Bakufu, 1862-1868. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1980. Vaporis, Constantine N. Tour of Duty: Samurai, Military Service in Edo, and the Culture of Early Modern Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008. Whelan, Christal. The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japan’s Hidden Christians. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996.