徳川日本EDO JAPAN: 1603-1868

TOKUGAWA SHOGUNATE

Early Modern Japan1603-1854

Also known as…Edo Period

Tokugawa Period

WHY IS TOKUGAWA IMPORTANT?

Brought an end to hundred+ years of fighting and civil war between daimyos.

Creation of a centralized state, national system

Isolated Japan (that does NOT mean no change or no new ideas or contact)

Critical transition from “feudal” to “pre-modern”society and economy.

Creates conditions that enable Japan to modernize so rapidly in Meiji period (1868-1911).

Before Tokugawa, Japan warring states of daimyo (noble) warlords

Hundreds of separate Daimyo estates

Each with their own samurais for battle and farmers for food

Feudal & decentralized

• Portugese bring guns, goods and religion in mid-1500s.

• Christians killed and foreigners expelled by 1630s

Francis Xavier

Jesuit missionary

Brings Christianity to Japan 1542

17th century Japanese Bible

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Grasps power after a decisive battle at Sekigahara in 1600. By 1603, Ieyasu is granted the title of shogun by the emperor and establishes the Tokugawa shogunate

Tokugawa changes

•Economic activity (Money economy)

•Growth of cities

•Rise of merchant class

•Productivity of agriculture

•Flourishing of art

Tokugawa Strategy:

MAINTAIN ORDER

1. Order in Politics-alternate attendance system

(control daimyo)-control over samurai

2. Order in Society-rigid class system-restrict travel

3. Order in International Relations-isolationism (not complete,

primarily from Western influence

Capital city

moves to Edo

(modern-day

Tokyo)

Tokugawa Strategies

1.Maintain Order in Politics

* collect weapons* renew loyalty oath w/ new shogun* all marriages approved by Tokugawa* alternate attendance and hostage

system

Hideyoshi’s Sword Hunt

Collects swords from all members of the population except samurai, who now have the sole right to carry them.

Alternate attendance system (sankin kotai) 参勤交代

Families in Edo; daimyos travel back/forth every 2 years

参勤交代

Impacts of sankin kotai (alternate attendance system):

Suppressed possibility of rebellion (wives, children of daimyo remain in Edo as hostages)

Economic costs of travel on daimyo ensured lack of funds for rebel armies

Tokugawa Strategy:

2. Maintain Order in Society

-rigid class system-new roles for samurai-permission to travel

Tokugawa Strategy:

2. Maintain Order in Society

-rigid class system-restrict travel

RIGID SOCIAL STRUCTURE

Confucianism: System to promote stability

1. Reverence for past

2. Maintaining proper place in an unchanging hierarchy

3. Social hierarchy based on contributions to good of society

侍 Samurai:• Literally, “one who serves”

• 7-8% of the total population

• Bound by code of ethics known as bushido

Special rights:dai-sho 大小 two swords (large

and small)kirisute-gomen 切捨て御免 right

to cut down/ kill offending commoners without punishment

seppuku 切腹 right to ritual suicide (self-evisceration)

New social roles for samurai during the great Tokugawa peace

•Teachers

• Poets, scholars, writers

• Buddhist monks

• Government posts -- civil administration

•Others: grew poor, became bandits

•ULTIMATELY LOST INFLUENCE

EDUCATION INCREASED:

Tokugawa-era commoner school

(terakoya) for girls

Farmers & Peasants:

• More than 80% of total population

• Taxed 40-50% of the crops they produced.

• Forbidden access to all recreation and games other than local festivals.

• Provide labor for public works (roads, bridges, etc.)

Rise of Castle Towns:Townspeople and Merchants:

• Townsperson culture

• Laws stating what they could wear, where they could live, size of home, etc.

• Major commercial centers emerge.• Osaka -- sake, soy sauce, cloth, paper, iron.

Kyoto - textiles, pottery.

• Trade along the Tokaido Road

Bookstore in Edo

Travel

Travel

Utagawa print: 53 stations of the Tokaido Road: Barrier station

Travel

Tōkaidō road

Rise of Merchants:

Money to be loaned to samurai and daimyos

Urban culture

Provide goods and entertainment

Rise of Merchants:

Money to be loaned to samurai

and daimyos

Urban culture

Provide goods and entertainment

Outcastes or“non-persons”

• The “invisible” class of outcastes (butchers, leather tanners, etc).

• Forced to live in designated districts of Edo.

• Called non-persons非人

• Often worked as entertainers.

1873 photograph by Shinichi Suzuki depicting leather workers (tanners). One man scrapes the hide of a slaughtered deer, while another seems to be discussing a piece of finished cat. On the right stands a young man with a load of animal skin.

Traveling Book and Print Salesman

Entertainments

•kabuki

•sumo

•Yoshiwara pleasure districts

Yoshiwara pleasure district

Hiroshige, “Crowds in the Theater Quarter” from 100 Famous Views of Edo, 1848-1858.

Kabuki

Woodblock print of a kabuki actor

Bunraku puppet theater

Tokugawa Strategy:

2. Maintain Order in International relations

-isolationism-1 Dutch ship/ year for goods, trade

Changes by the 1800s….

1.Dissatisfaction with Tokugawa rule

2.Arrival of Commodore Perry and Black Ships