Summary of the Tokugawa Period
(Tōshūsai Sharaku; Kabuki actor Ōtani Oniji III; 1794; Met Museum of Art)
Justin Aukema
June 2, 2016
When people today think of “traditional”
Japan, they are often thinking of the Edo/Tokugawa Era from 1603 to 1868. It
was during this more than two-hundred-fifty-year period of peace (Pax Tokugawa) that
many Japanese “customs” were solidified and gained popularity in Japanese
society and further examples of art and literature were created. Art forms such
as kabuki and writers like the poet
Matsuo Basho, for example, which are now household words/names both in Japan
and abroad got their start in this time.
How did this situation come about? After the
almost one-hundred-year period of warfare between the regional lords (daimyo) known as the Sengogku Era
(Warring States Period) the situation finally began to stabilize in the
mid-1500s when three powerful leaders solidified control of the land. The first
of the was Oda Nobunaga, a ruthless warlord who crushed his enemies including
the last of the Ashikaga shoguns as well as the militant monks of the Tendai
Buddhist temples around Mt. Hiei. When Oda died, the son of a foot soldier,
Toyotomi Hideyoshi and a general for Oda, took control of his armies. Toyotomi
famously sent troops to Korea in 1592 and 1597 in an attempt to become “ruler
of the East Asian world” (Huffman, 56). When Toyotomi failed to produce an
heir, Tokugawa Ieyasu seized the opportunity to take power. After fighting
which culminated in the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), Tokugawa and his forces
emerged victorious and he established his new government in the relocated
capital of Edo (Tokyo).
Rather than try to wipe out his enemies,
Tokugawa preferred to pacify them, and he solidified his power through
alliances and other means. Although he left the daimyo relatively intact, he did reward those who had allied with
him prior to the Battle of Sekigahara, the fudai
daimyo, with the best land and
positions along trade routes. This was in contrast to those who allied with him
only after he secured his power, the tozama
daimyo, who were positioned further from the capital in Edo. Notable
examples from among this group were the domains of Satsuma and Chōshū. In this
way, nearly 250 domains emerged in what became known as the baku-han system of governance (i.e. the
central, bakufu government in Edo and
the provincial domains, han).
The Tokugawa shoguns devised an ingenious
method of control known as sankin-kōtai,
in which regional daimyo were forced
to spend part of the year in the capital. This required them to maintain
expensive residences in Edo, and it allowed the bakufu to monitor the daimyo.
This also had the effect of further developing an intricate system of roads
between the periphery and the center. Trade and culture benefited from this,
and everything from commercial goods to fashion sense traversed these
increasingly well-traveled roads. Consequently, the idea of a shared sense of
national tastes and interests slowly began to emerge.
The era of peace under the Pax Tokugawa
generally had major impacts on society. As living standards improved and cities
and localities became more prosperous, the population boomed. In the 17th
c. the population grew from 12 million to 25 million, and the capital in Edo
became the largest city in the world with a population of one million people.
The population also benefited from increased education and improvements in mass
printing technologies and more published works. Private education was extended to
large portions of the public through “temple-schools” known as tera goya. By the early 1800s, 40
percent of men and 10 percent of women were literate, an incredibly high rate
for the time.
Not everyone benefited from this system
equally, however. The Tokugawa Era is also known for its rigid class system
known as shi-nō-kō-sho which means
samurai, peasants, artisans, and merchants. In other words, this ranked samurai
at the top of society; peasants were ranked next in the hierarchy of
importance, since they produced food for society. Artisans were mainly
perceived in their pragmatic role as the makers of pots and pans within which
to store and consume foodstuffs; and finally merchants were listed at the
bottom since their role was simply seen as an intermediary and seller of the
wares needed in food production/consumption.
- See an example of a primary source document on the four classes in Tokugawa here
In fact, the shi-nō-kō-sho idea masked a number of inconvenient realities.
Namely, despite the high social standing of the samurai, which made up seven
percent of the population, their economic position was quite weak. No longer
able to rely solely on military pursuits in an age of peace, the samurai
largely became government bureaucrats. However, their small stipend was often
not enough to support their families, and many samurai were forced to turn to
other pursuits, sometimes scholarly and occasionally mercantilist. A well-known
example of Hiraga Gennai (1728-80), a low-ranking samurai who transcended the
class system to become somewhat of a renaissance man, eventually taking up the
natural sciences (honzōgaku) and Dutch
learning (rangaku), as well as
becoming an inventor; he even produced literary works such as the satirical “On
Farting,” in which he expressed his discontent with society at the time. “Confucius
himself did not eschew childish ditties,” says the narrator of the story,
toying with conventional morality; “No more do I exclude from my discourse the
matter of farts” (Jones, 397).
There was another side to the class
system as well – the so-called “untouchables” of society known as eta and hinin. These were people who were engaged in professions considered
as “unclean” including tannery and/or butchery. These groups were forced to
literally live outside of society, on the outskirts of villages and hamlets and
were forbidden, for example, from entering the houses of commoners and city
folk. The groups were discriminated against in society and largely considered
to be less than human by most. In modern history, these groups became known as burakumin, and some forms of discrimination
against them (namely the profession of butchery, tannery, and others relating
to death in general) remain today.
The beneficiaries of the Tokugawa-era
class system, aside from the ruling classes themselves, were the merchants and,
to a lesser extent, the commoners (chōnin).
These groups retained a remarkable degree of freedom and economic autonomy, evidenced
by the fact that they produced most of the major works of art and literature of
this time. One major topic of art at the time were the large pleasure and
entertainment districts of the major urban areas. The great amount of leisure
time spent here, as well as the controlled nature of interactions between
courtesans and patrons gave rise to the idea of a “floating world” (ukiyo). Combined with mass printing techniques,
this gave way to one of the era’s signature art forms, the ukiyo-e. The growing wealth of the merchant class also eventually
resulted in families like Mitsui and companies such as Noda Shōyu (Kikkoman)
getting their start at this time.
(Suzuki Harunobu; "Night Rain at the Double-shelf Stand"; 1766; Met Museum)
(Katsushika Hokusai; "Under the Wave Off Kanagawa"; 1830-2; Met Museum)
- See an example of Matsuo Basho's poetry here and a section from his Narrow Road to the North here.
- See an example of writing by the novelist Ihara Saikaku here.
- See an section from Kaibara Ekiken's Onna Daigaku (Greater Learning for Women) here.
In the 19th c., however, the
sense of peace and security largely gave way to a feeling of impending doom.
Most notably, this was brought on by worsening economic conditions, increasing
pressure from foreign countries such as Russia, the U.S., and Britain, and
finally the perceived and real inability of the Tokugawa bakufu to handle these changes. Difficult economic conditions
resulted in numerous peasant uprisings such as Ōshio Heihachirō’s famous 1837
fight against Osaka’s rich and powerful. In the 1780s, there were more than 30
such protests each year. In addition, Western nations began to pressure the bakufu to open up to increased foreign
trade. The embarrassing defeat of China to British forces in the Opium Wars
from 1839-42 and again in 1856-60 seemed to confirm that Japan was facing an
impending crisis. This was reflected especially vehemently in the writings of
National Learning (Kokugaku) scholars
of the time such as Aizawa Seisaishi. In his 1825 Shinron (“New Thesis”), Aizawa wrote that foreign “barbarians” had
been “coming to spy on our Middle Kingdom during the past three hundred years”
and that now:
The bakufu once
made it plain to Russia that Japanese law requires us to destroy on sight any
barbarian ship approaching our coasts. But now the English regularly appear and
anchor off our shores, and we do not lift a finger to drive them away. […] Will
the barbarians have any respect for our laws after they hear about this? […]
Who knows what future conspiracies may hatch? (East Asia for Educators)
Aizawa’s thought
came to form the basis of the Mito School, a branch which would rally
like-minded proto-nationalists under the slogan of sonnō-jōi (revere the Emperor and expel the barbarians). It was in
this context that disgruntled samurai and daimyo,
especially from the Satsuma and Chōshū domains would find the opportunity ripe
for political revolution – one which eventually resulted in the overthrow of
the Tokugawa bakufu and the
establishment of the Meiji government.
*Test your knowledge of Tokugawa Period history with these reading response questions.
*Test your knowledge of Tokugawa Period history with these reading response questions.
Sources
Huffman, James L. Japan in World History. Oxford
University Press, 2010.
Jones, Sumie, and Kenji Watanabe, eds. An Edo Anthology:
Literature from Japan’s Mega-
City, 1750-1850.
University of Hawaii Press, 2013.
Columbia University. East Asia for Educators. “Excerpts from
Shinron (New Thesis): ‘The
Barbarians’ Nature.’” 2009.
