Tozama

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Tozama

A was a daimyo

Daimyo

The were powerful territorial lords who ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. The term derives from a shortening of the title , which literally means "great named land" and originally simply referred to the owner of a large estate....
who was considered an outsider by the rulers of Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
. The term came into use in the Kamakura period

Kamakura period

The is a period of History of Japan that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa by the first shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo....
and continued until the end of the Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of History of Japan running from 1603 to 1868. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa shogunate, which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu....
.

daimyo who submitted to the Tokugawa shogunate

Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the , and the , was a feudalism regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family....
after the Battle of Sekigahara

Battle of Sekigahara

The , popularly known as the , was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 which cleared the path to the Shogunate for Tokugawa Ieyasu. Though it would take three more years for Ieyasu to consolidate his position of power over the Toyotomi clan and the daimyo, Sekigahara is widely considered to be the unofficial beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate,...
, that is who became Tokugawa vassals only after the battle, were classified as tozama.

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A was a daimyo

Daimyo

Japan

Kamakura period

Edo period

The daimyo who submitted to the Tokugawa shogunate

Tokugawa shogunate

Battle of Sekigahara

Han (Japan)

The , or domains, were the fiefs of feudal lords of Japan that were created by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and existed until their Abolition of the han system in 1871, three years after the Meiji Restoration....
were ruled by tozama. The biggest was the Maeda clan

Maeda clan

The was a branch of the Sugawara clan who descended from Sugawara no Kiyotomo and Sugawara no Michizane in the eighth and ninth centuries. It was one of the most powerful samurai families in Japan and they were second only to the Tokugawa clan in rice production and fief size....
of Kaga

Kaga Domain

The was a powerful feudal domain in Kaga Province, Noto Province and Etchu Province Provinces of Japan of Japan during the Edo period. The domain was founded by Maeda Toshiie and headed by the Maeda clan....
with a value of 1,000,000 koku

Koku

The is a unit of volume in Japan, equal to ten cubic shaku. In this definition, 3.5937 koku equal one cubic metre, i.e. 1 koku is approximately 278.3 litres....
. Others included the Shimazu family

Shimazu family

The were the daimyo of the Satsuma Domain Han , which spread over Satsuma Province, Osumi Province and Hyuga Province provinces in Japan.The Shimazu were descendants of the Seiwa Genji branch of the Minamoto clan....
of Satsuma, the Mori

Mori clan

The Mori clan was a Japanese clans of daimyo, descended from Oe no Hiromoto and established themselves in Aki Province. Their name was derived from a shoen in Mori, Aiko District, Sagami Province....
, the Date

Date family

The was a lineage of daimyo who controlled northern Japan in the late 16th century and into the Edo period. Their most famous member was Date Masamune, who established the family's power by avenging his father's death and through support of Tokugawa Ieyasu....
, Hachisuka

Hachisuka clan

The are descendants of Emperor Seiwa and are a branch of the Ashikaga clan and the Shiba clan .Ashikaga Ieuji , son of Ashikaga Yasuuji was the first who adopted the name of Shiba....
, and the Uesugi

Uesugi clan

The was a Japanese samurai clan, descended from the Fujiwara clan and particularly notable for their power in the Muromachi period and Sengoku periods ....
. Many, but not all, of these families, had been living in roughly the same regions for centuries before the Tokugawa shogunate.

Tokugawa Ieyasu had treated the great tozama vassal

Vassal

A vassal in the terminology that both preceded and accompanied the feudal of medieval Europe, is one who enters into mutual obligations with a monarch, usually of military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain guarantees, which came to include the terrain held as a fiefdom....
s amicably but later, between 1623 and 1626, Tokugawa Iemitsu

Tokugawa Iemitsu

Tokugawa Iemitsu , sometimes Romanisation Iyemitsu, was the third shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate who reigned from 1623 to 1651. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu....
was less tolerant of them. Particularly in western Japan, the tozama daimyo heavily profited from foreign trade in the mid 17th century. Their growing success was a threat to the shogunate, which responded by preventing the ports of western Japan and Kyushu

Kyushu

or Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its Japanese Archipelago. Its alternate ancient names include Kyukoku , Chinzei , and Tsukushi-no-shima ....
from trading.

To keep the tozama in check, the shogunate stationed fudai
Fudai

was a class of daimyo who were hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo period Japan. It was primarily the fudai who filled the ranks of the Tokugawa administration....
daimyo in strategic locations, including along major roads and near important cities. For much of the Edo period, the shogunate ordinarily did not appoint tozama to high positions within the government. These went instead to the fudai daimyo. However, this began to change in the Bakumatsu era; one tozama daimyo (Matsumae Takahiro

Matsumae Takahiro

was a Japanese daimyo of the Edo period, who ruled the Matsumae Domain. Though he was a tozama daimyo, he served in the Tokugawa Shogunate as a roju....
) even became a roju
Roju

The , usually translated as Elder, was one of the highest-ranking government posts in Tokugawa shogunate Japan. The term refers either to individual Elders, or to the Council as a whole; under the first two shoguns, there were only two Roju....
.

Tozama daimyo from Satsuma

Satsuma han

The Satsuma domain was one of the most powerful feudal domains in Tokugawa shogunate Japan, and played a major role in the Meiji Restoration and in the government of the Meiji period which followed....
and Choshu

Choshu Han

The was a feudal domain of Japan during the Edo period occupying the whole of modern day Yamaguchi Prefecture. The domain played a major role in the Late Tokugawa shogunate....
(Shimazu and Mori clans respectively) were responsible for the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Bakumatsu era. Rallying other tozama to their cause, they fought against the shogunate, Aizu, and the Ouetsu Reppan Domei

Ouetsu Reppan Domei

The Ouetsu Reppan Domei or was a Japanese military-political coalition established and disestablished over the course of several months in early to mid-1868 during the Boshin War....
during the Boshin War

Boshin War

The was a civil war in Japan, fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and those seeking to return political power to the Emperor of Japan....
of 1868-69. Many people from Satsuma and Choshu dominated politics in the ensuing decades, and well into the 20th century.