|
The Tokugawa Shogunate or Tokugawa bakufu (also known as the Edo
bakufu) was a feudal military dictatorship established in 1603 by Tokugawa
Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family until 1868. This
period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city of
Edo, now Tokyo.
Following the Sengoku Period of "warring states", central government
had been largely re-established by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi
during the Azuchi-Momoyama period. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600,
central authority fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu who completed this process and
received the title of shogun in 1603. His descendants were to hold the
position, and the central authority that came with it, until the 19th
century.
The Tokugawa period, unlike the Shogunate before it, was based on the
strict class hierarchy established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The warrior-caste
of samurai were at the top, followed by peasants, artisans, and traders. An
additional class was filled by the burakumin (or eta), the lowest in status
and socially despised for dealing in taboo trades connected with death.
"Classless" persons such as entertainers also existed, having neither the
restrictions nor the protections granted by the acknowledged castes.
Ironically, the very strictness of the caste system was to undermine
these classes in the long run. Taxes on the peasantry were set to fixed
amounts which did not account for inflation or other changes in monetary
value. As a result, the tax revenues collected by the samurai landowners
were worth less and less over time. This often led to confrontations between
noble but impoverished samurai and well-to-do peasants. The autobiography of
a late-period samurai, Msuii's Story, documents some such confrontations.
Toward the end of the 19th century, an alliance of several of the more
powerful daimyo with the titular Emperor finally succeeded in the overthrow
of the Shogunate, culminating in the Meiji Restoration. The Tokugawa bakufu
came to an official end in 1868 with the resignation of the 15th Tokugawa
Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu and the "restoration" ('Taisei Houkan') of
imperial rule.
The late Tokugawa Shogunate or last shogun (幕末; Bakumatsu) is the period
between 1853 and 1867 during which Japan ended its isolationist foreign
policy and modernized from a feudal Shogunate to the Meiji government. It is
at end of Edo period and preceded by Meiji era.
|
