Satsuma Domain

Overview

The Satsuma Domain (薩摩藩, Satsuma-han) was a han (藩, domain) — a hereditary feudal territory governed by a lord under the Tokugawa shogunate. It existed from 1602 to 1871, based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, at the southern tip of the island of Kyushu. For its entire existence it was ruled by the Shimazu clan, a family that had controlled the Kagoshima area since the 1200s.

Satsuma was one of the two most powerful domains in Japan. Assessed under the kokudaka system (石高, a measure of a domain's wealth in rice), its value peaked at 770,000 koku, second only to the Kaga Domain. It conquered the Ryukyu Kingdom as a vassal state, fought the British Royal Navy, and helped topple the shogunate it had served for two and a half centuries.

History

The domain was formally established in 1602, in the seventh year of the Keichō era (慶長, 1596–1615). Its first decades were shaped by the Shimazu clan's position as a tozama daimyō (外様大名) — a "outside lord," one whose ancestors had submitted to Tokugawa Ieyasu only after his victory, and who was therefore trusted less than hereditary allies.

In 1609, Satsuma invaded the Ryukyu Kingdom, a chain of islands stretching southwest toward Taiwan. The campaign succeeded, and Ryukyu became a vassal state. The arrangement was unusual: Ryukyu continued to pay tribute to China as well, allowing Satsuma to profit from trade with the Ming and later Qing dynasties through a kingdom that officially remained independent.

In 1863, an incident at Namamugi near Yokohama, in which a British merchant was killed by Satsuma retainers, led to the Bombardment of Kagoshima. British warships shelled the domain's capital. Rather than collapse, Satsuma used the defeat as a spur to modernise its military along Western lines.

That modernisation fed directly into national politics. Satsuma formed the Satchō Alliance (薩長同盟) with its old rival, the Chōshū Domain, and the two domains together drove the Meiji Restoration, which ended the shogunate and returned formal power to the emperor. In 1871, the Meiji government abolished the domains and replaced them with prefectures; Satsuma became Kagoshima Prefecture, with some territory separated off as Miyakonojō Prefecture.

Territory and Influence

Satsuma's heartland was Satsuma Province, but its territory also covered Ōsumi and Hyūga provinces. Its capital was the castle town of Kagoshima, clustered around Kagoshima Castle. The domain's koku rating of 770,000 placed it behind only Kaga among all domains in Japan — a measure of rice yield that translated directly into military manpower and political weight.

The Ryukyu connection gave Satsuma something no other domain possessed: a semi-independent kingdom under its control, with its own diplomatic channels to China. This made Satsuma a gateway for foreign trade and information at a time when the shogunate restricted contact with the outside world.

Satsuma produced figures who shaped modern Japan. Saigō Takamori, the most famous of them, was employed by the domain. The domain is also recorded as the birthplace of Samejima Kazunori, Shimazu Narioki, Nishi Kanjirō, Ichiki Shirō, and Sanenori Sonoda.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name is 薩摩藩. It is read in kana as さつまはん, and in romaji as Satsuma-han.

Breaking it down character by character:

• 薩 (read satsu here) — a kanji used almost exclusively in transliterations of foreign sounds. It carries no everyday meaning of its own in modern Japanese.
• 摩 (read ma here) — likewise a phonetic kanji, meaning "rub" or "scrape" in other contexts, but used here purely for sound.
• 藩 (read han) — the meaningful element. It means "domain" or "fief": the territory of a daimyō under the Tokugawa order.

So the first two characters, 薩摩, are ateji (当て字) — kanji chosen for their sounds rather than their meanings to spell out the place name "Satsuma." The third character, 藩, is the actual classifier, telling the reader that this is a feudal domain and not a province, a city, or a clan. The same 藩 appears in the names of every domain of the period, from Chōshū-han to Kaga-han.

The domain was briefly known as Kagoshima Domain (鹿児島藩, Kagoshima-han), taking its name from its capital. In Ryukyuan, the name was rendered as Sachima-han.

Legacy

The abolition of the domains in 1871 ended Satsuma as a political unit. Kagoshima Prefecture took its place, with Ōyama Tsunayoshi as its first governor. He held the post until 1877, when he was executed during the Satsuma Rebellion — the uprising led by former Satsuma samurai against the very government their domain had helped to create.

From the 1880s, the former domain's territory was divided between Kagoshima and Miyazaki Prefectures, the latter splitting off from Kagoshima in 1883. The Satchō Alliance between Satsuma and Chōshū left a lasting mark on Japanese politics: men from both domains dominated the governments of the Meiji era, and the Empire of Japan was built largely by their hands.