Kubota Domain
Kubota Domain was a feudal domain in Edo period Japan, located in Dewa Province, Japan. It was centered on Kubota Castle in what is now the city of Akita and was thus also known as the Akita Domain. It was governed for the whole of its history by the Satake clan. During its rule over Kubota, the Satake clan was ranked as a Province-holding daimyō family, and as such, had the privilege of shogunal audiences in the Great Hall of Edo Castle.
In the Boshin War of 1868–69, the domain joined the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei, the alliance of northern domains supporting the Tokugawa shogunate, but then later defected to the imperial side. As with all other domains, it was disbanded in 1871.
History
The Satake clan was a powerful samurai clan, who ruled Hitachi Province from the late Heian period through the end of the Sengoku period. In 1600, the Satake sided with the pro-Toyotomi cause at the Battle of Sekigahara. After the defeat of the pro-Toyotomi forces by Tokugawa Ieyasu and the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, the Satake clan was punished by a severe reduction in its kokudaka. and by being ordered to relocate from their ancestral territories in Hitachi Province to a much smaller fief in inhospitable northern Japan. As a result of this drop in income, the Satake had to lay off many retainers, and institute a general stipend reduction for those it kept.The domain also struggled through agricultural crises, which resulted in several peasant uprisings throughout the course of its history. It was also beset by an internal O-Ie Sōdō conflict, the Satake disturbance, which was brought on by financial issues.
The domain had a population of 56,813 people per the 1730 census. It maintained its primary residence in Edo at Uchi-Kanda Asahi-cho until a fire in 1682, after which the residence was moved to Shichigen-cho in Shitaya. The domain’s secondary residence was in Fukagawa, and its tertiary residences in Torigoe, Honjo and Nippori.
Satake Yoshiatsu, the 8th generation lord of Kubota, was an accomplished artist. Yoshiatsu painted a number of paintings in the Dutch style, and also produced three treatises on European painting techniques, including the depiction of perspective. He was also a student of Dutch studies scholar Hiraga Gennai, who he had invited up to Akita to advise him on management of the domain's copper mines. It was during Yoshiatsu's lifetime that the Akita ranga of art was born and briefly flourished.
Kubota Domain was uncommon in that it contained more than one castle, and was an exception to the Tokugawa shogunate's "one castle per domain" rule. The main castle was Kubota Castle, but there were also castles at Yokote and Ōdate, and five fortified estates elsewhere in the domain: Kakunodate, Yuzawa, Hiyama, Jūniso, and In'nai. Each of these was given to a senior retainer who ran it as his own small castle town. The senior retainers had personal retainers who resided in these castle towns.
Kubota Domain had two sub-domains: Iwasaki and the short-lived Kubota-shinden'.
Two of the clan elder families serving the Kubota domain were branches of the Satake family. One was the North Satake family, stipended at 10,000 koku; the other the West Satake family, stipended at 7200 koku. The North Satake family had its landholdings around Kakunodate, one of the fortified estates mentioned above; the West Satake resided in and had their landholdings around Ōdate. Yokote Castle was in the care of another hereditary karō family, the Tomura. Norihisa Satake, the current mayor of the city of Akita, is a descendant of the North Satake.
During the Boshin War of 1868–69, the Satake clan was a signatory to the pact that formed the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei, the alliance of northern domains led by the Sendai Domain. The Satake clan's delegation at Shiroishi, the alliance's headquarters, was led by the clan elder Tomura Yoshiari. However, the Satake had political difficulties with the alliance, which culminated in the murder, in Akita, of a delegation from Sendai on August 21, 1868, and the display of the messengers' gibbeted heads in the Akita castle town. The delegation, led by Shimo Matazaemon, was dispatched to request the Akita domain to hand over Kujō Michitaka and other officials of an imperial delegation that had been originally sent to the region to gather support for the imperial cause. The Satake then backed out of the alliance and supported the imperial army; eleven days later, on September 1, 1868 the Tsugaru clan of the neighboring Hirosaki Domain followed suit. In response, the pro-alliance domains of Morioka and Ichinoseki Domains sent troops to attack Kubota. Kubota forces were hard-pressed to defend their territory, with the result that the alliance troops had made serious advances by the time the war ended in northern Honshū. In early 1869, Satake Yoshitaka formally gave up the domain's registers to the imperial government, and was made imperial governor of Kubota. In mid-1869, the imperial government rewarded its service in the Boshin War with an increase in kokudaka of 20,000 koku. However, with the abolition of the han system in 1871, the former domain was absorbed into the new Akita Prefecture and Satake Yoshitaka was ordered to relocate to Tokyo. He subsequently received the kazoku peerage title of koshaku''.
Holdings at the end of the Edo period
As with most domains in the han system, Kubota Domain consisted of several discontinuous territories calculated to provide the assigned kokudaka, based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields.- Dewa Province
- *286 villages in Akita District
- *59 villages in Kawabe District
- *181 villages in Senboku District
- *115 villages in Hiraka District
- *59 villages in Yamamoto District
- *55 villages in Ogachi District
- Shimotsuke Province
- *3 villages in Tsuga District
- *8 villages in Kawachi District
- Teshio Province, Ezo
- * 1 trading post in Mashike District
- Kitami Province, Ezo
- * 1 trading post in Rishiri District
- * 1 trading post in Rebun District
- * most of Soya District
List of Daimyō
Genealogy (simplified)
- Satake Yoshishige, 18th head of the Satake clan
- *15px I. Yoshinobu, 1st daimyō of Kubota
- *Iwaki Sadataka, Lord of Shinano-Nakamura
- **15px II. Satake Yoshitaka, 2nd daimyō of Kubota
- ***Yoshioki
- **** Yoshikuni, 1st daimyō of Kubota-Shinden
- ***** Yoshikata, 2nd daimyō of Kubota-Shinden
- ****** 15px VI. Yoshimasa, 6th daimyō of Kubota
- ***15px III. Yoshizumi, 3rd daimyō of Kubota
- ****15px IV. Yoshitada, 4th daimyō of Kubota
- **** Sōma Nobutane, 6th daimyō of Sōma-Nakamura
- ***** Sōma Noritane
- ****** Sōma Morotane, 8th daimyō of Sōma-Nakamura
- ******* Sōma Yoshitane, 9th daimyō of Sōma-Nakamura
- ******** Sōma Masutane, 11th daimyō of Sōma-Nakamura
- *********Sōma Mitsutane, 12th daimyō of Sōma-Nakamura
- ********** Satake Yoshisato, 9th daimyō of Iwasaki, 1st Viscount
- *********** Yoshitatsu, 2nd Baron, head of the Iwasaki branch
- ************ Yoshiaki, head of the Iwasaki branch
- ************* Yoshitomo, head of the Iwasaki branch
- ************** Asanashi
- *********15px XII. Satake Yoshitaka II, 12th daimyō of Kubota, 1st Marquess
- ********** Yoshinari, 33rd family head, 2nd Marquess
- *********** Yoshiharu, 34th family head, 3rd Marquess
- ************ Yoshihide, 35th family head, 4th Marquess, m. Tokugawa Yuriko, dau. of Tokugawa Yoshichika, 1st Marquess, and brother of Ogiu Yoshitatsu, 3rd Count. He adopted his nephew, the son of Ogiu Yoshitatsu:
- ************* Satake Takashi, 36th family head
- **************Motohiro
- ************** Akihiro
- ********* Satake Yoshimatsu, 8th daimyō of Iwasaki
- ********** Yoshinao, 31st family head, 1st Baron
- *** Yoshinaga, 1st daimyō of Iwasaki
- **** 15px V. Yoshimine, 5th daimyō of Kubota
- * A daughter, m. Takakura Nagayoshi
- ** Satake Yoshichika
- *** Yoshihide
- **** Yoshimoto
- ***** Yoshimichi, 2nd daimyō of Iwasaki
- ****** 15px VII. Yoshiharu, 7th daimyō of Kubota
- ******* 15px VIII. Yoshiatsu, 8th daimyō of Kubota
- ******** 15px IX. Yoshimasa, 9th daimyō of Kubota
- ********* 15px X. Yoshihiro, 10th daimyō of Kubota
- ********** 15px 'XI. Yoshichika, 11th daimyō'' of Kubota'''
Subsidiary domains
Iwasaki Domain
Iwasaki Domain, also known as Akita Shinden Domain was founded in 1701 for Satake Yoshinaga, the fourth son of Satake Yoshitaka, the 2nd daimyō of Kubota Domain, who assigned him 20,000 koku of rice revenues from newly opened fields. He built a jin'ya in what is now Yuzawa, Akita, where his descendants continued to rule until the Meiji restoration. The domain was unusual in that it did not directly control any territory, but was assigned revenues from the general revenues of the parent domain. The daimyō of Iwasaki Domain participated in the sankin kotai system, and used Kubota Domain’s tertiary residence in Edo, located in Torigoe.- Satake clan 1701-1871
| # | Name | Tenure | Courtesy title | Court Rank | kokudaka |
| 1 | Satake Yoshinobu | 1701-1718 | Iki-no-kami ; Hyōbu- shōyū | Junior 5th Rank, Lower Grade | 20,000 koku |
| 2 | Satake Yoshimichi | 1718-1763 | Iki-no-kami ; Izumi-no-kami | Junior 5th Rank, Lower Grade | 20,000 koku |
| 3 | Satake Yoshtada | 1763-1780 | Iki-no-kami ; Izumi-no-kami | Junior 5th Rank, Lower Grade | 20,000 koku |
| 4 | Satake Yoshimoto | 1780-1793 | Iki-no-kami | Junior 5th Rank, Lower Grade | 20,000 koku |
| 5 | Satake Yoshichika | 1793-1821 | Iki-no-kami | Junior 5th Rank, Lower Grade | 20,000 koku |
| 6 | Satake Yoshizumi | 1821-1849 | Iki-no-kami | Junior 5th Rank, Lower Grade | 20,000 koku |
| 7 | Satake Yoshitaka | 1849-1857 | Sakon'e-chūjō | Lower 4th Lower 4th | 20,000 koku |
| 8 | Satake Yoshimatsu | 1857-1869 | Iki-no-kami | Junior 5th Rank, Lower Grade | 20,000 koku |
| 9 | Satake Yoshisato | 1869-1871 | -none- | -none- | 20,000 koku |