Sakhalin
Sakhalin is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An island of the West Pacific, Sakhalin divides the Sea of Okhotsk to its east from the Sea of Japan to its southwest. It is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast and is the largest island of Russia, with an area of. The island has a population of roughly 500,000, the majority of whom are Russians. The indigenous peoples of the island are the Ainu, Oroks, and Nivkhs, who are now only present in very small numbers.
The island's name is derived from the Manchu word Sahaliyan, which was the name of the Qing dynasty city of Aigun. The Ainu people of Sakhalin paid tribute to the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties and accepted official appointments from them. Sometimes the relationship was forced but control from dynasties in China was loose for the most part.
The ownership of the island has been contested during the past millienium, with China, Russia, and Japan all making claims on the territory at different times. Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries it was Russia and Japan, and the disputes sometimes involved military conflicts and divisions of the island between the two powers. In 1875, Japan ceded its claims to Russia in exchange for the northern Kuril Islands. In 1897 more than half of the population were Russians and other European and Asian minorities. In 1905, following the Russo-Japanese War, the island was divided, with Southern Sakhalin going to Japan. After the Siberian intervention, Japan invaded the northern parts of Sakhalin, and ruled the entire island from 1918 to 1925. Russia has held all of the island since seizing the Japanese portion in the final days of World War II in 1945, as well as all of the Kurils. Japan no longer claims any of Sakhalin, although it does still claim the southern Kuril Islands. Most Ainu on Sakhalin moved to Hokkaido, to the south across the La Pérouse Strait, when Japanese civilians were displaced from the island in 1949.
Etymology
Sakhalin, derived from the Manchu name, has several names including , ,, , , Yankemosir.The Manchus called it ., the word that has been borrowed in the form of "Sakhalin", means "black" in Manchu, means "river" and is the proper Manchu name of the Amur River.
The island was also called "Kuye Fiyaka". The word "Kuye" used by the Qing is "most probably related to kuyi, the name given to the Sakhalin Ainu by their Nivkh and Nanai neighbors." When the Ainu migrated onto the mainland, the Chinese described a "strong Kui presence in the area otherwise dominated by the Gilemi or Jilimi." Related names were in widespread use in the region, for example the Kuril Ainu called themselves koushi.
The origins of the traditional Japanese name, , are unclear and multiple competing explanations have been proposed. These include:
- A borrowing of Mongolian karahoton, meaning "distant fortress".
- A modification of Karahito, meaning "Chinese person", from the presence of Chinese traders on the island.
- A derivation from dialect words meaning "prawns" or "many herring".
- An aphetic form of "The island created by God at the estuary".
In the Sakhalin Ainu language, it was called Yankemosir, meaning “land of the mainland”, or Karahto. In the Hokkaido Ainu language, it was called Karapto.
The island was also historically referred to as "Tschoka" by European travelers in the late 18th century, such as Lapérouse and Langsdorff. This name is believed to derive from an obsolete endonym used by Sakhalin Ainu, possibly based on the word cookay in Sakhalin Ainu language.
History
Early history
Humans lived on Sakhalin in the Neolithic Stone Age. Flint implements such as those found in Siberia have been found at Dui and Kusunai in great numbers, as well as polished stone hatchets similar to European examples, primitive pottery with decorations like those of the Olonets, and stone weights used with fishing nets. A later population familiar with bronze left traces in earthen walls and kitchen-middens on Aniva Bay.Indigenous people of Sakhalin include the Ainu in the southern half, the Oroks in the central region, and the Nivkhs in the north.
Yuan and Ming tributaries
After the Mongols conquered the Jin dynasty, they suffered raids by the Nivkh and Udege peoples. In response, the Mongols established an administration post at Nurgan at the junction of the Amur and Amgun rivers in 1263, and forced the submission of the two peoples.From the Nivkh perspective, their surrender to the Mongols essentially established a military alliance against the Ainu who had invaded their lands. According to the History of Yuan, a group of people known as the Guwei from Sakhalin invaded and fought with the Jilimi every year. On 30 November 1264, the Mongols attacked the Ainu. The Ainu resisted the Mongol invasions but by 1308 had been subdued. They paid tribute to the Mongol Yuan dynasty at posts in Wuliehe, Nanghar, and Boluohe.
The Chinese Ming dynasty placed Sakhalin under its "system for subjugated peoples". From 1409 to 1411 the Ming established an outpost called the Nurgan Regional Military Commission near the ruins of Tyr on the Siberian mainland, which continued operating until the mid-1430s. There is some evidence that the Ming eunuch Admiral Yishiha reached Sakhalin in 1413 during one of his expeditions to the lower Amur, and granted Ming titles to a local chieftain.
The Ming recruited headmen from Sakhalin for administrative posts such as commander, assistant commander, and "official charged with subjugation". In 1431, one such assistant commander, Alige, brought marten pelts as tribute to the Wuliehe post. In 1437, four other assistant commanders also presented tribute. According to the Ming Veritable Records, these posts, like the position of headman, were hereditary and passed down the patrilineal line. During these tributary missions, the headmen would bring their sons, who later inherited their titles. In return for tribute, the Ming awarded them with silk uniforms.
Nivkh women in Sakhalin married Han Chinese Ming officials when the Ming took tribute from Sakhalin and the Amur river region.
Qing tributary
The Manchu Qing dynasty, which came to power in China in 1644, called Sakhalin "Kuyedao" or "Kuye Fiyaka". The Manchus called it "Sagaliyan ula angga hada". The Qing first asserted influence over Sakhalin after the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk, which defined the Stanovoy Mountains as the border between the Qing and the Russian Empires. In the following year the Qing sent forces to the Amur estuary and demanded that the residents, including the Sakhalin Ainu, pay tribute. This was followed by several further visits to the island as part of the Qing effort to map the area. To enforce its influence, the Qing sent soldiers and mandarins across Sakhalin, reaching most parts of the island except the southern tip. The Qing imposed a fur-tribute system on the region's inhabitants.The Qing dynasty established an office in Ningguta, situated midway along the Mudan River, to handle fur from the lower Amur and Sakhalin. Tribute was supposed to be brought to regional offices, but the lower Amur and Sakhalin were considered too remote, so the Qing sent officials directly to these regions every year to collect tribute and to present awards. By the 1730s, the Qing had appointed senior figures among the indigenous communities as "clan chief" or "village chief". In 1732, 6 hala, 18 gasban, and 148 households were registered as tribute bearers in Sakhalin. Manchu officials gave tribute missions rice, salt, other necessities, and gifts during the duration of their mission. Tribute missions occurred during the summer months. During the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, a trade post existed at Delen, upstream of Kiji Lake, according to Rinzo Mamiya. There were 500–600 people at the market during Mamiya's stay there.
Local native Sakhalin chiefs had their daughters taken as wives by Manchu officials as sanctioned by the Qing dynasty when the Qing exercised jurisdiction in Sakhalin and took tribute from them.
Japanese exploration and colonization
In 1635, Matsumae Kinhiro, the second daimyō of Matsumae Domain in Hokkaidō, sent Satō Kamoemon and Kakizaki Kuroudo on an expedition to Sakhalin. One of the Matsumae explorers, Kodō Shōzaemon, stayed on the island in the winter of 1636 and sailed along the east coast to Taraika in the spring of 1637.In an early colonization attempt, a Japanese settlement was established at Ōtomari on Sakhalin's southern end in 1679. Cartographers of the Matsumae clan drew a map of the island and called it "Kita-Ezo".
In the 1780s, the influence of the Japanese Tokugawa Shogunate on the Ainu of southern Sakhalin increased significantly. By the beginning of the 19th century, the Japanese economic zone extended midway up the east coast, to Taraika. With the exception of the Nayoro Ainu located on the west coast in close proximity to China, most Ainu stopped paying tribute to the Qing dynasty. The Matsumae clan was nominally in charge of Sakhalin, but they neither protected nor governed the Ainu there. Instead they extorted the Ainu for Chinese silk, which they sold in Honshu as Matsumae's special product. To obtain Chinese silk, the Ainu fell into debt, owing much fur to the Santan, who lived near the Qing office. The Ainu also sold the silk uniforms given to them by the Qing, which made up the majority of what the Japanese knew as nishiki and jittoku. As dynastic uniforms, the silk was of considerably higher quality than that traded at Nagasaki, and enhanced Matsumae prestige as exotic items. Eventually the Tokugawa government, realizing that they could not depend on the Matsumae, took control of Sakhalin in 1807.
Japan proclaimed sovereignty over Sakhalin in 1807; in 1809, Mamiya Rinzō claimed that it was an island.