Sakai Tadaaki

Sakai Tadaaki (酒井 忠義, August 4, 1813 – December 5, 1873),^[1] also known as Sakai Tadayoshi,^[2] was a Japanese daimyo of the Edo period, and he was a prominent shogunal official. He was also known as Shūri-daibu (1834; and again in 1850); as Wakasa-no-kami (1841); and Ukyō-daibu (1862).^[3] He would become Obama's last daimyō, holding this position until the feudal domains were abolished in 1871.

The Sakai were identified as one of the fudai or insider daimyō clans which were hereditary vassels or allies of the Tokugawa clan,^[4] in contrast with the tozama or outsider clans.

Sakai clan genealogy

Tadaaki was part of a cadet branch of the Sakai which had been created in 1590.^[5]

The fudai Sakai clan originated in 14th century Mikawa Province.^[5] The Sakai claim descent from Minamoto Arichika. Arichika had two sons: one of them, Yasuchika, took the name Matsudaira; and the other son, Chikauji, took the name Sakai—and this samurai ancestor is the progenitor of this clan's name.^[6]

Sakai Hirochika, who was the son of Chikauji, had two sons, and their descendants gave rise to the two main branches of the Sakai clan. Hirochika's younger son, Sakai Masachika, served several Tokugawa clan leaders -- Nobutada, Kiyoyasu and Hirotada; and in 1561, Masachika was made master of Nishio Castle in Mikawa.^[6]

Sakai Sigetada, who was the son of Masachika, received the fief of Kawagoe Domain in Musashi Province in 1590; and then in 1601, Sigetada was transferred to Umayabashi Domain in Kōzuke Province.^[7]

Sakai Tadakatsu (1587–1662), who was Sigetada's son, was transferred in 1634 to Obama Domain in Wakasa Province where his descendants resided until the Meiji period.^[7] In a gesture demonstrating special favor to the Sakai, the second shogun, Hidetada, allowed the use of his personal Tada- in the name Tadakatsu.^[8]

The head of this clan line was ennobled as a "Count" in the Meiji period.^[7]

Tokugawa official

Tadaaki was briefly a Magistrate of Temples and Shrines, before becoming the Tokugawa shogunate's forty-eighth Kyoto shoshidai for the period spanning December 23, 1843 through September 4, 1850.^[2]

Owing to his support of Tokugawa Yoshitomi (the later shogun Iemochi) for the position of shogun, he was suppressed by the faction which supported Hitotsubashi Yoshinobu's candidacy; this, in turn, was one of the causes of Ii Naosuke's Ansei Purge.^[9]

Tadaaki was named as the shogunate's representative in the capital as the fifty-second Kyoto shoshidai during the period from August 5, 1858 through July 26, 1862.^[1] During this period, he served as chief intermediary between the shogunate in Edo and Emperor Kōmei during a period of extensive negotiations, delays, and political maneuvering which accompanied plans for the eventual marriage of Komei's sister, Princess Kazunomiya, and Iemochi in March 1862.^[10] In due course, he would eventually resign from his official position and from his family headship during the same year.

In 1868, during the Boshin War, Tadaaki resumed headship of the Sakai family; and he resigned upon the abolition of the domains in 1871.

Notes

References

Emblem (mon) of the Sakai clan

• Appert, Georges and H. Kinoshita. (1888). Ancien Japon. Tokyo: Imprimerie Kokubunsha.
• Beasley, William G. (1955). Select Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy, 1853-1868. London: Oxford University Press; reprinted by RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2001. ISBN 978-0-19-713508-2 (cloth)
• Bolitho, Harold. (1974). Treasures Among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa Japan. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-01655-0; OCLC 185685588
• Keene, Donald. (2002). Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12340-X
• Meyer, Eva-Maria. (1999). Japans Kaiserhof in de Edo-Zeit: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Jahre 1846 bis 1867. Münster: Tagenbuch. ISBN 3-8258-3939-7
• Papinot, Jacques Edmund Joseph. (1906) Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du japon. Tokyo: Librarie Sansaisha...Click link for digitized 1906 Nobiliaire du japon (2003)
• Plutschow, Herbert. (1995). "Japan's Name Culture: The Significance of Names in a Religious, Political and Social Context. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-873410-42-4 (cloth)
• Sasaki Suguru. (2002). Boshin sensō: haisha no Meiji ishin. Tokyo: Chūōkōron-shinsha.

External links

• Nikko pagoda -- Sakai Tadakatsu contributed to the original construction; and after it was burned in 1815, his descendants supported reconstruction in 1818
• Toshogu pagoda in Nikko -- interior view--exterior view, Nagasaki University Library Collection