The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the Edo shogunate, was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868.
The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars of the Sengoku period following the collapse of the Ashikaga shogunate. Ieyasu became the shōgun, and the Tokugawa clan governed Japan from Edo Castle in the eastern city of Edo (Tokyo) along with the daimyō lords of the samurai class.
The Tokugawa shogunate organized Japanese society under the strict Tokugawa class system and banned the entry of most foreigners under the isolationist policies of sakoku to promote political stability. Japanese subjects were also barred from leaving the country. The Tokugawa shoguns governed Japan in a feudal system, with each daimyō administering a han (feudal domain), although the country was still nominally organized as imperial provinces. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan experienced rapid economic growth and urbanization, which led to the rise of the merchant class and Ukiyo culture.
The Tokugawa shogunate declined during the Bakumatsu period from 1853 and was overthrown by supporters of the Imperial Court in the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The Empire of Japan was established under the Meiji government, and Tokugawa loyalists continued to fight in the Boshin War until the defeat of the Republic of Ezo at the Battle of Hakodate in June 1869.
Following the Sengoku period ("Warring States period"), the central government had been largely re-established by Oda Nobunaga during the Azuchi–Momoyama period. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, central authority fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu. While many daimyō who fought against him were extinguished or had their holdings reduced, Ieyasu was committed to retaining the daimyō and the han (domains) as components under his new shogunate. Daimyō who sided with Ieyasu were rewarded, and some of Ieyasu's former vassals were made daimyō and were located strategically throughout the country. The sankin-kotai policy, in an effort to constrain rebellions by the daimyō, mandated the housing of wives and children of the daimyō in the capital as hostages.
A period of peace occurred between the Siege of Osaka in 1615 and the Keian Uprising in 1651. This period saw the bakufu (shogunate's administration) prioritise civil administration, while civil society witnessed a surge in trade and industrial activities. Trade under the reign of Ieyasu saw much new wealth created by mining and goods manufacturing, which resulted in a rural population flow to urban areas. By the Genroku period (1688–1704) Japan saw a period of material prosperity and the blossoming of the arts, such as the early development of ukiyo-e by Moronobu. The reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune (1716–1745) saw poor harvests and a fall in tax revenue in the early 1720s; as a result he pushed for the Kyoho reforms to repair the finances of the bakufu as he believed the military aristocracy was losing its power against the rich merchants and landowners.
Society in the Tokugawa period, unlike in previous shogunates, was supposedly based on the strict class hierarchy originally established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The daimyō were at the top, followed by the warrior-caste of samurai, with the farmers, artisans, and traders ranking below. In some parts of the country, particularly smaller regions, daimyō, and samurai were more or less identical, since daimyō might be trained as samurai, and samurai might act as local rulers.
The largely inflexible nature of this social stratification system unleashed disruptive forces over time. Taxes on the peasantry were set at fixed amounts that did not account for inflation or other changes in monetary value. As a result, the tax revenues collected by the samurai landowners increasingly declined over time. A 2017 study found that peasant rebellions and desertion lowered tax rates and inhibited state growth in the Tokugawa shogunate. In total, historians have documented approximately 3,000 such outbreaks of peasant unrest and violence against authority between 1590 and 1871.
By the mid-18th century, both the shōgun and daimyō were hampered by financial difficulties, whereas more wealth flowed to the merchant class. Peasant uprisings and samurai discontent became increasingly prevalent. Some reforms were enacted to attend to these issues such as the Kansei reforms (1787–1793) by Matsudaira Sadanobu. He bolstered the bakufu's rice stockpiles and mandated daimyō to follow suit. He cut down urban spending, allocated reserves for potential famines, and urged city-dwelling peasants to return to rural areas.
By 1800, Japan included five cities with over 100,000 residents, and three among the world's twenty cities that had more than 300,000 inhabitants. Edo likely claimed the title of the world's most populous city, housing over one million people.
Late Tokugawa shogunate (1853–1867)
The late Tokugawa shogunate (Bakumatsu) was the period between 1853 and 1867, during which Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy called sakoku and modernized from a feudal shogunate to the Meiji government. The 1850s saw growing resentment by the tozama daimyōs and anti-Western sentiment following the arrival of a U.S. Navy fleet under the command of Matthew C. Perry (which led to the forced opening of Japan). The major ideological and political factions during this period were divided into the pro-imperialist Ishin Shishi (nationalist patriots) and the shogunate forces; aside from the dominant two groups, other factions attempted to use the chaos of the Bakumatsu era to seize personal power.
An alliance of daimyō and the emperor succeeded in overthrowing the shogunate, which came to an official end in 1868 with the resignation of the 15th Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, leading to the "restoration" (王政復古, Ōsei fukko) of imperial rule. Some loyal retainers of the shogun continued to fight during the Boshin War that followed but were eventually defeated in the notable Battle of Toba–Fushimi.
Christians under the Shogunate
Followers of Catholic Christians first began appearing in Japan during the 16th century.
In 1600, when English sailor William Adams and his Dutch colleague Jan Joosten arrived at Japan, they told Ieyasu about the world situation, including that there were many conflicts in Europe, and that the Jesuits and other Catholics (e.g. Portuguese, Spanish), who had been proselytizing Christianity in Japan, and the Protestants (e.g. Dutch, English) were on different sides and were in conflict with each other. Ieyasu reportedly took a liking to them for their frankness and regarded them as trustworthy.
While at first tolerant of Christianity, Tokugawa Ieyasu soon began to see it as a growing threat to the stability of the shogunate. His attitude changed after 1613, and persecution of Christians sharply increased, with Ieyasu completely banning Catholicism in 1614.
The hostility of Ieyasu towards Catholics was shown when he replaced Jesuit translator João Rodrigues Tçuzu with William Adams in his court in the aftermath of the Nossa Senhora da Graça incident in Nagasaki. This change of attitude is believed to be due to the Okamoto Daihachi incident, where a Catholic daimyō and shogun's official were accused of a series of crimes.