Japan's Northern Frontier: A Preliminary Study in Colonization and Expansion with Special Reference to the Relations of Japan and Russia

Citation preview

JAPAN’S NORTHERN FRONTIER

WMTS iïORZHSKiï ZKO^ZJSK

A Preliminary Study in Colonization

and Expansion

with Special Reference to

the Relations

of Japan and Russia

JOHN A. HARRISON

University

of

Florida

Press

•

Gainesville

1953

A UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA PRESS BOOK

Copyright, 1953, University of Florida L. C. Catalogue Card Number: 53-6656 Printed by Convention Press, Jacksonville, Florida

Zo My Wife

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

wf apanese history is a fascinating hunting / / ground for the historian, the more so 1/ because so little of it is known in the West. I had long been interested in that remarkable period which encompasses the dissolution of the old military regency and the emergence of the modern Japanese state, and it was more or less by accident that I had my attention turned to the northern frontier regions while a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley. A course of lectures on the history of Russia given by Professor Robert J. Kerner had infected me with his enthusiasm for the eastward push of the Russian Empire. I then sat under Professor George Lantzeff for a course of lectures, meticulously detailed and at the same time colorful, on the conquest and coloni­ zation of Siberia, where it became evident that little if any work had been done on the Japanese aspect of frontier contacts in the Maritime Northeast of Asia. These lectures were, in a sense, the genesis of the present work, for they started my reading and research in quest of a coherent picture of the frontier problem. My guide in Japanese studies was Professor Dehner Brown. My use of the Kaitakushi as a central theme is due to the late Edward Everett of the United States Department of Agriculture, onetime editor of Agricultural History, who brought to my attention the manuscript diary of Horace Capron, the American adviser to the Kaitakushi. As the research progressed it became apparent that I would need work in ethnology and in Japanese textual studies. The first became available when Professors Lowie and Olsen kindly took on a historian in their anthropology seminars, and the second when Mr. Ensho Ashikaga worked with me in his seminar on Japanese historical texts. I would like to take this opportunity to discharge partially a stu­ dent’s debt and to-put on record my obligation to the faculty mem­ bers of Columbia College of Columbia University (1938-1941). vii

japan’s northern frontier

On their teaching have been built all subsequent education, training, and understanding which I may claim. These men, among whom I especially mention Hawkes, Miner, Linton, Frohock, and Good­ rich, were teachers in the fullest and finest sense of the word. From their company and instruction one emerged with a sense of, and a zest for, the obligations of knowledge, the wonderful diversity and homogeneity of man and his universe, and a respect for the truth. I also want to record my thanks to the faculties of the Depart­ ments of History, Anthropology, and Oriental Languages at the University of California at Berkeley. Their kindliness was equal to their scholarship. Above all, my respect and affection to Professor Peter A. Boodberg, a humane scholar, who was never too busy to listen and to help. Elizabeth Huff and her fine staff at the East Asiatic Library of the University of California supervised a vast collection, knew what was in that collection, and daily placed that knowledge at my dis­ posal. Librarians at Harvard, Stanford, and the Library of Congress, whom I never met, eased my path and suggested much valuable material that I would have overlooked. Professors Takakura Shinichiro of Hokkaido University at Sapporo, Hagitani Akira of St. Paul’s in Tokyo, and Sugiuura Takaaki of Nagoya University cheer­ fully answered questions and sent me special works on Hokkaido. John Parke of the University of Florida Press devoted a great pa­ tience and understanding to editing the manuscript; indeed, what­ ever readability this study may have is largely due to his powers of perception and persuasion. Last, and certainly not least, is my debt to Roy Wald and Chester Chard for their perceptive analysis of Japanese history and society. The kindness and wisdom of many other people have helped create this monograph, and my failure to enumerate them individually is due only to the space that would be required to catalogue all the acts of courtesy and unselfishness that one meets in life. Parts or all of this monograph were read by colleagues in the field of East Asiatic history. Their careful criticisms have been incorporated into the final draft, but all errors are my responsibility alone.

viii

INTRODUCTION

he history of Japan can be viewed as that of an expanding people and is sometimes treated that way by Japa­ nese historians; but strangely enough, while writing the history of their national expansion they have tended to neglect the role of a most vital frontier. This neglect has been acknowledged by the eminent Japanese historian of the northern regions, Takakura Shinichiro, who states that “the Hokkaido situation, probably be­ cause it had little connection with the central government, has attracted little attention and no work of importance has yet been published.1 This statement overlooks Takakura’s own monumental contributions to the history of the Ainu and the northern regions of Japan, but aside from his foundation work there is little else for the general scholar to go to, either in Japanese or in any other language. It is a strange situation, because centuries of hard fighting against an alien people on their northern marches aided the rise of the Japanese military caste and helped create “that system of military government without which Japan would have vegetated into another Korea.”2 It becomes doubly strange when we recall the great sweep of time in which the safety of this frontier has been a foremost Japanese preoccupation. Our first records of this pre­ occupation go back to ca. A.D. 659 when a Japanese military post was established at Shiribeshi on Hokkaido to observe, and check if possible, the movement of Manchurian tribes south along the continental coast of the Sea of Japan. The latest record is of the date I write this introduction. It is now February, 1953, and one of the chief preoccupations of Japan concerns the Russian possession of the Kuriles and of Karafuto, which possession not only poses a