HATAMOTO

A was a samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the shogunates in Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred to as ''gokenin.'' However, in the Edo period, ''hatamoto'' were the upper vassals of the Tokugawa house, and the ''gokenin'' were the lower vassals. The word ''hatamoto'' literally means "at the base of the flag" and is often translated as "bannerman", even though Japan did not use a banner system of military organization like several other Asian nations. Another term for the Edo-era ''hatamoto'' was , sometimes rendered as "direct Shogunal hatamoto", which serves to illustrate the difference between them and the preceding generation of hatamoto who served various lords.

Contents

History

Ranks and roles

References

History

The term ''hatamoto'' originated in the Sengoku period. The term was used for the direct retainers of a lord; as the name suggests, the men who were grouped "at the base of the flag". Many lords had ''hatamoto;'' however, when the Tokugawa clan achieved ascendancy in 1600, its ''hatamoto'' system was institutionalized, and it is to that system which we mainly refer today when using the term.
In the eyes of the Tokugawa Shogunate, ''hatamoto'' were retainers who had served the family from its days in Mikawa onward. However, the ranks of the ''hatamoto'' also included people from outside the hereditary ranks of the Tokugawa house. Retainer families of formerly defeated provincial strongmen like Takeda, Hōjō, or Imagawa were included, as were branch families of feudal lords. Also included were heirs to lords whose domains were confiscated (for example, Asano Daigaku, the brother of Asano Naganori), local power figures in remote parts of the country who never became daimyo, and the families of Muromachi-era ''shugo.'' Some of these include the Akamatsu, Bessho, Hōjō, Hatakeyama, Kanamori, Imagawa, Mogami, Nagai, Oda, Ōtomo, Takeda, Takenaka, Takigawa, Toki, Tsutsui, and Yamana families.

Ranks and roles

The line between ''hatamoto'' and ''gokenin,'' especially amongst ''hatamoto'' of lower rank, was not rigid, and the title of ''hatamoto'' had more to do with rank rather than income rating. In the context of an army, it could be compared to the position of an officer. Throughout the Edo period, ''hatamoto'' held the distinction that if they possessed high enough rank, they had the right to personal audience with the shogun (these hatamoto were known as ''ome-mie ijō''). All ''hatamoto'' can be divided into two categories, the ''kuramaitori'', who took their incomes straight from Tokugawa granaries, and the ''jikatatori'', who held land scattered throughout Japan. Another level of status distinction amongst the ''hatamoto'' was the class of ''kōtai-yoriai'', men who were heads of ''hatamoto'' families and held provincial fiefs, and had alternate attendance (''sankin kotai'') duties like the daimyo. However, as ''kōtai-yoriai'' were men of very high income in terms of the spectrum of ''hatamoto'' stipends, not all ''jikatatori hatamoto'' had the duty of alternate attendance. The dividing line between the upper ''hatamoto'' and the ''fudai'' daimyo—the domain lords who were also vassals of the Tokugawa house—was 10,000 ''koku.''
Some ''hatamoto'' could be granted an increase in income and thus promoted to the rank of ''fudai'' daimyo. However, this did not happen frequently. One example of such a promotion is the case of the Hayashi family of 'Kaibuchi' (later known as Jozai han), who began as ''jikatatori hatamoto'' but who became ''fudai'' daimyo and went on to play a prominent role in the Boshin War, despite their domain's relatively small size of 10,000 ''koku.''
The term for a ''hatamoto'' with income in the neighborhood of 8,000 ''koku'' was ''taishin hatamoto'' ("greater ''hatamoto''").
The ''hatamoto'' who lived in Edo resided in their own private districts and oversaw their own police work and security. Men from ''hatamoto'' ranks could serve in a variety of roles in the Tokugawa administration, including service in the police force as ''yoriki'' inspectors, city magistrates, magistrates or tax collectors of direct Tokugawa house land, members of the ''wakadoshiyori'' council, and many other positions.
The expression "eighty thousand ''hatamoto''" (''hatamoto hachimanhata''; 旗本八万旗) was in popular use to denote their numbers, but a 1722 study put their numbers at about 5,000. Adding the ''gokenin'' brought the number up to about 17,000.

References

★ Bolitho, Harold. ''Treasures Among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa Japan.'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974. (ISBN 0-300-01655-7)

★ Ooms, Herman. ''Charismatic Bureaucrat: a Political Biography of Matsudaira Sadanobu, 1758-1829.'' Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1975. (ISBN 0-226-63031-5)