1876: The samurai leaders of the Hagi and Akizuki rebellions
December 3rd, 2009 Headsman
Unless you’re a Jedi knight, feudal warrior castes and industrial civilization go together like sashimi and fries. So, when the Meiji Restoration made its choice for Japanese modernization, it gained the enmity of the samurai it necessarily dispossessed.
In many cases, said samurai were especially burned at having initially backed the restoration’s restoration of the emperor and attendant jingoistic sloganeering, only to find themselves on the outs as soon as the new government got its feet under it.
Over the 1870’s, the samurai caste was essentially abolished, and it lost its sword-toting privileges along with (come the advent of a new conscript army) its military import.
Small wonder that once-haughty military folk fought this unwelcome progress katana and wakizashi.
In 1876, the Shimpuren Rebellion helped spark sympathetic retrograde uprisings both named for their locations, Akizuki and Hagi. In all of these, the aggrieved samurai made desperate bids to reassert their lost position and reverse Japan’s westernization.
In all of these, they failed.
Leaders of both the Akizuki and Hagi Rebellions — Wikipedia gives it as two from the former (Masuda Shizukata and Imamura Hyakuhachiro) and seven from the latter (notably Maebara Issei) — were beheaded together this date in Fukuoka.
Also On This Date
Possibly Related Executions
- 1871: Kawakami Gensai
- 1864: Romuald Traugutt and the January Uprising leaders
- 1898: The Six Gentlemen of the Hundred Days’ Reform
Entry Filed under: 19th Century, Beheaded, Capital Punishment, Death Penalty, Execution, History, Japan, Mass Executions, Power, Soldiers
Tags: 1870s, 1876, akizuki, akizuki rebellion, capitalism, december 3, feudalism, fukuoka, hagi, hagi rebellion, imamura hyakuhachiro, maebara issei, masuda shizukata, samurai, shimpuren rebellion
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