Rule in the Name of Protection

Many Japanese and others today understand Hokkaido as an ancient part of Japan, and do not know that the island was only formally absorbed in the mid-19th century. This article explains the process by which the island of Ezo was annexed by the Japanese in 1868 and renamed Hokkaido ("the path to the northern seas"). The Japanese also began transforming Ezo, now Hokkaido, in order to thoroughly incorporate the island into the new central polity. This transformation had dire consequences for the indigenous Ainu population. This article also introduces two Japanese laws that were ratified in the late 19th century: the Emigrant Protection Law of 1896 and the Hokkaido Former Natives Protection Law of 1899. "Enacted like bookends on the (First) Sino-Japanese War," the latter was to have an especially serious effect on the livelihoods of the Ainu. Komori argues that Japan sought through those two laws to protect its territorial interest vis-à-vis the major Western colonial powers in two different places and ways. The Emigrant Protection law was legislated to encourage and also protect Japanese migrants who were rapidly moving into Hawai'i and other areas internationally while the Hokkaido law encouraged migration to Hokkaido by suppressing the Ainu

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