top of page
F6B0EEF8-A0B7-4925-967A-3637848E7807_4_5005_c.jpeg
Writer's picturerichard lightner

Settler Colonialism - Hokkaido

New Cambridge History of Japan. Volume III, the Modern Japanese Nation and Empire, c. 1868 to the Twenty-First Century. Laura Hein ed. 2023


Patrick Wolfe’s “concept of settler colonialism” explains conflicts between “indigenous peoples” and “agricultural settlers.” The New Cambridge History of Japan includes “borderlands.” Regardless, settler colonialism is violent because it is genocidal. (New Cambridge History of Japan. 24)


Katsuya Hirano writes that the Ainu in Hokkaido were exploited during the Tokugawa era. However, the Tokugawa did not take Ainu lands.


Violence erupted between the Ainu and Japanese sent to Hokkaido during the Meiji period. This was a result of settler colonialism. (New Cambridge History of Japan. 24)


Brett L. Walker. A Concise History of Japan. 2015


People in northern Japan resisted Japanese rule from at least 300 A.D. (Walker 27)


During the Nara and Heian periods, Japanese officials referred to the people as “toad barbarians.” (Walker 28)


Trade brought changes and hurtful diseases to the Ainu. (Walker 135)


Hokkaido makes up 20% of Japan. After the Japanese conquered the area, they found coal, which helped Japan industrialize. Hokkaido was “transformed into an agricultural breadbasket with the help of American advisors, well schooled in colonizing lands formerly inhabited by Indigenous peoples.” (Walker 136)


“After the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), Iyeasu had recognized the Matsumae family’s exclusive rights to trade with the Ainu throughout Hokkaido.” (Walker 136)


Actually, there were “five major groups” of Ainu. They had different languages “and other cultural practices.” (Walker 136)


The Matsumae set up coastal trading posts with the Ainu. (Walker 136)


Nevertheless, the increased trade led to conflict between the various Ainu committees and the largest war in the history of Hokkaido, the Shakushain’s War (1669). (Walker 137)


Ainu trade with the Japanese caused overfishing “salmon and overheated deer . . . while [the] Japanese inadvertently introduced smallpox, measles, and syphilis to Ainu communities. Ainu undermined their own subsistence systems as such Japanese trade items as silks, swords, iron goods, rice, and sake became prestige items in Ainu communities. . . . Trade required that animals fell from the world of spirits and ancestors to the world of proto-capitalism, and become hunted commodities in the context of interaction with the Japanese.” 


Finally, disease destroyed half of the Ainu population, and “Hokkaido was ripe for swift incorporation into the modern Japanese state within a matter of decades.” (Walker 138-139)


Documentaries about the Ainu emphasize their abuse. 


American Edwin Dun advised the Japanese government Hokkaido Development Agency “to oversee development of a livestock industry on Hokkaido.” (Walker 189)


“Known as the father of Hokkaido agriculture Dun fastened Hokkaido’s future to sheep, horses, and cattle, representing a radical departure from Japan’s grain-farming past.” (Walker 189-190)


“The disappearance of deer, an important prey species for wolves, proved one reason wolf predation on horses became so severe on Hokkaido.” (Walker 190)


Thus, under Meiji, the Ainu hunted the wolves to “near extinction.” (Walker 190)


“The cultural and ecological implications of wolf extinction on Hokkaido, as well as mainland Japan, cannot be underestimated.” (Walker 190)


From 1689 to 1770, “Russian trappers collected pelts,” which they “viewed as tribute from the obedient conquered people of the North Pacific. Ainu were not always submissive participants, however. In 1770 . . . Russians killed several Ainu who refused to pay tribute to their new masters. The next year, Ainu retaliates by ambushing traders . . . killing at least ten Russians in the process.” (Walker 202)


“Similar to Anglo-American settler justifications for the conquest of Native American lands, or the so-called white man’s burden of European Empires, Japanese projected the conquest of Ainu lands through the lens of Confucian benevolent rule, or the need to rescue Ainu from their disease ridden lives. Indeed, providing medical assistance to Ainu proved one manifestation of Japanese control over Hokkaido. . . . Ainu understood smallpox to be a deity, and the fact that the Japanese could vanquish the divine airborne killer with the prick of an arm surely destabilized the Ainu pantheon. Japanese officials also encouraged the Ainu to assimilate to Japanese life, including learning the Japanese language.” (Walker 203)


“Japanese policy shifted from Confucian ‘benevolent care’ to the colonial protection of evolutionary lagging Ainu.” (Walker 203)


“This transition to protecting the Ainu signaled the beginning of policies designed to transform them - up to this point hunters, gatherers, and traders - into small-scale farmers. The Meiji policies of paternalism culminated in the Hokkaido former Aborigine Protection Act of 1899, which distributed . . . agricultural plots to Ainu.” The goal was to destroy Ainu society. (Walker 204)


“Meanwhile, the Ainu, their population in shambles from smallpox, measles, influenza, and after the Meiji Restoration, tuberculosis, became a miserable people in desperate need of colonial care and civilizing. As Horace Capron (1804-1885), a Civil War veteran and foreign overseer of the development effort on Hokkaido remarked . . . the same difficulties . . . to civilize these people [the Ainu] which are met . . . with the North American Indians.” (Walker 205)


Chitoshi Yanaga. Japan Since Perry. 1949.


During the Meiji Restoration, northern Japan was underdeveloped and undefended. The Japanese were concerned about the Russians encroaching on Yezo, which they renamed Hokkaido in 1869. (Yanaga 59)


The development of Hokkaido was a top priority, and Americans were recruited to lead the way. The main concern, though, was security and not economics. (Yanaga 59)


“American influences have left an indelible imprint on Hokkaido.” Agriculture in Japan resembles rural American agriculture. ((Yanaga 59)


Settlers to Hokkaido did not move there voluntarily. Whole communities were transplanted. Different fiefs were set up. Displaced samurai were among the settlers. However, those from southern Japan could not adjust to the harsh northern climate. (Yanaga 60)


“In addition to the positions in the government . . . the land development program to help the samurai establish themselves in agriculture.” Samurai were given preferential in settling Hokkaido. (Yanaga 60)

0 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Pearl Harbor

The following is an essay about issues involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 The Rise of Japanese Militarism and...

Pearl Harbor

The following is from the book Eri Hotta. Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy . (Kindle version) which looks at the issues of the attack on...

Neo-Liberalism

The Rise and Impact of Neoliberalism: A Historical Analysis EDITED BY AI Neoliberalism emerged as one of the most influential economic...

Comments


Different Points of View over the future of Atomic weapons.

 

    During the Afghan War, President Donald Trump (GAG!) authorized a General to use the Mother of all Bombs, a bomb just shy of the power of an atomic bomb, on his own. Notice that this had no positive affect for the US in the outcome of the war. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world/asia/moab-mother-of-all-bombs-afghanistan.html)

 

    There is a plethora of information about the development and use of the atomic bomb during World War II. Much of the world was astounded that the US used such a bomb on civilians. Others said, drop more.

 

    The atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 9, 1945, “served as the symbolic coronation of American global power.” Nevertheless, the use of the atomic bomb in World War II brought international condemnation.    At the Tokyo War Crimes Trials of 1946-1948, Justice Pal of India cited the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as war crimes. U.S. President Harry S. Truman responded by publicly saying that the atomic bombs were dropped “in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands of young Americans.” However, President Truman in correspondence with John Foster Dulles that his reasons for dropping the atomic bombs were the attack on Pearl Harbor and the murder of our prisoners of war. “The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.” (Martin Sherwin. “Hiroshima and Modern Memory.” The Nation. October 10, 1981)

 

    “In the summer and fall of 1945, US atomic policy left us troubled and perplexed. Roosevelt, we thought, had been committed to a policy of international understanding and conciliation. . . . Truman’s policy, however, appeared to have the opposite aim: to keep a monopoly of the atomic bomb in U.S. and British hands, and to use it as a strong trump card in tough political bargaining with the Soviet Union.” (Sherwin, Martin. A World Destroyed: the Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance. 1975. xi)

 

    And, well before the bombings FDR and Churchill “rejected steps that might have led to the international control of atomic energy.” (Martin Sherwin. “Hiroshima and Modern Memory.” The Nation. October 10, 1981)

 

    According to nuclear physicist Hans Bethe who worked on the Manhattan Project, “Many of us had been influenced directly or indirectly by Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist. He argued that only international control of nuclear weapons could save the world from a nuclear arms race, and that such a race would imperil, not enhance the security of the United States and Great Britain. Many other scientists, especially at the University of Chicago Metallurgic Laboratory, at the initiative of Leo Szilard, had come independently to the same conclusion. 

 

    Martin Sherwin, George Mason University History professor who specialized in the history of nuclear weapons, wrote that, this interpretation by physicists and historian is wrong. Roosevelt decided, with Churchill, “that the bomb should remain and Anglo-American monopoly.” (Sherwin, Martin. A World Destroyed: the Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance. 1975. xii) 

    However, this is not mentioned in Hiroshima in America: fifty years of denial, by Robert Jay Lifton and Gregg Mitchell.

 

KOREA

    There are numerous arguments about whether or not the atomic bomb should have been used in Korea, Vietnam, or other existential circumstances.

    In late 1950, following their invasion of Korea, Chinese forces surrounded U.S. Marines. “Distraught himself, the chief executive (Truman), told a press conference on November 30 that nuclear bombsight be used against the enemy and seemed to indicate that the decision would be MacArthur’s.” (William Manchester. American Caesar. 608, 610; Bruce Cumings. The Korean War: a History. 2010. p. 30)

 

    The U.S. developed the ability fire an “atomic shot from a cannon.” (Bruce Cumings. The Korean War: a History. 2010. p. 34)

    

    “In mid-May Ike (President Dwight Eisenhower) told the [American] National Security Council that using nukes in Korea would be cheaper than conventional weaponry, and a few days later the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended launching nuclear attacks against China.” (Bruce Cumings. The Korean War: a History. 2010. p. 34)

    This is interesting since Eisenhower’s reaction to Hiroshima was, we didn’t have to use that awful thing on them. (Lifton, Robert Jay and Mitchell, Greg. Hiroshima in America: fifty years of denial. 1995. 213)

 

    Operation Hudson Harbor - flying lone B-29 bombers over North Korea to simulate a dropping of an atomic bomb. North Korean leaders must have had “steel nerves” as this simulation was eerily similar to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Operation Hudson Harbor concluded that the use of atomic weapons would not be “useful” as it was difficult to identify “large masses of enemy troops.” (Bruce Cumings. The Korean War: a History. 2010. p. 157-159)

 

    The United Nations/United States forces faced defeat in Korea but Truman looked strong because he “threatened to use the atom bomb against China.” However, this “made peace talks virtually impossible.” (Stone, I.F. The Hidden History of the Korean War. 213)

    Major General Emmett (“Rosy”) O’Donnell, commander of the Far East Air Force’s Bomber Command . . . [stated that] “We have never been permitted to bomb what are the real strategic targets, the enemy’s real sources of supply.” He said that the strategic bombing commanded been “designed to deliver the atomic offensive to the heart of the enemy” and indicated very clearly that he thought the bomb should have been used against the Chinese.”” (Stone, I.F. The Hidden History of the Korean War. 245)

 

RICHARD NIXON

    Richard Barnet, former State Department aide, activist and scholar, who founded the Institute for Policy Studies (Wikipedia) warned “of the danger that the United States government might resort to the use of nuclear weapons. Barnet then cites Vice President Richard Nixon speaking to the Executive Club of Chicago on March 17, 1955 as saying, 

    “The weapons which were used during the Korean War and World War II are obsolete. Our artillery and our tactical Air Force in the Pacific are now equipped with atomic explosives which can and will be used on military targets with precision and effectiveness.

    “It is foolish to talk about the possibility that the weapons which might be used in the event war breaks out in the Pacific would be limited to the conventional Korean and World War II types of explosives. Our forces could not fight an effective war in the Pacific with those types of explosives if they wanted to. Tactical atomic explosives are now conventional and will be used against the military targets of any aggressive force.”  

    Of course, we are not aggressors by threatening China or invading Vietnam.

 

VIET NAM

    1964 American Republican Presidential candidate Senator Goldwater of Arizona was a reserve Air Force General and “suggested that the United States could isolate the Vietcong in South Vietnam any bombing the supply routes connecting China and North Vietnam.” He also proposed using nuclear weapons “to clear the jungles where the Vietcong were presumably hiding. The public reaction to those notions was one of horrified alarm.” (Thomas Powers, The War at Home. 2) It turns out that the United States bombed Southeast Asia the equivalent of many atomic bombs through out the war. 

    “Although Goldwater was finally persuaded to stop talking about nuclear weapons.”

    Although Goldwater’s advocacy of atomic weapons scared people his idea to win the war did not. Johnson portrayed himself as “responsible” as opposed to Goldwater who he implied would get us all killed. (Thomas Powers, The War at Home. 9)

    Noted military writer Hanson Baldwin believed that the US should use its overwhelming technological power to counter communism even if that meant nuclear weapons. Of course, only for “defensive purposes.” “If we cannot do this, he says, we had better “call it quits.” (Noam Chomsky, At War with Asia. 52)

 

    General Curtis LeMay advocated the use of nuclear weapons to end the conflict with communism once and for all. “We ought to nuke the chinks. . . . We are swatting flies when we should be going after the manure pile.” (Thomas Powers. The War at Home. 40; Rowland Evans and Robert Novak. Lyndon B. Johnson: the Exercise of Power. 538)

 

    So, there is pretty much agreement that the use of the atom bomb was on the table. The horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki completely ignored.

 

    In 1954 the United States “assuming the Chinese Communists intervene would engage in a “highly selective atomic offensive.” (Pentagon Papers. New York Times. 1971. 46) However, if the “Chinese Communists do not intervene” then the use of atomic weapons would occur if it would aid the US in the war. (Pentagon Papers. New York Times. 1971. 47)

    McNaughton drafted a “Proposed Course of Action” to McNamara. In his long list of actions McNaughton noted risks. One was the “escalation to the use of nuclear weapons.” (Pentagon Papers. New York Times. 1971. 442-445, passim)

    Presidential assistant for national security, Walt. W. Rostow, wrote a memorandum on May 6, 1967, analyzing U.S. bombing strategy in Viet Nam. One of his conclusions was “we do not want a nuclear confrontation over Viet Nam.” (Pentagon Papers. New York Times. 1971. 585, 588)

Atomic Bomb

Viet Nam War
 

bottom of page