Chapter design: October 2017

At this point, I have a nearly complete draft of my Tondenhei chapter and a working draft of my Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act chapter.

While I want to work on both of these in my 'off-time' (especially in the sense that putting chapters down for a while now and again is a good thing for the creative process), I need to better figure out what kind of work I want to do next.

I'm going to sketch out some basic ideas for chapters based on the kind of data I have.

Introduction:
A basic overview of the colonization of Hokkaido, the origins of Japanese colonialism, esp. Saga-han, Nabeshima Naomasa, Soejima Taneomi, Ōkuma Shigenobu, etc. Very particular vision of colonialism coming out of the Koga school. In addition, I want to better round out Ainu critiques of Japanese settler colonialism and better articulate my own critique of settler colonialism. More widely, I want to look at Indigenous critiques of terra nullius (especially vis-a-vis 'rape culture' where land and the link between the colonization of Indigenous land and bodies).

"Aino Indians":
Exogenous Others: Details on how the Ainu were enveloped into the transcolonial imagination as either lost Caucasians or "Aino Indians", early encounters such as ethnographers as well as people like Ranald MacDonald, the place of the Ainu between Japan and its would-be colonizers, etc. Talk about the sale of Ainu bones, especially in the transnational context and how they were eventually 'sold out'. Ezo Kyowakoku too! But also, how Hokkaido was de-territorialzed and re-territorialized by Japanese colonial officials and Oyatoi Gaikokujin (esp. Capron and Clark) practically hand in hand as an "Eastern America". How American farming was overwhelmingly preferred and why, and how American food culture was adopted and why. Matsumoto Juro and Kuroda Kiyotaka sitting down and discussing their differences over beef and beer. Also, Qing subjects registered into koseki, plans for white American colonization of Hokkaido taken seriously. Settler colonialism as transnational and multiracial in the early Meiji period. Robinson Crusoe and the opening of Japan, Oyabe Zenichiro.

The Northern Gate: 
Ainu long used as human capital in Japanese territorial claims vis-a-vis Russia. This seems to have influenced the Japanese decision to essentially push the Ainu in Sakhalin to move to the mainland. But the context is also a choice between war with Russia and a peaceful settlement -- even if not exactly in Japan's favour. But we have to look at the colonization of Karafuto in context: it wasn't going well. And, more, the Kuriles better represented (as far as Enomoto is concerned) a chance to enter the north pacific fur trade and the ice trade markets using Russian American models. Strange given the Aleutians, like the Ainu in southern Karafuto, were ethnically cleansed from the north Kuriles. But Russian Aleutian policy became the basic blueprint of how to colonize the Kuriles, even if the Ainu were forcibly moved. This movement of Ainu was in violation of the Treaty of St. Petersburg, but it seems the Russians did the same thing. Why? So, what of those Sakhalin Ainu, then? Discuss their forcible movement from Soya to Tsuishikari and the conflict between Matsumoto Juro and Kuroda Kiyotaka. Especially relevant are Matsumoto's view of the Ainu as being loyal citizens and Kuroda's view that the Ainu are savages. Talk about the epidemics that devastated the Ainu in Tsuishikari.

Capitalism as Civilization:
This early chapter will discuss the early stages of capitalist developmentalism in Hokkaido and the emergence of particular discourses of liberal governmentality and land management policies based on this notion. This splits the chapter in two, where the Ainu are categorically rendered rightless and without legal personhood when Hokkaido is claimed as terra nullius. Terra nullus will be analyzed as a performative act, and Japan's early 1870s colonial aggression vis-a-vis Korea and Taiwan will be analyzed accordingly. Within this context, Ainu legal personality is nulified-- so talk about the status of Indigenous people and international law, and maybe move a Hobbesian or Lockean analysis of land rights here. Soon after the annexation of Hokkaido, the Ainu are inserted into koseki. Discuss the koseki, what they're for -- especially as a tool of (differential) inclusion -- and discuss the process of registering the Ainu. But all the same, we need to get back to developmentalism. As the Ainu are included, they are precarized wth land rights nullified and Hokkaido developed as an American-esque settler colony. The food culture of Hokkaido -- not in what was consumed as much as what was grown -- was, yes, in part for export: especially to China and Russia, but it also was self-consciously Western/American. Why? This includes limiting Ainu access to food. Discuss Ainu famines which were a result of this process of capitalist developmentalism and exclusion of the Ainu. I should maybe ruminate about whether this was done intentionally.

Source analysis: John Batchelor: The Ainu of Japan

Reflecting early Kaitakushi claims of Meiji Japanese Ainu policy as a corrective to the excesses and misdirection of the Tokugawa-backed Matsumae domain, Batchelor for his part divides the blame between pre-Meiji Japanese policies towards the Ainu, careful not to bring his critique into the present. Looking millennia into the past, Batchelor points to "wars of extermination" waged against the Ainu by the mythological Emperor Jinmu in the 7th century BC and the 8th century Shogun "Saka no ue no Tamura Naru" (likely referring to Saka-no-Ue-no-Tamuramaro) as partially responsible for the decline in the Ainu population in the year 1892, when The Ainu of Japan was first published. (pg. 284) Jumping forward centuries, Batchelor returns to the question of alcohol consumption, pointing to Matsumae officials as having "encouraged" alcohol amongst the Ainu, saying this has "undermined the Ainu constitutions, sapped their strength, and taken nearly all that is manly from their souls". (pg. 285) With their masculine vitality drained, the Ainu are now merely facing the natural consequences. However, even while pointing to settler colonial Hokkaido to argue that the Japanese government "does not recognise any land as belonging to the Ainu", Batchelor maintains a pretense of ignorance of the material effects of Japanese settler colonization on the Ainu. (pg. 287) He can only, blaming Ainu clothing and shelter, point to Ainu dying "due to exposure", and discrediting Ainu medicine to say that the sick are merely left to die. (pg. 285) And quite literally self-destructive, Batchelor blames "[p]etty wars and quarrels" amongst the Ainu as causing a decline in the Ainu population, (pg. 286) with men "murdered during sleep" and women and children "carried off as slaves to work in the gardens". (pg. 288) This is particularly true, according to Batchelor, amongst "[t]he Ainu of the Tokapchi [Jpn: Tokachi] district" as "particularly addicted to this kind of warfare" (pg. 288). Warfare and spirits, then, become the two self-destructive additive substances.  Far worse, however, these same warlike Ainu are, according to Batchelor, are known as "eaters of their own kind". For Batchelor, the final nail in the coffin is Ainu women being willingly taken as "wife or concubines of the more civilised Japanese" (pg. 289), leaving those few left in Ainu villages to engage in incestuous relationships with close cousins: marriages "not likely to increase the longevity or physical and mental strength of a people, or the diuturnity of a race or nation" (pg. 290). The Ainu, then are, for Batchelor, to blame for their own fate, rather than the actions of their colonizers.

Notes: Miscellaneous topics related to the Tondenhei (2)

In the long pause since the last entry, I've moved back to Canada and took about three weeks off of research. While there are still plenty of online resources available, and plenty of books available in Canada containing primary and secondary resources, I'm cut off from archives in Japan and easy book-buying. This creates a situation where my dissertation is, at least for the time being, limited to what I have and I may find the resources I've collected insufficient for the type of writing I eventually want to produce.

For now, though, I've jumped into reading on the Tondenhei, which will make up for a full chapter of my dissertation, as well as provide critical details on daily life in early colonial Hokkaido. This comes largely from interviews conducted in the early to mid 20th century of Tondenhei veterans and their family members.

While most Tondenhei resources available in public archives in Japan relate to the troops themselves, and a lot of it is quite bureaucratic at that, I've been much more focused on gender and family structure as it relates to Tondenhei villages. In particular, the militarized nature of the villages, which required daily inspections and constant military drills was inseparable from domestic life in which soldiers were by law the heads of the household. Their wives and children were not Tondenhei themselves, but were to an uncertain degree integrated into the system. They were inspected in the mornings along with their husbands. If the head of the household dies, the eldest son -- if of age -- would by law be forced to take over as a Tondenhei soldier. Moreover, due to the constant drilling, women and children were largely the breadwinners, farming in place of their husbands.

It was a life of poverty. There is a great deal of evidence that, like 'protection' policy for the Ainu, there was poor planning on part of the state and both housing and arable farmland were insufficient. People escaped poverty by, often, leaving Tondenhei villages as day labourers (and most certainly leaving for good in many cases after their term of service ended). Foodstuffs consisted of the most basic of staples: flax or, eventually, potatoes, which many people reported as insufficient after the three year period of food aid expired. The houses were frequently drafty, which sent snow in through the roofs during winter storms, though not well ventilated enough to let smoke from hearths escape, leaving many people in smoky, frigid houses. At least some of these houses were built by prison labour. While this is outside my scope of knowledge at the moment, it seems likely that the Tondenhei system was supported by prison labour clearing roads, building houses, helping transport the military settlers, etc. Similarly, while not formalized, accounts by family members (though not the men themselves) frequently reference Ainu. Either to suggest that they were forced off the land which the Tondenhei settled early enough that Ainu religious paraphernalia were still scattered about, or in direct reference to everyday interactions with resident Ainu such as Ainu teaching settlers how to make proper clothing for the winter (as settlers were not provided with any). Others reported forming friendships with local Ainu. And, moreover, it seems quite likely that later Ainu 'protection' policy was based on Tondenhei policy, with the latter providing a tentative model to transform the former into would-be settlers on their own colonized land.

Another topic which comes up frequently, perhaps most frequently, in these accounts is dialect. It wasn't until the late 19th century that something resembling a national language even started to form, largely through state efforts to erase local dialects in favour of a universal Japanese language. As scholars have noted, it was in large part through classrooms and military barracks that this happened. But through the Tondenhei, we see this process play out. Second and third waves of Tondenhei were recruited from across the country and represented dozens of local dialects which were in some cases not mutually distinguishable. While some recalled this fondly, thinking of funny stories about miscommunications, this left others despondent. It seems that women were particularly effected by this. As men were often training together, they would quickly be forced to learn how to communicate with one another. One would imagine school-aged children would be no different. Women and other adult dependents, however, would be farming individuated plots and would have fewer chances to interact with each other. Some Tondenhei men reported that their wives were extremely lonely. Some women themselves expressed great relief at finding some people in their villages that they could understand, with some referring to the particularly troublesome Tohoku dialects in particular, saying things along the lines of "They weren't from Tohoku so I could understand them." Of Tohoku Tondenhei in particular, one person suggested that they were mixed in with Tondenhei from other regions specifically because they were experienced with colder northern climates and, in particular, agriculture in the upper extremes of the temperate climate of Japan and could act as teachers for the others. This difficult interaction seems to have been a major feature of communal life in Tondenhei villages.

Another theme that is repeated again and again in men's testimony are reasons for enlisting. Perhaps half reported believing nationalist propaganda about the 'northern gate', while others escaped poverty or, in some cases, personal tragedies. The former in particular seem to have been almost instantly dispossessed of their sense of patriotic duty as they saw the actual conditions that they would live in. They frequently describe carrying children or the elderly out of the port town of Otaru and into narrower and rougher paths into the bush until they find small clearings, sometimes dark during the brightest time of day due to the thick forests surrounding them. It seems to have been almost universal for family members to break down in tears upon arrival. Many of these family members were forced against their wills to go, sometimes without having been informed until the last minute. They would often leave behind loved ones. Some Tondenhei family members describe a particular member of their group as having pushed the others into enlisting and becoming something of family pariahs upon arrival due to the sense of betrayal for putting the others into such conditions. Particularly the second and third wave Tondenhei were recruited from Kyushu or southern Honshu who would neither be prepared for the radically different climate and would have no realistic notions of seeing friends or loved ones from their home regions again.

Finally, there is a clear division of class within the Tondenhei. Early waves were divided into officers (from Satsuma) and general staff (from Tohoku). Later waves gave priority for advancement to graduates of Sapporo Agricultural College. Importantly, officers were given more land to farm, which would give them a better chance of gaining self-sufficiency or even making a profit. They would gain more land if they were able to use up their allotted land: a privilege not given to regular soldiers.

More later.

Notes: Miscellaneous topics related to the Tondenhei

I'm currently in the early phases of research for a chapter on the Tondenhei. It's quickly becoming clear that it will be more difficult than I'd thought simply because of the lack of available sources. This is simply because my main focus is not the typical romantic settler narrative repeated ad nauseam, nor am I interested in the military history of the Tondenhei soldiers. I'm interested, rather, in the domestic life of Tondenhei (ie. the family structures which were integrated into the military) and the place of the Tondenhei in developing discourses of nationalism and citizenship. In both cases, subjectivity becomes a key theme, as do gender roles (soldiering as 'masculine', 'patriotic', etc.).

Why samurai?

From its establishment in 1874 to 1890, the Tondenhei exclusively recruited samurai/ex-samurai, primarily from the five loyalist prefectures of northern Honshu. What's the reason for recruiting only samurai at first, and then heavily favouring them?

• They were trained soldiers with, especially directly after the Meiji Restoration, combat experience.
• Simple classism: prejudice against commoners, commoners were not trusted as soliders.
• They were entrusted with national defence, and the right to kill was largely the exclusive domain of the samurai, and only slowly was expanded with the draft.
• Moving Aizu, etc., samurai to Hokkaido reduced the samurai population in Tohoku.
• It rehabilitated these Tokugawa loyalists as patriots.

Gender:

The Tondenhei also played a role in redefining family structures in the samurai class, by promoting gender roles more typical of nuclear families. Documents refer to the Tondenhei as 'manly' in defending his nation, while women would be effectively working for the Tondenhei as the subordinates. There's almost nothing, in fact, on Tondenhei women, and it's not clear how they were enveloped by this system except as the dutiful wives of soldiers. It would be fascinating to learn more, but there doesn't seem to be much out there. Male children, however, were indirectly subject to the Tondenhei system in that, by law, if their fathers die while still in the 20 year period of service, 'suitable' male children are to take over in their father's place. While totally antithetical to the spirit of civilian militaries, it's consistent with the samurai class as it operated in the Tokugawa period. But here too, there's a dearth of detailed information, but this could be a fascinating topic.

Class:

The Tondenhei represented a very 'safe' option for anyone who would want to immigrate to Hokkaido. They would have two years of generous material support, including a home and land, and would be placed into a high social position in settler society. For poor samurai, this would represent a second chance. In the 1890s and until the system as abolished with the coming of universal conscription in 1905, this would also be a significant step up in the world for many commoners. Interestingly, though, a short history of Tondenhei of local lineage published online by Aichi Prefecture mentions that high ranking samurai applied, and groups of retainers for the same lord applied together as a group. Here too, getting to the heart of this sort of dynamic would be interesting.

The same Aichi Prefecture essay discusses, un-self-consciously reflecting settler narratives, a literal fight against nature as the "conquest of the soul" for young, brave Tondenhei pioneers. Getting into this sort of discourse from the period would be interesting, especially as it relates larger settler myths.

Tondenhei and Ainu:

One frustrating thing is it's still entirely unclear how the Tondenhei were historically related to the Ainu, other than simply as settling land stolen from the latter. The only time I've seen these two groups overlap in scholarship is Shinya Gyō's description of the Tondenhei as driving Ainu off their land at gunpoint. While they certainly occupied Ainu land, and as Michele Mason pointed out, while they were tantamount to a military occupation of colonized Ainu land, I've not seen any evidence besides Shinya's unsourced claim that the Tokdenhei had anything to do with the Ainu at all. It seems to have been the prefectural police who were more directly connected to issues of oppression and relocation of the Ainu. But, the fact that the Ainu and Tondenhei are otherwise never talked about together is itself a bit suspicious.

References to look into:

明治18年屯田 兵条例
明治20年屯田 兵徴募手続き
明治26年11月 29日官報 (new orders for prefectures regarding Tondenhei recruitment)
明治41年３月 移住者成績調査 (from the Hokkaido 道庁)
屯田兵顧録

Comment: "homo homini lupus" and the "survival of the fittest"

Presenting the Ainu as naturally fading before the shining light of Japanese civilization, like a fog burning off the forest in the morning sun, Japanese protectionists discourses evoke John Gast’s famous 1872 painting “American Progress” showing white male settlers, wagons, and trains led by an armed frontiersman extending westward across the prairies.

This procession is led by a gigantic Goddess of Liberty, herself holding a string of telegraph wires in one hand and a tome entitled “School Book” in the other. The light emanating from the east sends half-naked, feathered Indians run fleeing, their heads turned back to watch in horror, together with buffalo, bears, and foxes. These beasts alongside the Native Americans at once serve to animalize their human companions while also celebrating the frontier practice, still quite common in the 1870s, of murdering any Indigenous people or native fauna alike which might interfere with white settlement. 

This image and what it is meant to represent – the marriage of civilization and enterprise, the corrosive effect this naturally has on inert, childlike primitives, and the triumph of the white race – would be familiar to anyone in the United States in the late 19^th century. 

These discourses migrated across the Pacific with white settlers replaced by the Japanese and Native Americans replaced by the Ainu. A powerfully normalizing discourse rooted in the time of the earliest Spanish colonialism of the ‘New World’, it is one that also fits comfortably with what in the late 19^th century was cutting edge Darwinist evolutionary theory. Darwin himself, writing from the H.M.S. Beagle as it circumnavigated the globe, stopping at European colonies in Africa, South America, Australia, and India, reflected the dominant discourses of the European colonial world in his work, with mass slaughter and inhumane oppression justified by a view of humanity as, by its very nature, wolf-like, cruel, and fiercely competitive. 

Those European colonizers understood as ‘natives’, ‘primitives’, ‘savages’, or ‘aborigines’, by definition, lacked the capacity for sovereignty, both in terms of territorial sovereignty as nations as well as personal sovereignty as sovereign subjects. Simply put, non-Europeans were imagined as having no right to defend themselves. It was an easy step from there to imagine Indigenous peoples as deserving, if not inviting, this violence, due to their purported inferiority.