Yakushima Magistrate’s Office Ruins
- Modification： 2024/01/11
- Area: miyanoura
In 1612 (Keichō 17), a man named Shimadzu was the sole ruler of Yakushima. Thirty years later in 1642 (Kanei 19), he assumed the office of Yakushima Daikan. Daikan was a local administrative post, often hereditary, under the jurisdiction of the regional Shōgun. In 1695 (Genroku 8), the office of Yakushima Daikan was repealed, and was instead replaced by the bureaucratic office of Yaku Bugyō, or Yakushima magistrate.
However, upon the 1708 (Hōei 5) incident of Italian Christian priest Shidocchi making his (illegal) entry to Japan via Yakushima, the office of Yaku Bugyō was changed to Yakushima Bugyō, and the island’s government was thus established as the Yakushima Magistrate Office.
In 1728 (Kyōhō 13), the Yakushima Tegatajo Kibochō system of laws and rules was established, creating an organisational structure for all of Yakushima’s industries. In 1757 (Hōreki 7), the export of lumber was prohibited, and in 1789 (Kansei 1), it was decided that all of Yakushima’s medicinal herbs would be put into storage at a storage facility in Miyanoura. Thereafter and until its demise in 1869, the Satsuma Domain continued the use of the Yakushima Magistrate’s Office as base of operations for the rule over and administration of Yakushima.
