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Sado, Niigata

City in Honshu, Japan

  • 10 min read
  • 6 chapters
佐渡金山のシンボル「道遊の割戸（どうゆうのわれと）」。露天掘りの跡。
日:Muramasa · CC BY-SA 3.0

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History

Political formation of the island

The large number of pottery artifacts found near Ogi in the South of the island demonstrate that Sado was populated as early as the Jōmon period.

The Nihon Shoki mentions that Mishihase people visited the island in 544 (although it is unknown whether Tungusic people effectively came).

The island formed a distinct province, the Sado Province, separate from the Echigo province on Honshū, at the beginning of the 8th century. At first, the province was a single gun (district), but was later divided into three gun: Sawata, Hamochi and Kamo.

In 1185, the designated representative Shugo for Sado, Osaragi, appointed Honma Yoshihisa as his shugodai (delegate) for the province.

The rule of the Honma clan on Sado lasted until Uesugi Kagekatsu took control of the island in 1589. After the defeat of the Uesugi at Sekigahara, and the discovery of gold on the island, the shogunate took direct control of the island.

The island was for a short time an independent prefecture, called the Aikawa prefecture, between 1871 and 1876, during the Meiji era. It then became a part of Niigata Prefecture, which it is still as of today.

At the end of the 19th century, there were three districts (郡), seven towns (町), and 51 villages (村). During the 20th century, a series of mergers steadily reduced the number of political local authorities, following the recent trend in Japan to cut the costs of having separately run local administrations. The current city (市) covering the whole island was established on March 1, 2004, from a merger of all remaining municipalities on the island: the city of Ryōtsu: the towns of Aikawa, Kanai, Sawata, Hatano, Mano, Hamochi and Ogi; and the villages of Niibo, and Akadomari (all from Sado District).

Exile in Sado

When direct control from mainland Japan started around the 8th century, the island's remoteness meant that it soon became a place of banishment for difficult or inconvenient Japanese figures. Exile to remote locations such as Sado was a very serious punishment, second only to the death penalty, and people were not expected to return.

The earliest known dissident to be condemned to exile on Sadogashima was a poet, Hozumi no Asomi Oyu (穂積朝臣老). He was sent to the island in 722, reportedly for having criticized the emperor.

The former Emperor Juntoku was sent to Sado after his role in the Jōkyū War of 1221. The disgraced emperor survived twenty years on the island before his death; and because he was sent to Sado, this emperor is known posthumously as Sado-no-in (佐渡院). He is buried in the Mano Goryo mausoleum on the west coast.

The Buddhist monk Nichiren lived on Sado close to the present village Niibo in Kuninaka Plain from 1271 to 1274. In the 17th century, Konpon Ji Temple was built at the place where he lived. At the end of his exile, Nichiren lived at the place where Myosho Ji temple was built later. He used to meditate at the place where Jisso Ji Temple can be visited today. In addition, Nipponzan Myohoji, a modern Nichiren Buddhist order, established a Peace Pagoda in the city to help in inspiring people toward world peace.

The Noh dramatist Zeami Motokiyo was exiled on unspecified charges in 1434.

The last banishment in Sado took place in 1700, almost a millennium after the first.

Gold mine

Sado experienced a sudden economic boom during the Edo period when gold was found in 1601 at Aikawa (相川). A major source of revenue for the Tokugawa shogunate, the mines were worked in very severe conditions.

A manpower shortage led to a second wave of "exiles" coming to Sado, although this time it was not imposed as a sentence for a committed crime. By sending homeless people (the number of whom was growing in Japanese cities at the time) to Sado from the 18th century, the Shogunate hoped to kill two birds with one stone. The homeless were sent as water collectors and worked in extremely hard conditions, with a short life expectancy. The Sado mine at its peak in the Edo era produced around 400 kilograms (1,100 troy pounds) of gold a year (as well as some silver). The small settlement of Aikawa quickly reached a population of around 100,000. The mine closed in 1989.

External influence on Sado culture

In feudal Japan, when the Nishimawari naval route was opened in 1672, Ogi (in the South of the Island) became a main stop on this major naval route in the Sea of Japan between the Kansai area and northern areas of the archipelago.

Exiles and shipping in old times both had a major influence on Sado's cultural background. The island is for instance dotted with Noh theaters, and the local Japanese dialect and accent are different from those of Niigata.

Emergency landing on Sado

A few months after World War II, on 18 January 1946, a Douglas Dakota (C-47) Sister Ann in British RAF service made an emergency landing on the island. The locals helped in the recovery and building a runway for it to depart, the story of which was made into a film named Tobe! Dakota (Fly, Dakota, Fly!) with the film's Dakota made into an island exhibit. The story of the events leading up to the crash were also made into a film, The Night My Number Came Up.

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