"Foreigners" in Edo
Despite having been invaded by Satsuma in 1609 and forced into trading relations with the domain, the Ryukyu kingdom was still considered a foreign country, albeit a small one, by the Japanese. Indeed, when the Tokugawa shogunate implemented embassy missions from foreign powers in order to legitimize their new hold over Japan, the Ryukyuans were counted among the foreign countries that were to send an envoy (Hellyer 42-44). Additionally, Satsuma forces accompanied the Ryukyuan procession, using it as an opportunity to display their position as the only domain that “dominated a ‘foreign’ state” (Hellyer 45; Smits 28).
This foreignness was partially manufactured by the Satsuma domain leaders. When the Ryukyuans were in Japan, for example, they were told to “dress in Ryukyuan and later Ming-style garb”, creating an exotic display to “accentuate their ‘foreignness’” (Hellyer 45). Additionally, they were to “feign ignorance of Japanese language and customs” during these processions to Edo (Smits 28). This language restriction, as well as all evidence of Japanese influence, was also important during Chinese visits to the kingdom (Kerr 166).
This need to maintain an image of the Ryukyu kingdom as a state independent from Japanese influence was important for political purposes. In the early 1600s, the Japanese were prohibited from trading directly with the Ming Dynasty of China, and so the shogunate began to use the relationship between the Ryukyu and China to bring Chinese goods to indirectly trade with China (Smits 18). This provided the need for secrecy. Were the Chinese to discover that the Ryukyuans were being manipulated by Satsuma, their stance in the tributary system would dramatically drop, and their association with Japan might also mean that their own ports would be closed to Chinese trade (Kerr 166). Thus, through the Ryukyu kingdom’s tribute voyages to China, as well as the investiture voyages asking for recognition of new kings (Leavenworth), the Japanese were able to maintain trade networks with China. Though the Japanese eventually established their own trade routes with China through Nagasaki (Hellyer 132-133), and the Satsuma domain also found new ways to illicitly trade with Chinese merchant ships (130-32), Ryukyu’s connection to China remained important.
This identity as a separate nation also later meant that Satsuma could use the Ryukyu kingdom as a way to create trade relationships with other foreigners, even as the shogunate (and the Satsuma domain rulers themselves) publically prohibited it. For example, in 1854, the Ryukyu kingdom and the United States entered into a treaty allowing free trade between the two parties (Hellyer 164). This treaty, and others that followed afterwards, helped fuel Satsuma’s military power through weapons trade with foreign powers (166-67), even while the official stance was to expel the Westerners by force (164).
In short, Satsuma, and the shogunate to a lesser extent, painted the Ryukyuans as foreigners in order to strengthen their economic and political position in respect to the others.
References
Hellyer, Robert I. Defining Engagement: Japan and Global Contexts, 1640-1868. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Print.
Kerr, George H. Okinawa: The History of an Island People. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1958. Print.
Leavenworth, Charles S. “Extracts in Regard to Loochoo, Translated from the Imperial History of the Ming Dynasty of China.” The Loochoo islands. Shanghai: “North-China Herald” office, 1905. 98-117. Web.
Smits, Gregory. Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999. Project MUSE. Web. 25 Sept. 2014. http://muse.jhu.edu/