Abstract
In the spring of 1609, the Ryukyu kingdom 琉球王国 was defeated by an invasion by the Satsuma domain of Japan, ruled by the Shimazu 島津 family. King Shō Nei 尚寧 and major Ryukyuan officials were marched off to Satsuma as prisoners of war. In response to the daimyo’s report on the invasion, the Tokugawa bakufu recognized Satsuma’s control over Ryukyu. The Tokugawa authorities, thus, brought Ryukyu, a kingdom that had maintained tributary relations with Ming China since the latter half of the fourteenth century, within the political orbit of Tokugawa Japan. From then until 1879, when the Meiji government abolished the kingdom and annexed Ryukyu into Japan as Okinawa Prefecture, the Ryukyu kingdom accepted both Chinese and Japanese claims of suzerainty. In research on Ryukyu history, this period is defined as the early modern (Kinsei 近世) period, distinct from the old Ryukyu 古琉球 period (Takara 1987).
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