Labour Migration in Kai Province during Tokugawa Era

Abstract

Because peasants during the Tokugawa Era were legally prohibited from migrating, it has been generally believed that their movements and the geographical scope of their lives must have been fairly limited. However recent studies, although limited to one or two villages during the 19th Century, have made it clear that migration did in fact occur at a much larger scale than hitherto recognized. There is as yet little understanding of the nature or reasons for such migration, and this paper aims toward that understanding through an analysis of labour migration patterns in Kai province (now Yamanashi prefeature) during the latter half of the 17th Century and the 18th Century.The primary sources for this investigation are the Shumoncho, or religious investigation registers, of 25 villages in Kai province (see Figure 1). These records provide the names, ages and household positions of individuals, as well as data concerning changes in residence, and the arrival of newcomers to the village. and so provide an excellent basis for demographic analysis. Table 1, derived from the Shumoncho, shows the exceedingly complicated family structure that occurred during the Tokugawa Era. Only about 50% of the households in each village consisted of immediate family members. The upper class peasants, who owned a relatively large amount of land, usually kept subordinate peasants, who were divided into several classes, known as kakaeya, kadoya, fudai-genin and genin. This study is primarily concerned with the genin (also known as hokoonin), or labouring class.7, 859 households were analysed over four sub-periods comprising the Tokugawa Era, and the percentage of households that took in genin showed a decline throughout the era. During the first period, 1650-1699, 20.6% of households had genin, while the figure for the second period, 1700-1749, was 25.1%, that for the third period, 1950-1799, 15.1%, and the fourth period, 1800-1869, 6.2%. During the first and second periods, there still existed a large number of lifetime servants, called fudai-genin, but this class had ceased to exist by the third period. During the fourth period, a new class of seasonal or daily contract labourers appeared, and the number of genin consequently decreased. However, the genin were an important source of labour in many villages throughout the Tokugawa Era.Of 3, 523 genin recorded throughout the study period, there were 2, 049 men and 1, 474 women, and in each village and for each time period, there were more male than female genin. The mean age for all genin over the whole time period was 24.5 years, however this figure was 27.4 years during the first period, 25.8 years during the second, 22.5 years during the third, and 19.1 years during the fourth. The length of time that the genin worked in one place decreased from an average of three years during the first period, to one year towards the end of the Tokugawa Era. This trend seems to indicate that as time progressed, the labourers became less and less dependent upon their employers.The mean percentage of genin who moved within their own rural communities over the period was 37%. Among in-migrating genin, a mean percentage of 80.6% came from previous settlements within 4km, and the lowest village figure was 60%. An earlier study of marriage movement for the same district (1978) produced the same figures. Therefore, we can conclude that both labour in-migration and marriage inmigration were not completely limited to a single rural community, but were predominately limited to a radius of 4km.On the other hand, there were a large number of out-migrants from each village. They went to Kofu (the capital city of Kai Province) or Edo (now Tokyo).