The Development of the Kamioka Mine Tochibora District in the Late Edo Era

Abstract

Most of the famous mines were developed on a large scale in the late 16th century and the early 17th century, but began to decline in the late 17th century and were no longer able to meet the domestic demand for mineral resources. Mine development, once rich in mineral deposits, moved to poorer areas that had scarcely been developed previously. Therefore, after the 19th century, mine development began to flourish in several other places in Japan. The Kamioka mine Tochibora district (located at Mt. Nijugo-yama around central Kamioka-cho, Gifu Prefecture) is one of those mines. It was developed and prospered in the late 19th century. This study clarifies the development of the Kamioka mine from the 1830s to 1860s and examines the regional factors involved in its development, focusing on the acquisition of funds and techniques. In the late 19th century, many small developers mined their own drift or alit independently at Mt. Nijugo-yama. The landscape of this mining district was different from the typical form of Japanese mining districts, including all the mining facilities within the district. Only the minimum facilities for mining (smelters, works for crushing the ore, workers' cabins, the administrative office, etc.) were located in the open space around the entrance of the drifts or adits, and the other facilities (developers' houses, stores, refining works, etc.) were spread throughout the mining district to Funatsu-machi village (the central town around the Kamioka mine) and Takayama (the administrative and economic center of the domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate in the Hida area, currently the northern part of Gifu Prefecture). These characteristics developed through the following process. In the early 1830s, when the redevelopment of old mines began at Mt. Nijugo-yama, the Kanayama-shi (the mining engineer as well as the operator of a small mine) who came from Echizen (currently Fukui Prefecture) led the exploitation. The funds and equipment for exploitation were provided by merchants in Funatsu-machi village and Takayama. In the late 1830s, when the copper merchants under government patronage who lived in Edo (the metropolis of the Tokugawa Shogunate, present-day Tokyo) began to participate, the exploitation improved greatly. However, they pulled out of the Kamioka mine shortly thereafter. The mining engineer who had been sent from Edo by the copper merchants took over the exploitation of that mine and operated it for about the next 10 years. In the late 1840s, a group of wealthy merchants who lived in Funatsu-machi village began to operate the mine, recruiting engineers and laborers. In 1855, the official smelter that was organized by the wealthy merchants who lived in Takayama was established next to the government building of the Hida domain at Takayama, and all mineral resources produced in the Hida area were smelted at this facility. After that, the number of shitakasegi-nin (mining subcontractors) increased significantly. They included many small merchants and kanayama-shi who could not secure sufficient funds. However, they were able to receive payment for mineral resources in advance after establishing the smelter, thus procuring operating funds. It has been thought that the active development of the Kamioka mine in the late Edo era was due to the mining policy of the government of the Hida domain. Actually this development was closely related to the positive participation of the inhabitants around the mine and the characteristics that were developed throughout the history of mine exploitation in the Hokuriku and Tokai areas. Since the last years of the 16th century, many mines have been exploited and settlements of kanayama-shi appeared in Hida, Mino (currently in Gifu Prefecture), Echizen and Ecchu (Toyama Prefecture), and Echigo (Niigata Prefecture).