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Inagaki Manjiro¯ (1861–1908): a Diplomat Who Recognized the Importance of the Asia-Pacific Region to Japan

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Inagaki Manjiro¯ (1861–1908): a Diplomat Who Recognized the Importance of the Asia-Pacific Region to Japan 5 Inagaki Manjiro¯ (1861–1908): a Diplomat who Recognized the Importance of the Asia-Pacific Region to Japan NOBORU KOYAMA Inagaki Manjiro¯ (Photo from the National Diet Library, Tokyo) INTRODUCTION Japanese nationalist sentiment grew rapidly in the final decades of the nineteenth century as a reaction to the rapid Westernization of the early part of the Meiji period (1868–1912). It led in turn to the devel- opment of Japanese imperialism. Inagaki Manjiro¯, who received his university education in England, emphasized the importance of Asia and the Pacific for Japan and advocated the expansion of Japanese power towards these regions. Inagaki combined both the desire to embrace Western ideas, characteristic of the early Meiji period, and the imperialist ambitions of the middle and later Meiji period. He returned to Japan from England at the time when Japanese national- ism was developing into imperialism. 44 INAGAKI MANJIRO¯ (1861–1908) HIRADO AND THE SATSUMA REBELLION Inagaki Manjiro¯was born on 22 September 1861 in Hirado (Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan) the second son of Amano Yu¯ei, a financial official of the Hirado fief.1 Hirado was a port, north of Nagasaki City in Kyushu¯, where the English ‘factory’ (trading post) had been between 1613 and 1623. The feudal lord of Hirado was a member of the Matsura family.2 Inagaki changed his family name from Amano to Inagaki which had been his ancestral family name after the Meiji Restoration in 1868.3 When he was three years old, his father died at the age of forty and his family’s fortune declined. So he and his elder brother, Yu¯taro¯, were adopted by their uncle, Motozawa Goro¯.4 In the following year, Inagaki caught smallpox, and although he survived, his face remained pockmarked.5 Inagaki entered a primary school in Hirado, which had been estab- lished by the new government in the early years of the Meiji period. Later, he heard about the reputation and popularity of the private schools (Shigakko¯) which Saigo¯ Takamori (1827–77) had established in Kagoshima, the capital of the former Satsuma fief in Kyushu¯. Saigo¯ Takamori had been one of the outstanding leaders of the Meiji Restoration in which the Satsuma fief had played a leading role. He returned to Kagoshima from Tokyo after he had lost the argument in the so-called ‘Seikanron’ (Conquer Korea Debate) within the Meiji Government in 1873. He then became the symbol of the discontented former samurai class and his schools were at the centre of the move- ment against the new Meiji Government. Although most of leaders of the Meiji Government came from the samurai class, the moderniza- tion policies of the government had brought financial ruin to the samurai and a loss of status. Saigo¯was induced to become the leader of the Satsuma Rebellion (the Seinan war) of 1877, the largest and last revolt against the Meiji Government. Probably sympathetic towards Saigo¯, Inagaki and his brother went to Kagoshima to study at Saigo¯’s schools.6 But the students were then showing signs of rebellion against the government and, perhaps for this reason, Inagaki and his brother were forced to return to Nagasaki where they lodged with another uncle, Yamakawa Kagenori, who was the head of police in Nagasaki.7 The Satsuma Rebellion started in February 1877. The rebels, who were captured by the government forces, were imprisoned in Nagasaki. O¯ yama Tsunayoshi (1825–77), who had been governor of Kagoshima prefecture, was arrested in Kobe and sent to Nagasaki in June 1877 where he was executed. Inagaki’s uncle, Motozawa Goro¯, and Inagaki’s brother, Yu¯taro¯, were employed as policemen under Yamakawa Kagenori. Inagaki himself could not be employed because, 45.
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