The transpacific migration of tens of thousands of Japanese men and women from the late-nineteenth century has traditionally been studied as a history which was external to the historiography of the Japanese nation-state. Recent research has challenged this assumption and argued that Japanese overseas migrants played a key role both in the making of the modern nation and in the expansion of the Japanese empire (e.g. Azuma 2019). This think-piece examines some of the methodological challenges raised in the study of such transpacific migrations by focusing on the history of the first government-sponsored Japanese laborers to Hawai‘i (kan'yaku imin, 1885-1894). It proposes new ways in which scholars might offer global contexts to proto-industrial transformations in mid-nineteenth century Japan by bringing the history of late-nineteenth century kan'yaku imin labor into their analytical frameworks. One consequence of such an approach is that Japanese sugar plantation laborers in Hawai‘i may be understood as part of the history of Japan's long transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy. The paper further suggests that the discourse of "industrious" immigrants on the Hawaiian sugar plantations forces scholars to study the Japanese kan'yaku imin laborers as part of the historiography of colonial settlement in Hawai‘i. In these ways, the paper illustrates the high potential of "global agricultural history" methodologies to the future study of nineteenth century Japan.

抄録全体を表示

In the formative period when Taiwan was under Japanese rule (1895–1945), modernizing the sugar manufacturing industry was a pressing issue. To promote the economy and reduce reliance on imported sugar, as agricultural economist Nitobe Inazō insisted in his Tōgyō Kairyō Ikensho (Opinion Paper on Improving the Sugar Industry), Taiwan was expected to mass-produce sugarcane-based raw sugar. However, the Japanese Empire had little experience with this type of modernization; therefore, Hawai‘i, having established itself as the leading sugar-producing region in the late-19th-century Pacific, became a frequent and significant reference for Taiwan. This study focuses primarily on the implementation of what Bosma and Knights called a "global factory." Large-scale sugar-manufacturing machinery and factories became standards in the sugar-industry world by the early 20th century, including in Taiwan. The study purports that people who had connections with Hawai‘i, including immigrants, contributed to establishing the industry in Taiwan. These people were divided into two groups: those involved in the government-initiated migrant-labor project between Japan and the Hawaiian kingdom (1885–1894), and those who worked in the sugarcane fields at factories in Hawai‘i. The former group, including Robert W. Irwin and Takechi Tadamichi, was directly involved in the migration project and, later, the establishment of the Taiwan Sugar Company in 1901. The latter group was considered by Taiwan’s sugar company managers the experienced "engineers" who were able to operate machinery and run factories. This case study attempts to connect the history of Japanese migration to Hawai‘i and the Japanese colonial history of Taiwan by examining the sugar-related interactions between the two islands. Eventually, these interactions shaped the image of Taiwan as a protégé of Hawai‘i in the 1930s. Similar to the global history of other cash crops, skills and systems of sugar production were transplanted from the west to the rest of the world. In emphasizing the multiple trans-Pacific movements of people, machinery, and skills related to sugar, this study challenges the west-centered global history of sugar and reveals segments of power dynamics that appeared within sugar-producing islands in the pre-war Pacific.

抄録全体を表示

This paper explores transplantation of modern sugar manufacturing industry in colonial Taiwan. It takes a reference to the Pacific where this technology was brought from, and examines land for farming, labour for cultivation, and new variety of cane sugar. Focusing on Japanese agricultural labour, this paper shows how they acted, worked, and settled in different parts of Taiwan. In the early stage of transplantation, some Japanese migrants who had worked in Hawaii’s cane sugar field were invited as skilled labour with the purpose of technology transfer. Some came as contract colonial technocrats, contract labour, and government-assisted migrants. In South and West Taiwan, as the lands were predominantly owned by Chinese-Taiwanese, only few lands were available for Japanese. Consequently, instead of setting up the plantations or Japanese owned farms, sugar manufacturing companies purchase sugar canes from Chinese-Taiwanese farmers. In East Taiwan, as the way to reclaiming lands, some indigenous peoples were expelled, and Japanese migrants settled there. In the mid-early stage, "bad behaviors" such as drinking, gambling, and escaping were observed among contract labour. Consequently, government-assisted migrants were strongly expected to be "good mainlanders (naichijin)." However, Okinawan people were excluded from it. These ordinary people’s experiences add new understandings of industrialization and modernization of sugar manufacturing in colonial Taiwan to the literature. The comparison to the experience in the Pacific shows the difference in the composition of the ethnicity of sugar-producing agricultural labour, which included the ruler side people. The presence of competing commercial crops, tobacco, in some Japanese villages was another contrast to the Pacific, which became evident since the 1930s. Though the promotion of sugar manufacturing industry started as both colonial and industrial policy for Taiwan, the implementation required various trial-and-error, and finally required "good mainlander" agricultural labour.

抄録全体を表示

As is well known, the South Seas Development Company had established in 1921 quickly transformed the Northern Mariana Islands into the Japanese empire's next "sugar islands" following on from the colonization of Taiwan. Previous studies of the South Seas Development Company especially focused on how the Company had managed sugar industry successfully in the Northern Mariana Islands under the Japanese rule. Instead of seeing the Company-led development of the sugar industry as an example of Japan's expanding colonial powers, this article argues how the Company's sugar industry was constructed in various global sugar networks beyond the Japanese empire and how the construction process caused conflicts between the Company and Okinawan employed in the sugar plantation and the Chamorro possessed of their lands. The structure of this article is as follows. First, it describes how the Spanish missionaries and the German colonial government in the Northern Mariana Islands excluded Chamorro from their lands from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Second, it focuses Matsue Haruji(CEO of the Company) as a "transplanter" who transplanted the latest scientific knowledge and technology of the American sugar empire into the colonial Taiwan and the Northern Mariana Islands. Third, it describes why Okinawans came out on strike in 1927 and how they united against the Company's policy. In conclusion, it suggests that we reconsider the construction process of the Company’s sugar industry as the settler colonial system which suppressed the Chamorro's voice of protests.

抄録全体を表示

This paper revealed that dairy farming was identified as staple industries of Hokkaido through the involvement in animal industrial policy by the officials attached to the Hokkaido office. For few years, from so-called to the decision of the second colonization plan of Hokkaido, the fundamental factor of the importance on animal husbandry, especially dairy farming in Hokkaido, was resulted from property of settlement since the Meiji period. In agricultural villages of Hokkaido after World War I, the decrease of immigrants and the population outflow became tangible. the Hokkaido office regarded the depletion of the fertility of soil as the cause. the introduction of cattle by the Hokkaido office was aimed at the recovery of the fertility, it was a plan to fix the agricultural population(new immigrants, existing farmhouses) in the land. in that sense, the dairy farming through the leadership of the Hokkaido office was a kind of an agricultural immigration policy. From a point of the fulfilment of the policy challenges for an agricultural immigrants, Dairy farming was given the major importance in comparison with any other animal industrial sectors under the second colonization plan of Hokkaido. Decrease of immigrants and outflow of population in Hokkaido lowered the value of the land as a settlement. For the Hokkaido office, promoting dairy farming under the second colonization plan of Hokkaido was none other than to maintain the value of Hokkaido as a settlement. After 1931, bad crops and flood damages occurred in succession, The role of dairy farming as an agricultural immigrant policy under the second colonization plan of Hokkaido came to increase more and more.

抄録全体を表示

This study examines how many farmers obtained land collateral loans, why they obtained loans, who provided the loans and what influence the loans had on the polarization of farmers in a silk-raising village of the South Tohoku region in the teens (1877‒1886) of the Meiji Era (1868‒1912). Ninety percent of farmers obtained land collateral loans in ten years and sixty percent of them obtained loans during the inflation period in the first half of the decade. Land mortgages, which were more convenient, were preferred to the conventional pledges. The typical debtors were owner-tenant farmers. Under the steep rise in raw silk prices, they obtained loans to spend money or to establish other businesses. The consequences from the loans were devastating. As a result of the deflation during the teens, two thirds of the debtors or 80 percent of the owner-tenant farmers lost their land due to foreclosures. The majority of the lenders were villagers. Villagers including from landowners to tenant farmers obtained loans and sold land, while they provided loans and purchased land. Through the turbulent economic fluctuations during the teens, the polarization at all strata of farmers in the village proceeded. The decisive factor that triggered polarization was the loans provided by a wide range of farmers. The land collateral loans were decisive in polarizing farmers during the teens.

抄録全体を表示

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how Sakuma Girin (1823‒1899), a resident of Kawauchi Village, Futaba District, Fukushima Prefecture, constructed his views on agriculture in order to survive in a community after a disaster through an examination of his writings submitted to "The Agriculturist (Nougyou-Zasshi)." This paper, thus, discusses how people living after a disaster internalized their experiences. Girin contributed to the recovery of his village from the Famine of Tenpou, which occurred in the 1830's. Although one may be a person affected by a disaster, it is difficult to be constantly aware of the occurrence of disasters. Nonetheless, based on his experiences, Girin sought out a state of agriculture while holding to an awareness of disaster response. Where the cultivation of fields was the main means of livelihood, emphasis was placed on the cultivation of cold-tolerant crop varieties, rather than production expansion. In addition, in secondary occupations, Girin invented and proposed the cultivation of emergency crops and sidelines that made use of familiar natural surroundings, also practicing these himself. These practices of Girin were implemented while utilizing the new media of the Meiji period (1868‒1912). Disasters and modernization are events that compel the rationalization of local society from the outside. While living in this milieu, Girin created a livelihood rooted in the local land, constructing views of agriculture that aimed to guarantee the lives of others, not simply practiced for one's own benefit.

抄録全体を表示