Owara Shindayu

Image: Collection of the Sendai City Museum

The Sendai Domain's middle residence (nakayashiki) was located in Shiba Atagoshita (present-day Shinbashi, Minato City). Within the grounds, there were three buildings for the rusuiyaku (called kogizukai in the Sendai Domain), as well as more than 60 residences for ashigaru (foot soldiers) and servants. A boy named Wakiji Takahashi lived in that residence. In 1859, when a new rusuiyaku arrived at the residence, Takahashi, despite being a child, heard rumors that "the new rusuiyaku is very young and capable." That rusuiyaku's name was Owara Shindayu.

Owara was born in Sendai in November 1832. His family rank was obanshi (heishi) with a stipend of 29 koku. However, at the age of 9, he was summoned to become a page (kojisho), and at 26, he was promoted to kogizukai with an official allowance of 250 koku and dispatched to Edo ("Biography").

He was a person of great filial piety. After his mother passed away, he always visited the family temple of the Sendai Domain on the anniversary of her death every month to pray at her grave. Afterward, he would share a meal or play Go with the temple's head priest. He also spoke casually to Takahashi, who was working at the temple at the time. Takahashi recalled Owara during this period as "one of the awakened individuals who was among the first to notice the transitions of the world and held the view from early on that one must master foreign affairs. Therefore, he took special care of the young samurai of the domain who wanted to pursue Western studies."

Owara thought of sending the children of ashigaru to Yokohama to study British and French subjects. The selected boys, Takahashi and Rokunosuke Suzuki, lived in Yokohama and received English lessons from the wife of Dr. Hepburn, an American physician known for the Hepburn Romanization system. Additionally, Owara began Western-style infantry training, encouraged the practice of swordsmanship and judo, and built a Chinese studies school called Jundokan within the residence grounds. Sadayu Tamamushi, who taught as the school's head teacher for a time, was a unique figure who was chosen as an attendant to the chief envoy Norimasa Niimi for the 1860 mission to the United States and left behind the "Diary of a Voyage to America." When Takahashi returned to the middle residence for a time, he was surprised to see that the atmosphere of the residence had completely changed. Yukichi Fukuzawa, who described Owara as "a distinguished figure of high refinement who, while neither a scholar of Dutch nor English studies, nonetheless favored the air of Western civilization and took pleasure in loving Western-style students," found it a natural progression to become "very intimate" (The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa) with Owara.

The Sendai City Museum holds many materials related to Owara Shindayu, including letters from Fukuzawa, as the "Owara Family Documents." The author had the opportunity to view Owara's handwritten diary, "Nitteiki," and his handwritten "Biography" on microfilm. Overlapping the "Nitteiki" with Fukuzawa's letters reveals how the two frequently visited each other and exchanged letters when they could not meet, but I will introduce only two findings here. The first concerns the interactions between Fukuzawa and Owara; as far as I could see, an entry on September 17, 1863, in the "Nitteiki" states "Yukichi Fukuzawa came," confirming that their interaction had begun by this point at the latest. The second is the period of Owara's stay in Yokohama after surgery. Owara had long suffered from hemorrhoids, and Fukuzawa showed concern for him in the openings and postscripts of his letters, writing things like "How is your painful area since then?" (Letter 28). In June 1866, Owara went to Yokohama and underwent surgery performed by Hepburn on the 3rd. After studying at Keio University, Fukuzawa sent a letter to Tosaku Yokoo, a Sendai domain samurai studying in Yokohama, expressing concern for Owara: "I heard Mr. Owara has traveled to your area for medical treatment; how is his condition?" (Letter 36). In the "Nitteiki," it was confirmed that Owara stayed in Yokohama for a while, receiving house calls almost daily with entries like "Hepburn came," before returning to his residence on July 10. His post-operative condition was good, and in subsequent letters from Fukuzawa, mentions of the hemorrhoid ailment disappeared entirely.

As a way to raise money to support Tokujirō Obata and five others he had brought from Nakatsu, Fukuzawa undertook the translation of the Japan Herald, an English-language newspaper published every Saturday, which Yokoo had purchased on Owara's orders. For Owara, who wanted to "master foreign affairs," Fukuzawa's proposal must have been exactly what he wanted. Furthermore, Fukuzawa's translation of the section on 15-inch cannons from an original work purchased by the Sendai Domain became "On Coastal Defense." The pocket-sized tactical manual "Handbook for soldiers," which describes scouting methods and how to build field forts, is believed to have been translated and published by Fukuzawa at Owara's request, as it bears the red seal of "Sendai Library Edition."

At the end of 1866, when Fukuzawa's second trip to the United States was decided, the visits and letter exchanges between the two became even more active. Fukuzawa was entrusted with a large sum of money from the Sendai Domain to handle the purchase of weapons in the United States. The day after Fukuzawa returned to Japan and went back to Teppozu, Owara delivered fresh fish to celebrate his return. The following day, Fukuzawa took up his pen and reported, "After repeated and careful consideration, I have decided to definitely forgo the purchase of cannons" (Letter 42). Fukuzawa had purchased and brought back a large number of Western books using his own funds along with the large sums entrusted to him by the Wakayama and Sendai Domains. However, due to alleged misconduct during his time abroad, Fukuzawa was ordered into house arrest, and the books were seized. These items were not returned until the following year. Among them, the books for the Sendai Domain amounted to 42 titles and 779 volumes, the details of which are preserved as the "Catalog of Western Books in the Yoken-do Collection of Chinese Studies" (Yoken-do was the Sendai Domain school). In a "Memorandum" (dated March 13, 1868) for the settlement of the entrusted money sent by Fukuzawa to Owara when the books could finally be collected, it is recorded that he received 2,500 ryo in January before departure, spent over 1,510 ryo on books including expenses, and would refund the remainder.

When it was decided that Koroku, the son of Rintaro Katsu (Kaishu), would study in the United States, Tetsunosuke Tomita, a Sendai domain samurai who was studying at Katsu's Juku, was chosen to accompany him. Owara, who heard the story from Katsu, arranged for Tomita to study abroad and for the Sendai Domain to provide an annual tuition of 1,000 ryo. There was also talk of sending the boys who were training in Yokohama, and while Suzuki was fine, Takahashi's behavior was problematic and became an issue. After hearing the circumstances from Takahashi, who visited the middle residence, Owara reportedly told him, "In any case, go to Yokohama and wait." One month after Fukuzawa's return, the Katsu Koroku party, including Takahashi, departed Yokohama Port on the regular mail steamer Colorado, the same ship Fukuzawa had taken. Fukuzawa remarked, "Since Owara was the rusui of a large domain, one would think he was quite well-off, yet he never engaged in such foolish play. He simply found it interesting to support students and did nothing but look after them. I suppose there was likely no Sendai student at the time who had not eaten a meal at Owara's house" (The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa). The "Sendai Boshin History" published in 1911 records, "Talented individuals never ceased to visit him, and Shindayu himself lived frugally to support them, planning to make them useful instruments for the nation in the future." Tetsunosuke Tomita, who went to the U.S. at this time, later became the second Governor of the Bank of Japan, and Rokunosuke Suzuki (later Tomoo) became the Chief Officer of the Cash Department of the Bank of Japan. Wakiji Takahashi is Korekiyo Takahashi, who would become Prime Minister (Takahashi's recollections are quoted from "The Autobiography of Korekiyo Takahashi"). Furthermore, Fumihiko Otsuki, whom he sent to study in Yokohama, completed Japan's first Japanese dictionary, "Genkai," and Tosaku Yokoo accomplished an exploratory voyage to Iwo Jima and was called the "Columbus of the East." Those whom Owara looked after later achieved great success in their respective fields.

As 1868 began, the situation finally became urgent. Owara was relieved of his duties in Edo in March and returned home briefly, but he returned to Edo to handle the disposal of the Edo domain residence, visiting Kaishu Katsu to arrange the transfer of the residence and the purchase of warships from the Shogunate. According to the "Sendai Boshin History," Owara loaded the treasures and ceramics of the upper residence onto a ship bound for Sendai before they could be confiscated, set fire to the residence just before it was handed over to the Tosa Domain, and fled to Katsu's residence. Before that, Kiyoshi Ono, a mediator for the Sendai Domain, visited Fukuzawa with a letter of introduction from Owara. The sender of the letter, "Shiogama-nama," referred to Owara (as there was a Shiogama Shrine at the middle residence), and the addressee "Shinsenza-sama" was Fukuzawa's pseudonym. Fukuzawa reportedly told the Sendai Domain, which was leaning toward the Northern Alliance (Ouetsu Reppan Domei), "Resisting the general trend is useless; it is better to stop such things quickly" (The Life of Yukichi Fukuzawa). When Ono returned to Sendai, he explained the error of the domain's policy to the bugyo (elders) Tosa Tadaki and Eiriki Saka, but by that point, they could no longer withdraw from the alliance, and in September, they offered their surrender to the imperial army. Tadaki and Saka, who had led the domain's policy until then, were executed by beheading, and Tamamushi and others were ordered to commit seppuku. Owara, who had returned to Sendai, changed his name to Tsuyoshi Kurokawa, and been appointed as Shutnyutsukasa (the highest official in domain finance), was also soon dismissed. Sensing danger to his life, Owara escaped Sendai and went into hiding along with Jun Matsukura, who could be called Tadaki's staff officer, and received notice from the domain of the abolition of his family name and the confiscation of his stipend.

Owara, who went into hiding in Tokyo, lived in Azabu Hiroo-cho, kept Fukuzawa informed of his whereabouts, and visited Fukuzawa's house. In 1870, despite recovering from typhoid fever, Fukuzawa's efforts to save Owara and Matsukura, who had come to visit him, are told in detail in "The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa." Thanks to those efforts, Owara was released after about a month of imprisonment following his surrender. Thereafter, still under the name Tsuyoshi Kurokawa, he served in the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Metropolitan Police Bureau. In 1878, he was appointed as the head of Oshika District in Miyagi Prefecture and moved to Miyagi, where he subsequently served as district head for various districts within the prefecture ("Biography"). During this time, as Fukuzawa said, "Even to this day, we associate as before and correspond with each other. It will likely remain unchanged for life" (The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa), Owara kept Fukuzawa informed of his activities and sent gifts, while Fukuzawa sent congratulations on Owara's transfers. Their friendship never ceased, even when their residences and positions were far apart.

For a long time, Fukuzawa did not make this drama of Owara's rescue public. It was in May 1889, immediately after Owara was granted a special pardon to restore his family name and reverted from Tsuyoshi Kurokawa, that Fukuzawa introduced Owara's activities around the time of the Restoration in the "Miscellaneous Reports" of the Jiji Shinpo, stating, "The one who caused the people of the world to call him the mastermind of the rebellion against the nation was Mr. Shindayu Owara of the Sendai Domain." Thus, Owara's long Meiji Restoration finally came to an end. Furthermore, on the day the passage about his interaction with Owara was published in the serialized "Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa" in the Jiji Shinpo, the steward Junshiro Ito sent a letter to Owara on behalf of the ailing Fukuzawa, conveying that Fukuzawa "greatly praised your character and refinement" and "regretted that your fame was not more widely and highly known in the world." Owara died of illness in Tokyo in October 1900, shortly before Fukuzawa passed away. Upon hearing that Owara was ill, Fukuzawa reportedly pushed his post-illness body to pay a personal visit to Owara and inquire after his health.

The "Sendai Biographical History" published in 1909 records that when Fukuzawa was asked in writing whether Owara was suitable to be the head of Oshika District, he replied, "I do not know the suitability of making a man of Owara's great talent a mere district head. If he were appointed as a prefectural governor, perhaps; if he were further made a councilor (sangī), I would definitely guarantee his suitability." If this is true, it can be called Fukuzawa's highest praise for Owara.