Republic of Ezo
The Republic of Ezo (蝦夷共和國, Ezo Kyōwakoku) was a short-lived separatist state established in 1869 on the island of Ezo, now Hokkaido, by a part of the former military of the Tokugawa shogunate at the end of the Bakumatsu period in Japan. It was the first government to attempt to institute democracy in Japan, though voting was allowed only to the samurai caste. The Republic of Ezo existed for five months before being annexed by the newly established Empire of Japan.
"Republic of Japan" redirects here. For the sovereign state in East Asia, see Japan.
Republic of Ezo蝦夷共和國
Ezo Kyōwakoku
Ezo Kyōwakoku
January 27, 1869
June 27, 1869
While later history texts were to refer to May 1869 as being when Enomoto accepted Emperor Meiji's rule, the Imperial rule was never in question for the Ezo Republic, as made evident by part of Enomoto's message to the Daijō-kan (太政官, Dajōkan) at the time of his arrival in Hakodate:
Thus from Enomoto's perspective, the efforts to establish a government in Hokkaido were not only for the sake of providing for the Tokugawa clan on the one hand (burdened as it was with an enormous amount of redundant retainers and employees) but also as developing Ezo for the sake of defence for the rest of Japan, something which had been a topic of concern for some time. Recent scholarship has noted that for centuries, Ezo was not considered a part of Japan the same way that the other "main" islands of modern Japan were, so the creation of the Ezo Republic, in a contemporary mindset, was not an act of secession, but rather of "bringing" the sociopolitical entity of "Japan" formally to Ezo.[22]
