About the Writing of My New Book, “Samurai Assassins”

Posted on March 25, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

My new book, Samurai Assassins, was published yesterday, March 24, by McFarland as an ebook. The paperback edition should be out before the end of this month. Samurai Assassins, as I have I have described it here, is the only thorough presentation and analysis in English of the most historically significant assassinations of the Meiji Restoration era, “the dawn of modern Japan.” On a deeper level, it is a study of the ideology and psychology behind the “samurai revolution” – which is why it so well complements my previous book Samurai Revolution: The Dawn of Modern Japan Seen Through the Eyes of the Shogun’s Last Samurai (Tuttle 2014).

I have long been intrigued by the personalities and motives of the assassins in the samurai revolution. I began writing Samurai Assassins soon after completing the manuscript of Samurai Revolution around the end of 2011. In previous books I had written about “dark murder” – a translation of the Japanese term for “assassination” – but in much less detail than in Samurai Assassins. Since “dark murder” had thus far received only cursory, if any, attention by non-Japanese writers, notwithstanding its great impact on the Meiji Restoration, and as a result on Japanese, Asian and even world history, I saw the need to write Samurai Assassins.

I finished writing the book around the end of 2014. I felt confidant that Tuttle, which had published three of my books, would jump at the chance to take this one. So I was surprised, and not a little disappointed, when they refused my proposal. But confident that the book was both original and important – not to mention a “good read” – I contacted several other publishers, and finally settled on an excellent one, McFarland, a self-described “leading independent publisher of academic and nonfiction books.” And they have done an excellent job preparing and publishing Samurai Assassins, for which I am most grateful.

Katsu Kaishu’s Portrait by US Navy Sailor Edward Kern

Posted on March 14, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

I really like this portrait of Katsu Kaishu. The artist was Edward M. Kern, one of the US Navy sailors under Lieutenant John M. Brooke who joined Capt. Kaishu and company on their historical journey aboard the warship Kanrin Maru, the first Japanese ship to reach North America upon landing at San Francisco on March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day), 1860. Based on the inscription on the backside of the painting, Kaishu was apparently known to the Americans as “Capt. Katzlintaro” (and at least one SF newspaper referred to him as Capt. Katsintarroh), Rintaro being his given name. Kern was a draftsman who had served in John Charles Fremont’s third expedition to the American West. Fremont named the Kern River in California after him. As I wrote in Samurai Revolution, the only full-length biography of Katsu Kaishu in English, the local San Francisco newspaper Daily Evening Bulletin described Katsu Kaishu as “a fine looking man, marvelously resembling in stature, form and features Colonel [John Charles] Fremont, only that his eye is darker, and his mouth less distinctly shows the pluck of its owner.”

Samurai Revolution is the only full-length biography of Katsu Kaishū in English.

An Indispensible Document for Knowing the Facts Regarding Ryōma’s Assassination

Posted on March 12, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

The double assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma and Nakaoka Shintarō on the eve of the collapse of the Tokugawa Bakufu is an unsolved mystery—but only to a certain extent. What is known of the details of the incident, including the circumstances surrounding Ryōma and Nakaoka just before the attack, their actual murders, and the aftermath, is based primarily on accounts from men representing the two opposing sides in the revolution. On the one hand are accounts from two men who claimed to have committed the assassinations. On the other hand are accounts from the victims’ friends, some of which is based on information heard directly from Nakaoka as he lay dying soon after the attack. Most of these accounts are included in a document entitled “Sakamoto to Nakaoka no Shi” (“The Deaths of Sakamoto and Nakaoka”; 坂本と中岡の死).

I relied heavily on this document in writing “Part III: The Assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma” of Samurai Assassins. The distinguished Meiji Restoration historian Hirao Michio described it as “indispensible for arriving at a conclusion” as to the facts behind the double assassination of Sakamoto Ryoma and Nakaoka Shintaro, since it “uses every possible piece of historical material in pursuit of the facts.” (「二人の死をめぐってあらゆる史料をあつかい、その真相を追求したもので、この問題史に一断案を下ろしたものとして、見落とすことを許されない労作だ」（平尾道雄氏）) This document was originally published in 1926 as part of the Sakamoto Ryōma Kankei Bunsho, Vol. II (The image of the book shown below is from the from The National Diet Library Digital Collection.).

Takéchi Hanpeita’s Letters from Jail

Posted on March 9, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

In writing Samurai Assassins, Part II: The Rise and Fall of Takéchi Hanpeita and the Tosa Loyalist Party, I referred heavily to the letters Takéchi’s wrote from jail to his wife and sisters, and to his cohorts who had not been imprisoned. The letters to his friends, written in formal language and tone befitting a samurai, provide an insight into Takéchi’s thinking, including his stoic philosophy. The letters to his wife and sisters, on the other hand, overflow with the tender feelings of a husband and brother, and include self-effacing humor, complaints, despondency, and melancholy absent in the other letters—and indeed in his entire persona observed through any other medium. To the best of my knowledge, Takéchi’s letters have rarely, if ever, been used by Western writers.The letters are published in Takéchi Zuizan Kankei Bunsho (武市瑞山関係文書; “Takéchi Zuizan-related Documents”; Zuizan was Takéchi’s pseudonym). The images of the book shown here are from the from The National Diet Library Digital Collection.

“The History of Tosa Loyalism in the Meiji Restoration” and the Writing of “Samurai Assassins”

Posted on March 8, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

Ishin Tosa Kinnō-shi (維新土佐勤王史; “The History of Tosa Loyalism in the Meiji Restoration”), based on a biography of Takéchi Hanpeita and biographical materials on other men associated with this history, was published in 1912 by a group of former Tosa Loyalists and other former Tosa samurai. 1912 corresponds to the last year of the Meiji era. Takéchi and his Loyalist Party, of course, played a major role in bringing about the Meiji Restoration of 1868, which was the beginning of the Meiji era.

I referred to this book in Samurai Assassins, particularly in Part II: The Rise and Fall of Takéchi Hanpeita and the Tosa Loyalist Party. The cover image shown here (but not the portrait of Takechi) is from The National Diet Library Digital Collection (国立国会図書館デジタルコレクション).