Shimazu Hisamitsu

Shimazu Hisamitsu (1817–1887), a son of Satsuma lord Narioki and a half-brother of Nariakira, first headed the collateral Shigetomi household. After Nariakira died in 1858, Hisamitsu’s son Tadayoshi became domain lord. Hisamitsu exercised much of the practical authority as the lord’s father, rather than holding that lordship himself. Family position gave him command over substantial domain resources. [S01, S02]

In 1862 he led troops to Kyoto seeking cooperation between the imperial court and shogunate. He suppressed radical Satsuma activists at Teradaya, then escorted imperial envoy Ōhara Shigetomi to Edo to press for shogunal reforms. On the return journey, members of his party attacked British travelers at Namamugi, killing one and injuring others; the crisis led to war between Britain and Satsuma in 1863. His efforts to construct an agreed political order thus accompanied violence at home and an international confrontation. [S01, S02, S03]

Hisamitsu later joined attempts to bring powerful lords into court government, but Satsuma’s policy increasingly rested with Saigō Takamori and Ōkubo Toshimichi. He opposed major changes under the Meiji government, served briefly as Left Minister from 1874, and resigned in 1875. He spent later years on historical compilation and died in 1887. The domain authority that made him a national broker could not assure the survival of the political arrangements he preferred. [S01, S02]