The Aizu domain surrendered in November 1868 after a month-long siege that had devastated Aizuwakamatsu, but defeat did not end its ordeal. The new Meiji government stripped the Matsudaira family of its former territory and, rather than allow the domain to simply disband where it stood, ordered that a new and much smaller domain be created for it far to the north, on the cold and thinly populated Shimokita Peninsula in what is now Aomori Prefecture. The new domain was named Tonami.

Conditions there were harsh by almost any measure available at the time. The soil was poor, the growing season short, and the former retainers of Aizu — many of them samurai with no experience in subsistence farming — struggled to feed themselves through the difficult early winters. Contemporary accounts describe widespread hunger and hardship during the domain’s brief existence, and the episode became a lasting symbol within Aizu of the price paid for the region’s resistance during the Boshin War.

Tonami domain lasted only a few years before the nationwide abolition of the domain system in 1871 rendered it moot, and many of the families who had been relocated there eventually made their way back to Aizu or resettled elsewhere. The memory of the exile nonetheless persisted for generations, feeding a regional narrative of unjust punishment that shaped how Aizu understood its place within the new Meiji state.

Sources

1. Takahashi, Osamu, Aizu Yosei no Kenkyu, 1991