When Saigo Takamori, the so-called Last Samurai, was exiled to Amami of the Ryukyu Islands, he was exiled to a place that was part of the domain of the Satsuma daimyo he served. Lords of Satsuma had invaded and conquered the Ryukyu islands in the seventeenth century. However, to maintain a delicate diplomatic balance with the Chinese Emperor, a situation was encouraged wherein the islands claimed their own independence, while the Chinese emperor received tribute from them and so did the Japanese, secretly. Saigo found the island and its neighbours to be poverty-stricken and in a miserable state of affairs. Considerably further south than the southern tip of Japan, the Ryukyu islands enjoy a semi-tropical climate that provides the opportunity to grow various fruits and vegetables that, with the addition of fish, meant a potentially convenient form of self-sustaining communities, notwithstanding the problems that small islands usually have with strong winds and seas. However, a previous Japanese sponsored policy to increase growth of rice had been replaced by one of cash cropping when it became clear that they were a perfect location for the growth of sugar cane, which could be sold for considerable profit in the urban centres throughout Japan.
As a result, the Ryukyuan islanders were placed into a form of slavery in which they were obliged to abandon their traditional lifestyles and their self-sustaining methods to concentrate on exports of a product for which they would see no profit. It is not surprising, therefore, that Saigo saw them as miserable, hungry and poor with no prospects for the future. However, the islands had not always been so unhappy. The Chinese reached the islands in the C7th CE but were not able to try to enforce sovereignty over them until the C14th. They found a thriving independent set of states there, with aboriginal people similar to those early inhabitants of Taiwan. It is believed that the language spoken by the islanders was related to that of the Ainu, another aboriginal people living in many parts of Japan but eventually supplanted by the ethnic majority Japanese.
The islands themselves are the tops of submarine mountains which seem to have been formed by volcano action. There are three main chains, which are from north to south the Amami islands, the Okinawa islands and the Sakishima islands. Okinawa became famous in the latter part of the twentieth century as the base for occupying US troops after the Second World War. Midway between Taiwan and Japan, they occupy a strategic position in international trade and maritime matters and ships passing through waters stopped for trading and resupplying reasons. As a result, the islands developed a degree of wealth and were considered an important trading partner, although the islanders themselves appear to have recruited Chinese living on the islands actually to transact their own trade.
As a result, the Ryukyuan islanders were placed into a form of slavery in which they were obliged to abandon their traditional lifestyles and their self-sustaining methods to concentrate on exports of a product for which they would see no profit. It is not surprising, therefore, that Saigo saw them as miserable, hungry and poor with no prospects for the future. However, the islands had not always been so unhappy. The Chinese reached the islands in the C7th CE but were not able to try to enforce sovereignty over them until the C14th. They found a thriving independent set of states there, with aboriginal people similar to those early inhabitants of Taiwan. It is believed that the language spoken by the islanders was related to that of the Ainu, another aboriginal people living in many parts of Japan but eventually supplanted by the ethnic majority Japanese.
The islands themselves are the tops of submarine mountains which seem to have been formed by volcano action. There are three main chains, which are from north to south the Amami islands, the Okinawa islands and the Sakishima islands. Okinawa became famous in the latter part of the twentieth century as the base for occupying US troops after the Second World War. Midway between Taiwan and Japan, they occupy a strategic position in international trade and maritime matters and ships passing through waters stopped for trading and resupplying reasons. As a result, the islands developed a degree of wealth and were considered an important trading partner, although the islanders themselves appear to have recruited Chinese living on the islands actually to transact their own trade.
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