| |
| | Matsumae clan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
 | | The Matsumae clan was a Japanese clan which was granted the area around Matsumae, Hokkaidō as a march fief in 1590 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and charged with defending it, and by extension all of Japan, from the Ainu 'barbarians' to the north. |
 | | Since the Matsumae land was a march, a frontier land used as the border defense against the Ainu, the remainder of Hokkaidō, then called Ezo, essentially became an Ainu reservation. |
 | | Although Japanese influence and control over the Ainu gradually grew stronger over the centuries, at that time, they were left to their own devices and were not considered part of Japanese territory by the shogunate. |
| en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Matsumae (812 words) |
|