Mitigating Risks of Coastal Sailing: Adaptations to Oceanic Dangers in Early-Modern Japan

Associate Professor Jakobina Arch, Whitman College

This presentation by Dr Jakobina Arch is part of Environmental Exchanges, a seminar series organised by the Centre for Environmental History to showcase innovative new research that engages with key themes in environmental history. Throughout 2022, the Centre will be hosting seminars that engage with this year's theme of Oceans in original and compelling ways. Please note that this seminar will be held simultaneously online via Zoom and in person in Room 2.56 of the RSSS Building (subject to COVID restrictions). To receive a link for the Zoom meeting please register here.

Abstract:

Until recently, histories of Japan (especially of the 15th-19th century Tokugawa period) have mostly ignored the oceanic spaces of the archipelago. The shogunal government of this period did restrict Japanese overseas travel, leaving Japan mostly outside the main interactions of the Age of Sail; however, this was also a period dominated by an explosion of domestic coastal shipping. The nearshore waters of Japan shaped the daily lives not just of the sailors on the thousands of ships plying those waters, but also of everyone else who relied on their cargoes, from the rice foundational to the economic system to the merchant goods that supported daily life and luxuries. After the 1670s, once the shogunate had codified coastal routes for tax rice to travel from outlying domains to Osaka or Edo, the interconnecting waters between and alongside the islands of Tokugawa Japan became increasingly important. Shipping bulk cargoes by sea was generally cheaper and easier than hauling them over Japan's mountainous interior, but even popular woodcut artists focusing on travel tend to show ships only in the background of land-based travel along the Tokaidō. I focus here on risk mitigation practices surrounding these overlooked ships to expand our understanding of transport and travel into coastal waters. By focusing on adaptations to maritime hazards at different levels, from shogunal regulations protecting tax rice to the practices of coastal villagers rescuing ships and sailors in danger, we can see the far-reaching influence of Tokugawa Japan's restricted maritime travel, despite its dangers, and the ways in which coastal waters were an integral part of life in the archipelago.

About the Speaker:

Jakobina Arch is an Associate Professor of History at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. Her research focuses on marine environmental history in Japan, especially in the early modern period. Her first book, Bringing Whales Ashore: Oceans and the Environment of Early Modern Japan, examines the role of the marine environment by focusing on the many roles of whales in Tokugawa society and culture. Her current work focuses on sailors and ships in the coastal waters of early modern Japan.