page_title: Republic of Ezo
section_title: Perspectives
hierarchical_section_title: Republic of Ezo / Perspectives
context_page_description: The Republic of Ezo was a short-lived state established in 1869 by a part of the former Tokugawa military on the island of Ezo, the large but sparsely populated northernmost island in modern Japan, now known as Hokkaido. Ezo is notable for being the first government to attempt to institute democracy in Japan.
context_section_description: While later history texts were to refer to May 1869 as being when Enomoto accepted Emperor Meiji's rule, the Imperial rule was never in question for the Ezo Republic, as made evident by part of Enomoto's message to the Daijō-kan (太政官, Dajōkan) at the time of his arrival in Hakodate:
  The farmers and merchants are unmolested, and live without fear, going their own way, and sympathising with us; so that already we have been able to bring some land into cultivation. We pray that this portion of the Empire may be conferred upon our late lord, Tokugawa Kamenosuke; and in that case, we shall repay your beneficence by our faithful guardianship of the northern gate.
  Thus from Enomoto's perspective, the efforts to establish a government in Hokkaido were not only for the sake of providing for the Tokugawa clan on the one hand (burdened as it was with an enormous amount of redundant retainers and employees), but also as developing Ezo for the sake of defence for the rest of Japan, something which had been a topic of concern for some time. Recent scholarship has noted that for centuries, Ezo was not considered a part of Japan the same way that the other "main" islands of modern Japan were, so the creation of the Ezo Republic, in a contemporary mindset, was not an act of secession, but rather of "bringing" the politico-social entity of "Japan" formally to Ezo.
  Enomoto was sentenced to a brief prison sentence, but was freed in 1872 and accepted a post as a government official in the newly renamed Hokkaido Land Agency. He later became ambassador to Russia, and held several ministerial positions in the Meiji Government.
caption: The French military advisors and their Japanese allies. Front row, second from left: Jules Brunet, beside Matsudaira Tarō, vice-president of the Ezo Republic.
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