Tokugawa Ietsuna
On the death of the 2nd "daimyō" of Morioka Domain, Nanbu Shigenao while under house arrest in Edo, the Tokugawa shogunate intervened in the succession and by order of Shōgun Tokugawa Ietsuna divided the 100,000 koku domain into Morioka Domain (80,000 koku) and Hachinohe Domain (20,000 koku). Hachinohe Domain thus had a somewhat ambiguous status in that it is sometimes regarded as a sub-domain of Morioka Domain although it had not been created by the Nanbu clan. It was also subject to the normal "sankin kotai" regulations, and was allowed to maintain a castle (which was normally permitted only to independent domains).