Mizuno clan
During the Sengoku period, the area of Kariya Domain was part of the territory of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s mother’s family, the Mizuno clan. Ieyasu’s maternal grandfather Mizuno Tadamasa built Kariya Castle. The Mizuno clan shifted allegiances adroitly between the Imagawa clan to Oda Nobunaga and to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who relocated the clan to Ise Province. However, Mizuno Katsunari, the grandson of Tadamasa was allowed to return to the clan’s ancestral territories by Ieyasu after the Battle of Sekigahara. He was later awarded with more lucrative territories in western Japan, and replaced by Mizuno Tadakiyo from another branch of the clan based at Obata Domain in Kōzuke Province. In 1632, he was transferred to nearby Yoshida Domain, and was replaced by Matsudaira Tadafusa to 1647, followed by Matsudaira Sadamasa (from a different branch of the Matsudaira clan) to 1651. The domain was thereafter in the hands of the Inagaki clan, Abe clan, Honda clan, Miura clan and finally the Doi clan from 1734 until the Meiji restoration.