Menashi–Kunashir rebellion

In 1604, the Tokugawa shogunate granted the Matsumae Domain exclusivity in trade with the people of Ezo.^[9] From the 1630s, these exchanges were managed through the so-called akinaiba chigyo sei [ja] trade-fief system,^[10] which saw Ezochi demarcated into a number of trading posts (known as akinaiba or basho), each assigned to a senior vassal of the Matsumae clan, with exclusive rights to trade with the local Ainu.^[6]: 123 Following Shakushain's revolt and during the eighteenth century, this was gradually replaced by the basho ukeoi sei [ja] or subcontracted trading post system, with Japanese merchants granted rights to manage local trade on behalf of the Matsumae clan vassals, in exchange for commission.^{[6]: 123 [10][11]: 30} The outcome was loss of economic independence, as the Ainu increasingly became in effect labourers in fisheries and other businesses operated by Wajin merchants.^{[6]: 123 [10]}

In 1788, merchant Hidaya Kyūbei (飛騨屋久兵衛) began commercial fishing operations in the Menashi-Kunashiri area, employing Ainu workers to catch salmon and trout for use as fertilizer.^[6]: 77 Worked so hard that they had insufficient time to lay up food for the winter, food shortages combined with overbearing behaviour — including fishery supervisors making Ainu wives their mistresses — and suspicions of poisonings sparked the Menashi–Kunashir rebellion of May 1789.^[6]: 77 While local potentate Tsukinoe was away hunting sea otters on Uruppu, seventy-one Wajin were killed, twenty-two of them on Kunashiri, the rest in the Menashi area, all but one of them (a Matsumae Domain soldier) Hidaya employees.^[6]: 77 When news reached Matsumae at the beginning of June, daimyō Matsumae Michihiro [ja] despatched 260 soldiers, who made their way east, recruiting local Ainu chieftains as they went.^[6]: 77 Arriving in the Nemuro area in July, over three hundred of those involved surrendered, and of the thirty-eight directly involved in the killings — including Tsukinoe's son Seppayabu — all but one (who had fled) were beheaded, their heads stored in salt.^[6]: 78 In the aftermath, Matsumae Michihiro commissioned the Ishūretsuzō series of portraits of twelve Ainu elders who had helped suppress the revolt.^{[12] : 90}

The battle is the subject of Majin no Umi, a children's novel by Maekawa Yasuo that received the Japanese Association of Writers for Children Prize in 1970.^{[citation needed]}

• Shakushain's revolt, a similar large-scale Ainu revolt against Yamato influence
• Colonisation of Hokkaido