Kishiwada Domain (1/2)Ruled southern Osaka and oversaw Kishu.

The Kishiwada domain was a domain that owned Izumi Kuninami District and Hine District. During the Edo period, there were three castles in Osaka: Takatsuki Castle, Osaka Castle, and Kishiwada Castle.Osaka Castle was the lord of the castle himself, and Kishiwada Castle was founded by Nobukatsu Okabe, who is said to be the son of Tokugawa Ieyasu's sister. It was ruled by the Okabe family.

One theory is that the Kishiwada domain was created to monitor the Kishu domain, one of the three Tokugawa clans.
Let's unravel the history of the Kishiwada clan.

Kishiwada domain before the Okabe family

Kishiwada has been ruled by Hideyoshi Omi's maternal uncle, Hidemasa Koide, who was appointed the lord of Kishiwada Castle from the end of the Sengoku period.

At the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Hidemasa Koide and his eldest son Yoshimasa sided with the western army, but their second son Hideie Tokugawa was with the eastern army, so he was spared.

The rule of the Koide family continued until the time of Yoshihide Koide, the son of Yoshimasa Koide, but in the wake of the Osaka Winter Siege, Yasushige Matsudaira was transferred from the Sasayama domain in Tamba Province.

Yasushige Matsudaira was the child of Yasushige Matsudaira, but his mother was a maid of Ieyasu Tokugawa, so there is a strong belief that he was Ieyasu Tokugawa's illegitimate child.
It is said that while he was developing the castle town, he reported to the shogunate an increase of 10,000 koku in the Omote-daka area alone, causing the people of the territory to suffer from the tax increase.

The Matsudaira family ruled Kishiwada for two generations, but their rule ended when they moved to the Yamazaki domain in Harima Province during the era of the second generation, Yasuei.

Reign of the Okabe family

Nobukatsu Okabe, the first generation of the Okabe family, was the lord of the Takatsuki domain, also located in Osaka, but in 1640 he became the lord of the Izumi Kishiwada domain with an increase of 8,800 koku.

Around this time, the Kishiwada clan, including Yasushige Matsudaira and Yasuhide Matsudaira, was imposing heavy taxes on the people of the domain, and there were many attempts to raise uprisings and forceful lawsuits.

However, rather than oppressing them with force, Nobukatsu Okabe listened carefully to their opinions and plight, and showed an attitude of accepting tax cuts, etc., so it is said that the people of the fief were convinced.
While Nobukatsu Okabe enacted good government, he also actively expanded the castle by constructing the stone walls of Kishiwada Castle, maintaining the castle walls, and building shrines and temples.

In 1703, the third lord of the castle, Yasu Okanabe, invited Kyoto's Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine to the Sannomaru of Kishiwada Castle and held a grand Inari festival, which led to the Kishiwada festival that continues today, the Danjiri Festival. It is said to be the beginning.

The Kishiwada domain passed without any problems until the 7th lord because the first lord was competent and the weather was stable and there were few natural disasters.

However, during the era of the 8th feudal lord, Okanabe Bei, the Great Tenmei Famine occurred, and a series of strong complaints occurred within the domain.
The debt created at this time was so huge that it was said to be ``mountainous'', but his successor, the 9th lord of the Osaka domain, Nabeshin Oka, not only voluntarily tried to be frugal, but also introduced a new tax. He actively reformed the domain's administration, such as promoting merchants and curbing the stipends of vassals, and struggled to rebuild its finances.

After that, the 10th and 11th lords also worked hard to rebuild the domain's finances, but the 10th lord, Nagaokazu Oka, died at the young age of 44, and the 11th lord, Nagahata Oka, died at the young age of 22.

The 12th lord of the domain, Hiroshi Okanabe, took over as lord in 1855. During the turmoil at the end of the Edo period, he worked to stabilize the domain's government by reforming the military government and expanding the domain school and training hall.
Furthermore, when he first became the lord of the domain, he was a supporter of the Sabaku Shogunate, but after the Boshin War he sided with the new government, offering to donate money to the new government.

Later, the new government became aware of the conflict within the domain over the punishment of Masamichi Okabe, an old vassal, and Okabe Nagahiro requested to retire, which was granted, and he stepped down as lord of the domain.

The last lord of the domain, the 13th head of the Oka clan, took over as head of the family in the first year of the Meiji era, but the following year he became the governor of the domain due to the restoration of land ownership, and in the fourth year of Meiji, he was relieved of his post as governor due to the abolition of the domain and establishment of prefectures.