Hakodate, in Northern Japan is a small, accessible city with lots of history. It was the first city in Japan opened to foreign trade in 1854. When our ship visited there on June 24 (Day 162), we could easily take some of that history in.
We walked through parts of the city. Our guide told of multiple fires that have destroyed buildings in the city. We got a feel for the influence of foreigners.
There is a Russian church.
The Old Public Hall has a distinctly western feel.
A tour took us to the Gorokaku Tower, where we could get a birds-eye view of the Goryaokaku Fort.
This fort, modeled after European citadel towns, was built after the arrival of the foreigners. Before the foreign ships arriveed, the administrative functions of the shogunate had been housed closer to the port. This port location proved too vulnerable, with all those foreign ships nearby. An informational pamphlet about the fort described it as A symbol of the unfulfilled dreams from the twilight of the shogunate years.
Descending from the observational tower, we entered the fort itself. The Magistrate’s Office is in the center of the fort. This building was originally completed in 1864, during the waning years of shogun rule.
Wikipedia describes the history from there:
Hakodate also played a central role in the Boshin War between the Tokugawa shogunate and the Meiji Emperor which followed Perry’s opening of Japan. Shogunate rebel Enomoto Takeaki fled to Hakodate with the remnants of his navy and his handful of French advisers in winter 1868, including Jules Brunet. They formally established the Republic of Ezo on December 25. The republic tried unsuccessfully to gather international recognition to foreign legations in Hakodate, including the Americans, French, and Russians. The Naval Battle of Hakodate was fought from 4 to 10 May 1869, between the remnants of the Tokugawa shogunate navy and the newly formed Imperial Japanese Navy. It was a decisive victory for the Imperial Japanese Navy.
….The rebels occupied Hakodate’s famous European-style Goryōkaku fort and used it as the centre of their defences in southern Hokkaido. Government forces defeated the secessionists in the Battle of Hakodate in 1869 and the city and fort were surrendered to emperor. Military leader, Hijikata Toshizō, was one of those slain in the fighting.
Following this war, the Imperial victors of the civil war destroyed the original Magistrate’s Office. After many years, the building was reconstructed using plans and pictures of the building during the years of shogunate (samurai) rule. There is a great video in the fort of the meticulous reconstruction of the building, which was completed in 2010.
The defeat of the rebels at this place marked the end of the long rule of the shoguns and the reestablishment of the Emperor’s authority. The building and park commemorate this part of Japanese history: the last stand of the remnants of the Samurai supporters of the shogunate.