Ryukyu Penal Colony
This article was edited on 2/6/2017 to add information about the Ainu/Ryukyuan genetic relationship, clarify a few details about the political relationship between Ryukyu and China, and correct a couple spelling mistakes.
Edited 2/19/2017 to add a note about Tarama Island.
Samurai Champloo fans:
Let’s talk about the so-called Ryukyu penal colony.
I’ve read a lot of fanfic, forums, wiki articles, and comments all over the place which assume that Ryukyu as a whole was a penal colony for Japan, and Mugen was imprisoned there.
Not true!
First, let’s get one thing clear: Ryukyu is not, and never was, an island full of criminals.
Ryukyu is not a single island. It’s a chain of many islands stretching over a wide geographic area from just south of Kyushu to slightly east of Taiwan. Look at a map of the area between Japan and Taiwan, and you’ll see how long the island chain is.
Before the Edo Period, the Ryukyu Kingdom was an independent country governed by the royal family living on Okinawa. Ryukyu was traditionally considered to be a tributary nation of China, meaning that they had a mutually beneficial economic trade relationship as well as ongoing cultural exchange. It wasn’t until the Edo Period that Japan began to have more influence on Ryukyu – but I’ll get to that later.
There are several island groupings within the chain, with Okinawa being the largest, and Miyako and Yaeyama being the smallest and most remote, located clear down by Taiwan.
Each of the island groupings in Ryukyu had their own distinct culture, customs, language, and religion. While they did share some cultural heritage, there was a great deal of diversity between them. So you can’t necessarily say that someone from Okinawa shared the same customs with someone from Miyako. It would depend on which customs you’re talking about.
The different islands in Ryukyu still maintain aspects of their respective cultures today, including languages, although the native language of Mikayo is very much in danger of becoming extinct.
Miyako and Yaeyama were treated terribly by Okinawa. The people were seen as backwards bumpins and uncivilized savages, barely worth being considered citizens of Ryukyu. They had few natural resources, and Okinawa did very little to help them out. In fact, Okinawa taxed them heavily, forcing them into a constant state of destitute poverty. This type of subjugation continued in various forms all the way up to the early 20th century.
In addition, Okinawa exiled its worst criminals to Miyako and Yaeyama. (That’s Okinawa, not Japan.) These islands were never officially called penal colonies, because they weren’t. They were peaceful islands with native peoples who were not criminals, but who happened to be stuck living with the criminals sent from Okinawa.
It’s important to note that Miyako and Yaeyama, respectively, are not single islands, but groupings of islands. It’s possible that the tiniest, outlying islands in these groups could have been inhabited entirely by criminal exiles, although I haven’t seen evidence to suggest this. (If you come across information about this, please share it with me - I’d love to learn something new.)
(Edit 2/19/2017: I have recently seen a mention online that says Tarama Island, one of the Miyako Islands, may have once been a penal colony. I do not have enough resources to confirm this one way or another. I do not trust Wikipedia without additional sources for fact checking. But just for the reader’s information, Tarama Island is one of the smaller of the Miyako Islands. The total area of the island is just 21.91 square kilometres (8.46 sq mi). It’s very small and very flat.)
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