2. Hanbei's Response to the Intendant (1687/12/4)
1. Re : The reasons why the three plaintiffs are [only] kadoya. Their grandfather was Bunzo[*] [and not Umanosuke], who had an older brother, Bunshiro[*] . My great-grandfather Umanosuke bought them as lifelong bond servants (fudai ), and hence they were supposed to serve him forever. However, because they had served since their youth, they sued for their freedom, which was granted them, and so they were established under Umanosuke as his kadoya. In addition Umanosuke gave them the land they had brought under cultivation during their service years. Bunshiro's[*] corvée obligation as kadoya was twenty days of labor every month; Bunzo's[*] was fifteen. Bunshiro[*] married Tsuru, one of Umanosuke's bond servants [gejo , the term for a female genin], having two daughters by her: Miya, who left Umanosuke's household to work in a temple when Umanosuke's wife died, and Musu, who bought her freedom with cash and married someone from another place. When Bunshiro[*] died, he gave his land m Bunzo[*] , who became a kadoya.
2. This year, at the transplanting of the rice seedlings (taue ), only Kisaburo's[*] [another recalcitrant kadoya, who was not one of the three plaintiffs] and Tokubei's wives showed up, while they themselves did not come and help [as they should have as kadoya]. So I went to Chuemon[*] , the headman, to officially request that he inform the higher authorities and seek a decision, to which Chuemon[*] replied m wait until he got more information about the matter. After some postponement, Chuemon[*] , Zenzaemon, and Heizaemon [the headman and two village officials, presumably] communicated that the men in question offered their apologies for not showing up at the transplanting of the rice. The same three officials also offered some sake with their own apologies, which I accepted, and I was asked to forget the whole thing, which I did.
3. To record them as kadoya is not a new practice. In 1644, under intendant X [named], the population registers and household rosters recorded Yaemon [?] as Umanosuke's kadoya and Shige'emon as Shiroemon's[*] . [Here Shige'emon, of crucial importance to the plaintiffs, is argued by Hanbei to have been a kadoya, certainly not on an equal footing with the other four inheritors of the estate.] These documents, written by Daitokuin with all seals of the village attached after a full
meeting, list the division of fields. The following year, Umanosuke passed away, but because Shiroemon[*] was a grandson-in-law, he could not inherit the kadoya [Shige'emon, who had been his kadoya thus far].
Subsequently, under three different intendants [named], the entries are still kadoya, but as headman [Hanbei had been headman, as Umanosuke had been] I had difficulties with that. In the current population register submitted to the intendant, there are also kakaeya entries. However, given the fact that these persons are in that situation [of dependency toward me] and cannot but obey me, ultimately it does not matter how they are registered.
Now, you may ask, why [after just saying that the label does not matter] I registered them, nevertheless, on this year's registers as kadoya. The reason is as follows. A decision was made in the village council to [upgrade and] register as kakaeya relatives (uncles, brothers, etc.) of full kumi members [only titled peasants were full kumi members]. So we registered them all equally as kakaeya. The above persons, however, have been kadoya for generations, and they are therefore not like the others and should not be registered as if they were their equals; hence their registration as kadoya.
4. Re : The signing of the goningumi register by these three as kadoya. This whole thing was triggered by Kisaburo's[*] refusal to sign as kadoya, and the dispute was brought before the headman, who came to me. I stressed to him again and again that I could in no way remove the kadoya entry from Kisaburo's[*] name, and I also gave him reasons why the others, Kichibei, Hikozaemon, Tokubei, and so on, should remain registered as kadoya and told him that each of them should affix their seals in the presence of the others. So the headman called them all and explained to them in detail why they should be registered as kadoya, to which they all agreed, and thus they affixed their seals to the goningumi roster. This is the truth, which you can verify with the headman and the titled peasants of the village.
5. Re : The adoption. The 22 koku of the retired Umanosuke were inherited by Tokuzaemon, Shin'emon, and Shige'emon. The land division was witnessed by Jiroemon[*] , Chuemon[*] , and Daitokuin. You can ask the latter two and have them testify.
6. Re : The funeral and memorial services. Because there was no unhulled rice for the funeral, my father, Shiroemon[*] , who was employed by the intendant's assistant (tedai ), Ichikawa Gohei [from Gorobe-shinden?], borrowed six bales from the storehouse. All other expenses were divided into two by Tokuzaemon and Shin'emon, and they were also responsible for the memorial services from the first through the seventh year and did not collect any contributions from Shige'emon. [However,] after that, Shin'emon (Umanosuke's son by a woman other than his wife) and my uncle Bun'emon did not set them [Bunzo[*] and Bunshiro[*] ] free. Their only proof that they were set free is that they, as life-
long bond servants, made a request to be set free, but what they said [about this] to the authorities is a lie, which has been the cause for a longstanding grudge and quarrels between us.
As for the remaining memorial services, I do not know about Shin'emon, but as far as my uncle Tokuzaemon is concerned, because he was only four when Umanosuke died [he did not contribute], my father, Shiroemon[*] , took care of all the services.
7. Re : The holdings of Kichibei, Hikozaemon, and Tokubei. On the cadasters of the 1629 land survey, Bunshiro[*] and Bunzo[*] were recorded as Umanosuke's dependents [co-residents?] (uchi ). Next, on the cadasters of the 1676 land survey, Shigehei, Hikozaemon, and Kisaburo[*] were recorded as Shiroemon's[*] dependents (uchi ).
8. Re : The rewriting as kakae on the new population register. There was a dispute concerning signing the new register under the heading of kadoya. The matter was brought before the two intendants [named], and their opinion was that if I by all means insisted on their being kadoya, this would lead to an endless dispute and prevent the registry from being submitted in due time. Therefore, the headman and the titled peasants consulted with each other, and they said that it did not matter what was entered as long as the registers were submitted in time, and so I changed the entry and submitted it with my seal.
1687/12
Hanbei
Hanbei's argument is very complex, but I shall limit myself to the main points. The hierarchical relationship between fudai, genin, and kadoya is clearly stated. Fudai are bought, usually at a very young age from outside the village. Prices for fudai are rarely mentioned in documents, but in Hirabara, a few kilometers to the north, a ten-year-old boy was bought for three bu (worth about 1.5 koku of rice on the market), and a four-year-old girl for six bales (about 3-6 koku of unhulled rice) in the 1650s.[48] They were virtually house slaves for life unless their
[48] The prices are from Ichikawa Yuichiro[*] , Saku chiho[*] , 119; the equivalent in rice for the gold price is calculated from Ono Takeo, Edo bukka jiten , Edo fuzoku[*] zushi, 6 (Tenbosha[*] , 1989), 451; the bales of unhulled rice are calculated at the rate of one bale per 0.6 koku (NAK-T 5, "Furoku," 4). Brutal as this practice may seem, these children were seen, perhaps all too euphemistically, as rescued (quite a few of them had the name Kaisuke, "bought and rescued" [Ichikawa Yuichiro[*] , Saku chiho[*] , 119]). They were certainly given a better livelihood than children who are recruited into prostitution for foreigners in Southeast Asia; nowadays recruiters exchange television sets for children, or they buy them still in the womb (Murray Kempton, "A New Colonialism," New York Review of Books 30, no. 19 [1992]: 39).
freedom was purchased, as in the case of the two female genin. "Freedom," the transition from fudai to kadoya, meant that they were "given" the land they themselves had brought under cultivation, but most of their labor was still for their former owner, who also paid the necessary tribute on their land. The refusal by some of the kadoya to help out with transplanting the rice seedlings at Hanbei's signaled that they did not consider themselves kadoya owing labor to a boss. In addition, Hanbei's case rests on documents that testify to their kadoya status. As in the Niremata case, a clear line was drawn between dependents who were relatives of titled peasants and those who were not (most kadoya).
Another source provides social background data on the stratified minisociety of Shimo-Kaize village. In 1643 Shimo-Kaize's population of 218 lived in thirty-one main homesteads, three kado dwellings, and eleven long houses. Three households each had 1 "dependent," and thirteen houses had a total of 30 servants (male and female).[49] Eleven of these servants were recorded as hikan (a rather pejorative term for "serf," common in pre-Tokugawa times). The village kokudaka was 336 koku, averaging 10.8 per household; the largest holding was 22 koku, the smallest 2.3. Thus we know that Umanosuke was the largest holder of the village, since he had 22 koku after he retired. He also had a rather large house, because his must have been one of the three houses of 27 tsubo (930 square feet, or 90 square meters). The kadoya, on the other hand, were housed in buildings that varied from 425 square feet, to half that size. Most of the long houses measured only some 210 square feet.[50] By the time this suit was filed, however, many of the kadoya must have already been promoted to kakae as a result of the gradual breakup of the larger holdings.
Next, the defendant Hanbei submits a recorded testimony that is certified as true by the headman.