In 1884, in the mountains of Chichibu in Saitama Prefecture, farmers burdened with debt organized themselves as the Konmintō (literally, a party of people in distress) and rose in arms. They attacked moneylenders, pawnshops, and the district office before government troops suppressed them.
Interpretations differ
At the time the event was called the "Chichibu riot." Today it is known as the Chichibu Incident, and historians still disagree about what kind of movement it was.
Silk and a mountain economy
Chichibu had long depended on silk. According to Chichibu City, in the Edo period sericulture, which offered cash income beside the fields, flourished, and Chichibu silk flourished alongside that of Kiryū in Kōzuke.
Markets for trading silk were held across the area. The largest, at the Myōken shrine (today's Chichibu Shrine) in Ōmiyagō, ran from the first to the sixth day of the eleventh month and was called the great silk market. Saitama Prefecture's chronology of sericulture lists Chichibu among the silk markets that became active late in the Genroku era (1688–1704).
The Nipponica encyclopedia explains that the mountain villages of Chichibu could not grow enough grain for themselves and made up the shortfall mainly by producing raw silk. The Heibonsha encyclopedia notes that silk-raising households across Japan were tied to the world economy.
Debt in the early 1880s
In 1883 and 1884, according to the Nipponica, a world depression and the deflation caused by the Matsukata finance policy struck this commercial economy directly. On top of this came higher local taxes and the costs of building schools and new roads.
Chichibu City's own summary is similar. It says the deflation policy caused the price of raw silk, which supported people's lives, to collapse, that rising local taxes added to the strain, and that many people suffered from high-interest debts.
Farmers borrowed from lending companies, moneylenders, and pawnshops, and interest rates rose sharply. The Heibonsha encyclopedia states that in 1884 more than a hundred farmers in Chichibu were wandering from place to place for fear of being summoned to court.
From petitions to a rising
The movement began with petitions. In November 1883, according to the Nipponica, representatives of the farmers petitioned the district office to admonish the moneylenders, but the petition was not accepted.
In February 1884, when Ōi Kentarō of the Liberal Party (Jiyūtō) visited Chichibu, about twenty middle-ranking farmers on the verge of ruin joined the party. The Nipponica says this group became the core of the Konmintō.
In August, indebted farmers held meetings in the hills, which police repeatedly broke up. In September the leaders invited Tashiro Eisuke of Ōmiyagō, a man who had been mediating loan disputes alongside his farming, to join them.
According to the Britannica encyclopedia, their goals included a ten-year freeze on debts with repayment over forty years, and reductions in school costs, miscellaneous taxes, and village expenses. The leaders continued to petition and to negotiate with moneylenders one by one.
When these efforts failed, they decided to rise. In mid-October, the Heibonsha encyclopedia records, the group carried out two robberies to raise war funds for the rising. Ōi Kentarō sent messengers to stop the rising, but the leaders refused, and on October 26 they set November 1 as the day.
Ten days in November
Fuppu village in eastern Chichibu rose first: on October 31 according to the Heibonsha encyclopedia and the Nipponica, or on October 30 according to a study by Ushiki Yukio (2001). On November 1, before the gathering at Muku Shrine in Shimoyoshida, farmers clashed with police. Kinebuchi Hayato (2018) records one Saitama police officer killed in the fighting around Shimoyoshida.
At the shrine the leaders announced their roles: Tashiro Eisuke as president, Katō Orihei as vice-president, and, according to the Nipponica and the Ishikari City museum, Inoue Denzō as treasurer (the Heibonsha encyclopedia lists him as chief of staff), with units organized village by village. They also issued strict military rules. Their weapons were bamboo spears, swords, and guns.
About 3,000 people then entered Ōmiyagō, on November 2 according to the Nipponica and Ushiki, or on the morning of November 3 according to Kinebuchi (2018). According to the Nipponica, they attacked moneylenders, raised money from wealthy households, and drove out government authority.
The Heibonsha encyclopedia says they forcibly borrowed war funds from eight households and issued receipts. Saitama Prefecture describes the farmers attacking pawnshops and the district office.
A merchant's record of these days survives. In 1885 the chief clerk of the Yao shop, a Chichibu merchant house, copied the entries about the incident from the shop's diary. Chichibu City designated this booklet a city cultural property in 2025, describing it as an important source written from a merchant's point of view.
The prefecture asked the Home Minister to send troops, and gendarmes and garrison soldiers took up positions from November 3. A gun battle followed at Minano. On the afternoon of November 4 Tashiro and other leaders fled their headquarters there.
That night a unit of nearly 500, according to the Nipponica (about 600 in an army report cited by Kinebuchi), fought government troops at Kanaya in Kodama district, and members of the unit died in the fighting. Another unit led by Kikuchi Kanpei crossed into Gunma and then Nagano. It was defeated at Higashi-managashi before dawn on November 9.
Interpretations differ
Studies based on official records give some figures. Kinebuchi Hayato (2018) counts two Saitama police officers killed in all, and says a Gunma assistant police inspector was killed and a constable captured and later killed. An army report he quotes (2019) puts the rebels' dead and wounded at Kanaya at about thirty.
Trials and the leaders' fates
Interpretations differ
Many people were tried and punished. The sources give different figures, partly because they count different groups: defendants, people punished, and people convicted. The Nipponica says the defendants from Chichibu alone exceeded 6,400 and that seven people were sentenced to death. The Heibonsha encyclopedia says more than 4,500 were punished, and the Ishikari City museum about 4,000. The Britannica encyclopedia says 3,386 people were found guilty, seven of them sentenced to death.
Tashiro Eisuke hid in the mountains, was arrested, and was executed at Kumagaya in May 1885, according to the Nipponica.
Inoue Denzō, the treasurer, was also sentenced to death but escaped. According to the Ishikari City museum, he left his family in Shimoyoshida and in 1887 went to Hokkaido. There he lived for decades under the name Itō Fusajirō, working as an assistant to a scrivener and writing haiku.
He died at Notsukeushi (today's Kitami) on June 23, 1918. Just before his death he told his wife and children who he was, and newspapers reported his death.
How the incident has been understood
The Heibonsha encyclopedia notes that the Meiji government interpreted it as a rising in which a small number of activists, gamblers, and escaped prisoners had incited many law-abiding farmers. The press followed this view, and the full picture was not known at the time.
Interpretations differ
Later historians have offered different readings. The Yamakawa dictionary of Japanese history states that one view treats the incident as part of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement, while another stresses its character as a traditional peasant disturbance over the repayment of debts, and that these views are in conflict.
Interpretations differ
In a 1973 study, Inada Masahiro noted that earlier scholarship had called the rising the most revolutionary of the "bourgeois democratic" movements. He himself placed it in the tradition of yonaoshi ("world renewal") uprisings, which participants linked to the Liberal Party and its leader Itagaki Taisuke.
Interpretations differ
The Nipponica calls it the largest of the Konmintō incidents recorded in the history of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. Saitama Prefecture says the disturbance, which drew in the whole Chichibu basin, had a great impact across the country, and Chichibu City says the incident became known nationwide.
Those who took part did not all share the same aims. According to the Heibonsha encyclopedia, many of the local organizers who linked the leaders with the farmers wanted from the start to press their demands with an armed rising. The leaders, by contrast, exhausted legal petitions and individual negotiations with moneylenders, and decided to rise only under pressure from these organizers.
Visiting today
In the Yoshida district of Chichibu, Chichibu City lists the Chichibu Incident Museum (Inoue Denzō House) among its history museums. According to the Ryūsei Kaikan roadside station's page, the house was reconstructed for the film Kusa no Ran (2004), made for the incident's 120th anniversary, and now displays materials related to Inoue Denzō along with costumes and props from the film.
Admission is through the reception of the Ryūsei Kaikan roadside station. Check opening hours and fees on the official website before you go.
Sources
- 秩父市の歴史Chichibu City
- 埼玉県の歴史Saitama Prefecture
- 埼玉県の蚕糸業のあゆみSaitama Prefecture
- 秩父暴動事件概略Chichibu City Board of Education
- 歴史資料館・その他文化施設Chichibu City
- 龍勢の町 よしだ 龍勢会館（井上伝蔵邸）Michi-no-eki Ryusei Kaikan
- 石狩ファイル No.0105-01 井上伝蔵Ishikari City Board of Education (Ishikari Sakyu no Kaze Museum)
- 秩父事件（日本大百科全書）Shogakukan (via Kotobank)
- 秩父事件（改訂新版 世界大百科事典）Heibonsha (via Kotobank)
- 秩父事件（山川 日本史小辞典 改訂新版）Yamakawa Shuppansha (via Kotobank)
- 秩父事件（ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典）Britannica Japan (via Kotobank)
- 田代栄助（日本大百科全書）Shogakukan (via Kotobank)
- 秩父事件の歴史的位置―その蜂起の論理、世直し一揆との関係を中心に―Hitotsubashi University (Hitotsubashi Ronso)
- 秩父事件と戸長役場史料National Institute of Japanese Literature (Shiryokan Kenkyu Kiyo)
- 秩父事件鎮圧の諸相（二）―警察、軍隊、自衛隊―（研究ノート）Hosei Historical Society (Hosei University Repository)
- 秩父事件鎮圧の諸相（一）―警察、軍隊、自衛隊―（研究ノート）Hosei Historical Society (Hosei University Repository)