Japan Annexes the Ryukyu Kingdom as Okinawa

On March 27, 1879, Japanese disposition officer Matsuda Michiyuki formally delivered an order to Ryukyuan court officials at Shuri Castle announcing that the Ryukyu Domain was abolished and ordering King Sho Tai to leave the castle. Backed by about 160 police officers and a half battalion of soldiers from the Kumamoto garrison (some accounts count about 600 armed men in all), the Japanese delegation met no armed resistance. King Sho Tai left the castle within days (accounts differ on the exact date), and Japanese authorities took it over, completing the establishment of Okinawa Prefecture and ending centuries of separate royal governance in the islands.

For more than two hundred and fifty years, the Ryukyu Kingdom had occupied an unusual, dual status in East Asian diplomacy. Following an invasion in 1609 by the Satsuma Domain, the kingdom was integrated as a subordinate vassal within the Tokugawa political order while simultaneously retaining its long-standing tributary ties with imperial China. This relationship allowed the Ryukyuan court to welcome envoys from both realms and negotiate trade agreements with foreign powers such as the United States, France, and the Netherlands. Following the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate and the onset of the Meiji period, Japanese leaders sought to consolidate national borders under a uniform, centralized administrative system.