Tokugawa Iesada

Tokugawa Iesada (徳川 家定 (May 6, 1824—August 14, 1858) was the 13th shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan who held office for only 5 years, from 1853 to 1858. He was mentally unfit to be shogunFact|date=February 2007. Having risen to power soon after the Black Ships episode, which was allegedly the cause of his father Ieyoshi's illness and death, he was responsible for the Unequal Treaties (Convention of Kanagawa, Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty, Harris Treaty, Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce) which broke the "sakoku" and opened the Japanese frontiers to foreign influences, leading to the Bakumatsu.

Eras of Iesada's "bakufu"

The years in which Iesada was shogun are more specifically identified by more than one era name or "nengō".
* "Kaei" (1848-1854)
* "Ansei" (1854-1860)

European Encounters

Though he is not named specifically, Tokugawa's death was mentioned in the account of the French ambassador Baron Gros' expedition to China and Japan. It states rather that the "civil emperor" of Japan, most likely the shogun and not the "ecclesiastical emperor" that may have been the hereditary emperor at the time, had died some several days earlier.

In Fiction

Tokugawa Iesada is featured in the 2008 NHK Taiga drama Atsuhime, which chronicles the life of his wife. He is portrayed by Masato Sakai.

References

Notes

For further reading

*Totman, Conrad. (1967). "Politics in the Tokugawa bakufu, 1600-1843". Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Osamu Tezuka. "Hidamari no Ki"
*Mogues, Marquis de. "Recollections of Baron Gros's Embassy to China and Japan in 1857-58". London and Glasgow: Richard Griffin and Company. 1860.