The first thing you notice alighting from the ferry at Ryotsu on Sado Island is the absence of convenience stores.
This generates a modern sense of the despair doubtless felt by those banished there over the centuries, far from the comforts of civilized places like Edo (now Tokyo) or the imperial court at Kyoto. For a former emperor going into exile, those lost comforts would have included a scrum of courtiers ready to fawn over your latest poetic musings. Exile was a collective punishment, so they would have had family members to fill that void. For the vast majority of those who weren’t of noble birth, exile simply meant a lifetime of toil and privation far from home.
As a law professor, my interest in visiting Sado was twofold: punishment and gold. The Sado Gold Mine, once one of the most productive mines in the country, has a story to tell. And with the mine up for recognition as Japan’s newest UNESCO World Heritage Site, a decision on which could be reached imminently when the World Heritage Committee meets in New Delhi from July 21, what better time to look at how this island so far away from Japan’s political and cultural poles is nonetheless inextricably linked to them.
A punitive destination
Sado is 1.5 times the size of metropolitan Tokyo, which sounds small but isn’t if you don’t have a rental car. Buses run once an hour or less, and there are few taxis. I lucked out with the weather, so walking was fine, though when I finally came across a convenience store, it didn’t feel very convenient. At least the roads are good, thanks in part to former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka declaring the ferry route part of the national highway system so central government funds could be spent on improving them.
Before that, Sado was as rural a part of Japan as any, which is how the punishment part of the island’s story ties in. The criminal laws Japan’s rulers adopted in the seventh and eighth centuries (modeled after imperial China) established a five-tiered system of punishments of increasing severity: beating with a stick, beating with a stick plus imprisonment, hard labor, exile and death. The “Kojiki,” Japan’s oldest chronicle of the country’s origins, mentions the first recorded instance of a sentence of exile, which was imposed in the mid-fifth century on the Princess Karu no Ohiratsume for the crime of having sex with her brother (who, being the crown prince, went unpunished).
High-ranking persons were entitled to have punishments reduced one degree. This saved the life of “Manyoshu” poet Isonokami no Otomaro, who committed the capital offense of having sex (with another noble’s widow) at the imperial court. Both Buddhism and Shinto frowned on bloodletting, however, and some emperors curtailed death sentences, with Emperor Saga declaring an outright ban in 818. This moratorium lasted 338 years, rendering exile the most severe punishment by default.
The usurpation of political power by the shoguns after the Heian Period (794-1185) saw the return of capital punishment. Exile remained a convenient punishment, particularly for members of the imperial family, including emperors to whom the shoguns notionally owed their legitimacy. The Emperor Juntoku was banished to Sado in 1221 for his part in the Jokyu Rebellion against the shogunate and died there 21 years later. Just down the hill from the site of his funeral pyre (maintained today by the Imperial Household Agency), the Sado History Museum has an animatronic Emperor Juntoku who clicks and whirs onstage to lament his fate for the entertainment of tourists.
Exile was about putting distance between wrongdoers and centers of political power. Not everyone was exiled to islands, but insular locations had obvious benefits. In western Japan, Shikoku and the Oki islands were common destinations. The shift of political power from Kansai to Kanto saw the Izu islands serve as punishment destinations. Sado seemed to have been convenient for both.
Exile came in three levels: “close,” “medium” and “far.” For regular criminals, the sentence involved several years of hard labor at the destination, followed by freedom — albeit the freedom to stay in the place of exile and eke out a living.
Gold and its human price
Exile ceased to be a punishment when the penal code was modernized after the Meiji Restoration. Before that, banishment to Sado had some potential upside for those whose sentence overlapped with the island’s gold rush.
Sado is famous as the site of Japan’s most productive gold mines. During the Edo Period (1603-1868), Sado and its mines were under the direct control of the Tokugawa shogunate, becoming a significant source of its wealth and producing over 40 tons of gold, all scraped out of the mountains by hand. Before the Tokugawas banned most contact with Westerners in the mid-17th century, gold mining technology was something they actively sought from the Spanish, who by that time already had extensive experience in extracting it from their New World colonies.
Gold enabled the shoguns to develop a second system of currency, rice being the first. Sado was important enough that the shogunate sent not one but two bugyō (magistrates) to administer the gold operations, presumably so they could watch each other for corruption and pilfering. The nicely restored Sado Bugyosho Site overlooking the Sea of Japan gives a good sense of what it was like to work in an Edo Period government office, with wooden indoor toilets and the oshirasu white gravel floors in the courtrooms where litigants and accused had to kneel in supplication.
During the Meiji Period, the mines were transferred to the Imperial Household Ministry, then to Mitsubishi Mining (now Mitsubishi Materials). By this time, the veins of gold were depleted — the principal mine was literally cleaved in two from centuries of digging. This is now the site of the Sado Gold Mine, the well-run and informative museum attraction seeking World Heritage Site status.
This museum also has animatronic displays showing how the mine was operated. Yet you should read the explanations to appreciate how horrific Edo Period working conditions were, with hand tools for breaking rock, oil lamps for light and hand-pumps for ventilation and flood control. Exhausting and dangerous, the mines required a constant supply of disposable labor. Despite this hardship, there was a gold-rush period when work in the Sado mines was so popular that coastal daimyo issued edicts prohibiting travel there. At other times, labor shortages arose and were addressed by Tokugawa officials dragooning homeless people from Edo and Osaka. Near the village of Aikawa, the inscription on a grave to some of the mushukusha (people without lodgings) notes how they finally have a home.
In addition to gold, Sado remained a source of other important minerals such as silver and copper well into the mid-20th century. Mechanization and technology made mining more efficient, but it still required significant numbers of laborers to work long hours in dangerous conditions. Starting in 1940, over 1,500 Korean workers were brought in to work in the Sado mines. Although working under contracts, there is some debate over how voluntary some of the arrangements actually were. Accounts describe harsh working conditions, mandatory contract extensions and “compulsory saving” in lieu of salaries. Strikes by both Korean and Japanese mine workers were already occurring in 1940, and it is questionable whether Japanese workers were treated markedly better. That at least 150 Korean laborers sought to escape from their employment is indicative of something.
The bid for World Heritage Site status nonetheless takes place in the broader context of the ongoing “history wars” between Japan and its neighbors. Korean courts have ordered some Japanese companies to pay compensation for use of Koreans for forced labor. Mitsubishi Materials has also apologized and agreed to pay compensation for the use of Chinese as forced labor during World War II. The Sado Gold Mine did not feature in those cases, but it and its UNESCO bid will likely remain inextricably linked to that broader narrative.
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