ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 provides the historical background for this study on prisons and forced labour in Japan. The chapter examines the emergence of institutionalized forms of forced labour and arrest in early modern Japan, focusing on Edo, the Tokugawa capital, and Ezo, the far northern periphery of the Tokugawa state. What was distinctive about Japanese arrest and forced labour during the Tokugawa period (1603–1867) was that – in contrast to later areas of Japanese history – these two forms of punishment were not yet linked. In other words, those who spent time in prison were not put to work, whilst those who were sent to forced labour camps were not prisoners but vagabonds and other social outcasts.
