Enomoto Takeaki

Enomoto Takeaki was a Japanese samurai and admiral of the Tokugawa navy of Bakumatsu period Japan, who remained faithful to the Tokugawa shogunate and fought against the new Meiji government until the end of the Boshin War. He later served in the Meiji government as one of the founders of the Imperial Japanese Navy. He was born as a member of a samurai family in the direct service of the Tokugawa clan in the Shitaya district of Edo (modern Taitō, Tokyo). He studied Dutch and English languages and western naval techniques in Nagasaki and Edo, and was sent to the Netherlands to study further and procure warships for the shogunate. He returned to Japan in 1867 and became the second highest rank in the Tokugawa Navy. He also received the court title of Izumi-no-kami. During the Meiji Restoration, after the surrender of Edo in 1868, Enomoto refused to deliver up his warships, and escaped to Hakodate in Hokkaido with the remainder of the Tokugawa Navy and a handful of French military advisers. He hoped to create an independent country under the rule of the Tokugawa family in Hokkaido, but the Meiji government refused to accept partition of Japan. He surrendered to imperial forces in 1869, after which he spent three years under house arrest. Restored to favour, Enomoto later held many important ministerial positions with the government of the Meiji emperor. As envoy extraordinary to Russia (1873–76), he concluded the Treaty of St. Petersburg, by which Japan gave up its claim to Sakhalin Island in exchange for the northern Kurils. He next served as navy minister (1876–82) and was minister to China (1882–84). He subsequently held the portfolios of communications, education, foreign affairs, agriculture, and commerce. He was created viscount in 1887. He died of heart failure in 1908 at the age of 72.