Sakai Tadamichi

Sakai Tadamichi (酒井忠宝; July 14, 1856 – September 17, 1921) was a Japanese daimyō during the late Edo period and the initial years of the Meiji era. He was the 12th and final daimyō of Shōnai Domain, a feudal domain located in what is now Yamagata Prefecture. His courtesy title was Saemon-no-jō.

Born as the sixth son of Sakai Tadaaki, the 6th daimyō of Shōnai, Tadamichi became daimyō in 1868 following the deposition of his elder brother, Sakai Tadazumi, who was the 11th daimyō of Shōnai. The elder brother was removed from power by the Meiji government due to his leadership during the Boshin War, in which the domain participated as part of the pro-Tokugawa alliance known as the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei.

Following this change in leadership, the Meiji government initially punished Shōnai Domain by reducing its kokudaka, a measure of the domain's productivity and size, to 120,000 koku. During this period of political upheaval, from 1868 to 1869, Sakai Tadamichi was also appointed ruler of Aizu Domain, which had been seized from the Aizu-Matsudaira clan, as part of the broader reorganization of domains by the imperial authorities.

In June 1869, he was ordered to relocate to Iwakitaira Domain, where his kokudaka was further reduced to 70,000 koku. However, this order was rescinded just one month later. Subsequently, he was appointed as the imperial governor of Shōnai Domain. Following the abolition of the han system in 1871, which restructured domains into prefectures, Sakai Tadamichi relocated to Tokyo.

He retired from his official duties in 1880 and returned the position of the head of the Sakai clan to his elder brother, Sakai Tadazumi. Sakai Tadamichi died in 1921.

References for his biography include Edmond Papinot’s "Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du Japon" (1906), the "Nobiliaire du Japon" (2003), and the "Zenkoku-ban Bakumatsu Ishin Jinbutsu Jiten" (2010), with much of this information derived from the Japanese Wikipedia article on him.