Preface

Today, Okinawa is the southern-most prefecture of Japan and accounts for two-thirds of the Ryukyu Island Chain that extends for a thousand miles from Kyushu to Taiwan.  It has a long and interesting history extending back to the Stone Age period.  It was once a kingdom in its own right and, because of its location, became an important trade center.  The kingdom entered into the Imperial Chinese tributary system during the Ming Dynasty beginning in the fifteenth century.

In 1609, Japanese warlords from present-day Kagoshima invaded the Ryukyu kingdom and forced the Okinawan king to accept the terms of the Tokugawa Shogun to become a vassal state, while at the same time maintaining is relationship with China as a tributary state.  Despite these two powerful controlling factors, the Okinawan kingdom retained a considerable degree of domestic political freedom for over two hundred years.