One of those defeated at Sekigahara ended up here, the first of about 1,900 exiles in 265 years.
Fifty-five minutes by plane from Haneda, three flights a day: it is Tokyo three hundred kilometres out to sea, with six thousand five hundred inhabitants, two volcanoes and six onsen. The island's fabric, kihachijō, is dyed with plants and woven by hand, and in the Edo period it was worth so much that it was paid as tribute in kind.
For 265 years the island was a place of exile: about 1,900 people were sent here (「この265年間に約1,900人の流罪人が流されてきました」). The first was Ukita Hideie, one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Five Elders and commander of the army defeated at Sekigahara: he arrived in 1606 with a retinue of thirteen people and died here in 1655, forty-nine years later. His tomb is a cultural property of the island.
ℹ️ ANA from Haneda, about 55 minutes, three return flights a day; or the Tachibana-maru from Takeshiba, 10 hours 20 minutes, one round trip a day. The two volcanoes are Hachijō-Fuji, whose crater you can walk round, and Mihara-yama.
🚉 Sokodo-kō (底土港) · 54 min walk
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