著者

松浦 利隆

出版者

国立歴史民俗博物館

雑誌

国立歴史民俗博物館研究報告 (ISSN:02867400)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.95, pp.179-205, 2002-03

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安政六年六月の開港は国内の経済構造に大変化をもたらし、幕藩体制が崩壊するきっかけを作った大事件である。そこで初期の生糸不足により大混乱におちいった関東随一の織物産地である上州桐生新町がこの事件をきっかけにどう変化したかを考察した。この混乱へ桐生新町の対応は三つの段階に分けられる。最初の段階は幕府への生糸輸出禁止や在郷商人の取引抑制を中心とした嘆願の段階である。夏から冬にかけて続いた嘆願は大老への駕籠訴までエスカレートしたがついに何の効果も無かった。次が嘆願の失敗、冬を迎えて困窮の進展により抑えきれなくなった町内の織物職人・労働者(=小前層)の不穏な行動とそれを地元商人処罰等によって懐柔し、さらなる先鋭化を抑えた段階である。最後が翌春の町役人層と小前層の相互の直接的な対向関係、つまり小前層の打ち壊しを材料にした各種要求、町役人層の権力を動員した抑圧と施米等の実施による懐柔といった従来の支配関係を超越した両者の力のバランスが町政を動かす段階である。このように開港という新状況は、まずは幕府による経済統制がもはや無力であることを露呈させ、さらに地域においても従来的な社会機構や制度が機能不全におちいった側面を強調してゆく過程であり、そこから生じたのは従来の身分制度の枠にとらわれない経済的な階層格差を背景にした混乱と対立であった。かつ、その解決(=救い米等)がこの新情勢から経済的な恩恵を受けたと思われる階層(=生糸商人に代表される)の経済力によって支えられる新状況をもたらしたわけである。このように安政六年の桐生の事例は、開港と開放経済が封建社会の基礎を揺るがし、最終的にはそれを突き崩してゆく歴史過程のひとつの端緒的な事例といえるのではないだろうか。The opening of ports in June, Ansei 6 was a major incident that brought about a great change in the domestic economic structure and started the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate regime. This paper considers how Joshu Kiryu-shinmachi, the best textile producer in Kanto fell into a great confusion due to the raw silk shortage in the earlier days, changed after this incident.We can divide the measures that Kiryu-shinmachi took against such confusion as three stages : in the first stage, it entreated the Government to ban the raw silk export and control the trade by rural merchants. The entreaties that continued from summer to winter went so far as to resort to kagoso (the direct entreaty to the palanquin of tairo), but there was no effect gained after all.In the next stage, after the failure of the entreaties and with the arrival of the winter, the town pacified frustrated textile craftsmen and workers by punishing the local merchants. Further, in the next spring, the town politics were influenced by the power balance that transcended the direct conflict between the class of town officials and that of komae (working class live in rented houses), i.e., the controlling relationship, as represented by various requests involved in uchikowashi of the komae class and suppression by mobilized power of the town official class and such appeasement measures as the rice giving.Thus, the new situation brought about by the port opening was a process that revealed the economic control by the government not to be effective any longer, while it emphasized the aspect that the conventional social structures and systems failed to function properly, from which conflicts and confusion arose in the context of the differentials in economic status difficult to understand by the traditional framework of social class. At the same time, the solutions to this (rice giving, etc. ) resulted in such new circumstances supported by the economic power of the class (as represented by raw silk merchants) that seemed to economically benefit from such new state of affairs. Thus, it can be said that the example of Kiryu of Ansei 6 was one of the very first incidents in the historical process in which the port opening and open economy started shaking the foundation of the feudal society and eventually destroy it.