Tosa Province was formed by the
Ritsuryo reforms by combining the territories of the Tosa
kuni no miyatsuko (都佐国造) who ruled in the east with the Hata
kuni no miyatsuko (波多国造) who ruled in the west. The name "Tosa" appears in the
Nihon Shoki in an entry dated Match 675. In many subsequent entries, Tosa is mentioned usually in connection with some natural disaster, including the
684 Hakuhō earthquake in which it was reported that a ship carrying the provincial governor had been swept away by a
tsunami, and a new imperial governor was sent from the capital. The province appears to have been used as a penal colony or place of exile from the
Asuka period. At the end of the
Heian period, Minamoto no Mareyoshi, the younger brother of
Minamoto no Yoritomo was exiled by the
Heike clan. Other prominent exiles included
Fujiwara no Moronaga,
Emperor Tsuchimikado, and
Prince Takanaga. In the
Kamakura period, the
Ichijō family of
court nobles established a huge
shōen landed estate in western Tosa, and ruled the area into the
Sengoku period. During the
Muromachi period, the
Hosokawa clan were
shugo of Tosa Province, but preferred to rule via proxy, using the Ohira clan, while remaining in
Kyoto. When income from the manor tended to stop due to the
Onin War,
Kanpaku Ichijo Norifusa (with help of the Ohira clan) relocated to Tosa and became a local power controlling Hata and Takaoka Counties in western Tosa. The remainder of the province and controlled by the Motoyama, Aki, Kira, Tsuno, Chōsokabe and the Kosokabe clans. Under
Chōsokabe Motochika, the Chōsokabe came to control all of Tosa, and later, to expand into all of Shikoku. They were stopped only by the forces of
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who restricted them only to their territories in Tosa Province. Chōsokabe Motochika's son
Chōsokabe Morichika was dispossessed as he sided with the losing Western army at the
Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Under the
Tokugawa shogunate, the province was assigned to
Yamauchi Kazutoyo and the
Yamauchi clan continued to rule the province as
daimyō of
Tosa Domain until the
Meiji restoration. Under the Yamauchi,
Kōchi Castle was built and the
jōkamachi of Kochi city became the capital of the province. During the
Bakumatsu period, many prominent people were active in the overthrow of the shogunate and establishing the early
Meiji government, including
Sakamoto Ryōma,
Nakaoka Shintarō,
Itagaki Taisuke,
Gotō Shōjirō. Per the early
Meiji period , an official government assessment of the nation’s resources, the province had 348 villages with a total
kokudaka of 494,087
koku. Tosa Province consisted of the following districts: } || 42,242
koku || 50 villages || || Ino, Niyodo, parts of Kōchi, Tosa, Ochi Following the
abolition of the han system in 1871, Tosa Province became
Kochi Prefecture. The
Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Tosa,
lead ship of
its class, was named after the province. ==Gallery==