The Date was a clan from Mutsu Province, Japan that emerged as one of the most-powerful clans in the Sengoku Jidai (1545-1615). One of their famous leaders was the "One-Eyed Dragon" Masamune Date.
History[]
Masamune Date in battle
The Date originated from the Fujiwara clan, taking their family name from the Date district of Mutsu Province in northern Honshu. During the strife of the Sengoku Jidai (1545-1615), the Date confirmed their independence in northern Japan despite having an internal conflict of their own with a struggle between father Tadamune Date and his son Harumune Date in 1545. The clan reunited after putting down Tadamune's uprising, and they proceeded to defeat their Mogami clan rivals in Ugo Province and Uzen Province, and they proceeded to secure Miyagi Prefecture from the Hatakeyama clan, a peaceful clan that had previously made commerce with the Date.
Under Harumune's grandson Masamune Date (1567-1636), the Date clan was expansionist and aggressive. He seized control of the lands of former allies and even his own kin; he killed his brother and exiled his mother during his rise to power. Masumune united the northern clans against invaders such as Nobunaga Oda, Hideyoshi Hashiba, and Kenshin Uesugi, and he only surrendered in 1590 when Hideyoshi besieged the Hojo clan at Odawara, facing the last major resistance to his rule. In 1591, the Date rebelled in the Kasai-Osaki Uprising, but the Toyotomi crushed the revolt.
Masamune gained the Sendai Domain after helping Ieyasu Tokugawa in the 1600 Battle of Sekigahara and in the 1615 Osaka Campaign, and the Date clan were pro-Tokugawa Shogunate due to their long-standing alliance with the Tokugawa clan. In 1867, the Sendai were defeated during the Boshin War along with the Shogunate faction, and in 1871 the han system of Japanese politics was abolished, so they lost their nobility and their lands.
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