Samurai

Samurai (侍, English: /ˈsæm.u.raɪ/,^[1] Japanese: [sa.mɯ.ɾai]^[2]) or bushi (武士, Japanese: [bɯꜜ.ɕi]^[2]) were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who served the kuge and imperial court in the late 12th century. Samurai eventually came to play a major political role until their abolition in the late 1870s during the Meiji era.^[3][4]

In the Heian period, powerful regional clans were relied on to put down rebellions. After power struggles, the Taira clan defeated the Minamoto clan in 1160. After the Minamoto defeated the Taira in 1185, Minamoto no Yoritomo established the Kamakura shogunate, a parallel government that did not supplant the imperial court.^[5][6] The warriors who served the Shogunate were called gokenin, landholding warriors whose retainers were called samurai.^[7][8]

During the Sengoku period, there was a great increase in the number of men who styled themselves samurai by virtue of bearing arms, and performance mattered more than lineage.^[9][10] This was reversed during the Edo period, when the status of samurai became hereditary and the samurai were defined as retainers to the feudal lords (the daimyo).

In 1853, the United States forced Japan to open its borders to foreign trade under the threat of military action. Fearing an eventual invasion, the Japanese abandoned feudalism for capitalism so that they could industrialize and build a modern army. The samurai were retainers to the daimyo, so when the daimyo class was abolished, the samurai were left masterless. The samurai specialized in pre-gunpowder weapons that took years to master, whereas modern firearms are so easy to use that commoners could be trained into soldiers on an as-needed basis. Thus the samurai class became obsolete and defunct. By 1876 their traditional rights and privileges had all been abolished.