Editing Ainu people (section)

===Japanese annexation of Hokkaido===
In 1869, the [[Empire of Japan|imperial government]] established the [[Hokkaidō Development Commission]] as part of the [[Meiji Restoration]]. Researcher Katarina Sjöberg quotes Yūko Baba's 1980 account of the Japanese government's reasoning:

{{Blockquote|... The development of Japan's large northern island had several objectives: First, it was seen as a means to defend Japan from a rapidly developing and [[Territorial evolution of Russia|expansionist Russia]]. Second ... it offered a solution to the unemployment for the former [[samurai]] class ... Finally, development promised to yield the needed natural resources for a growing capitalist economy.{{sfnp|Sjöberg|1993|p=116}}}}

As a result of the [[Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875)]], the Kuril Islands{{Em dash}}along with their Ainu inhabitants{{Em dash}}came under Japanese administration. In 1899, the Japanese government passed an act labeling the Ainu as "former aborigines", with the idea that they would [[Cultural assimilation|assimilate]]. This resulted in the Japanese government taking the land where the Ainu people lived and placing it under Japanese control.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Loos |editor-first1=Noel |editor-last2=Osani |editor-first2=Takeshi |year=1993 |title=Indigenous Minorities and Education: Australian and Japanese Perspectives on their Indigenous Peoples, the Ainu, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders |publisher=Sanyusha Publishing Co., Ltd. |location=Tokyo |isbn=978-4-88322-597-2}}{{page needed|date=February 2020}}</ref> Also at this time, the Ainu were granted automatic Japanese citizenship, effectively denying them the status of an indigenous group.

[[File:Tatsujiro kuzuno.JPG|thumb|right|280px|A photograph of {{ill|Tatsujiro Kuzuno|ja|葛野辰次郎}}, an Ainu individual famous for being a promoter of Ainu culture]]

The Ainu went from being a relatively isolated group of people to having their land, language, religion, and customs assimilated into those of the Japanese.<ref name="bbc">{{cite news |first=Philippa |last=Fogarty |title=Recognition at last for Japan's Ainu |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7437244.stm |work=[[BBC News]] |publisher=BBC |date=June 6, 2008 |access-date=June 7, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171108102235/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7437244.stm |archive-date=November 8, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> Their land was distributed to the [[Yamato people|Yamato Japanese]] settlers to create and maintain farms in the model of Western industrial agriculture. It was known as "colonization" (拓殖) at the time, but later by the [[euphemism]], "opening up undeveloped land" ({{Interlanguage link|開拓|lt=開拓|jp}}).{{sfnp|Siddle|1996|p=51}} Additionally, factories like flour mills and beer breweries, along with mining practices, resulted in the creation of infrastructure such as roads and railway lines during a development period that lasted until 1904.{{sfnp|Sjöberg|1993|p=117}} During this time, the Ainu were ordered to cease religious practices such as animal sacrifice and the custom of tattooing.<ref>{{cite book |last=Levinson |first=David |title=Encyclopedia of Modern Asia |volume=1 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |page=72 |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-684-80617-4}}</ref> The same act applied to the native Ainu on [[Sakhalin]] after its annexation as [[Karafuto Prefecture]].<ref>{{cite journal|author=Yamada, Yoshiko |year=2010|title=A Preliminary Study of Language Contact around Uilta in Sakhalin|journal=Journal of the Center for Northern Humanities|volume=3|pages=59–75|hdl=2115/42939}}</ref>