Historical archive

Meiji Japan: when the samurai put down the sword

How the end of the samurai class turned old fighting schools into modern budō.

1868–1912

Samurai helmet of the Edo period — Helmet (Kabuto) — unknown maker, 1615–1868. Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0 (public domain).

The story

In 1868 a group of young reformers restored power to the Meiji emperor and set out to turn Japan into an industrial state that could stand up to the Western powers. In barely a decade the samurai lost almost everything that made them samurai: their hereditary stipends, their monopoly on war, and finally the right to wear swords in public.

Many old schools of swordsmanship and jūjutsu lost their students and their patrons. Some teachers survived by giving paid public shows of fencing. Others found work training the new police. The last great samurai revolt, the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, was crushed by a conscript army with rifles, although police swordsmen fought in it too.

Out of this crisis came something new. In 1882 Kanō Jigorō opened the Kōdōkan and turned jūjutsu into judo, a method of education as much as of fighting. In 1895 the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai was founded in Kyoto to preserve and standardise the martial arts, and over the following decades the old word bujutsu (martial techniques) gave way to budō (martial ways). Kendo, judo and later karate took the form we know: uniforms, grades, rules and schools.

Key dates

1868
Meiji Restoration: imperial rule is restored.
1873
Conscription law: a national army replaces the samurai as soldiers.
1876
Haitōrei edict: carrying swords in public is banned, except for the military and police.
1877
Satsuma Rebellion, led by Saigō Takamori, is defeated.
1882
Kanō Jigorō founds the Kōdōkan in Tokyo.
1895
The Dai Nippon Butoku Kai is founded in Kyoto.

Myth and fact

Myth

The samurai disappeared because of the sword ban.

The ban of 1876 came at the end of a longer process: the class lost its stipends, its role in war and its legal privileges step by step. Families of samurai descent kept the status label shizoku for decades.

Why it matters

Almost every Japanese martial art practised today, with belts, ranks and competition rules, is a Meiji or later reinvention of older schools. Knowing this helps separate genuine old tradition from modern presentation.

Images: public-domain or CC0 works credited under each picture, or original WABUKAN ink illustrations. Panels: the story told in numbered comic boxes.

Sources

Meiji Restoration — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
Haitōrei Edict — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
Satsuma Rebellion — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
Dai Nippon Butoku Kai — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
Kodokan Judo Institute — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
Helmet (Kabuto) — Cleveland Museum of Art — clevelandart.org

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WABUKAN 和武館, «Meiji Japan: when the samurai put down the sword», https://wabukan.com/marco-meiji (accessed 2026-10-30).

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