---
node: sakamoto_ryoma
type: person
slug: sakamoto_ryoma
title: "Sakamoto Ryoma"
lead: "Sakamoto Ryoma (1836–1867) was a low-ranking Tosa samurai who became the great go-between of the bakumatsu era. He brokered the 1866 Satsuma–Choshu alliance that doomed the shogunate."
published: 2026-07-09
updated: 2026-07-09
---

## Who they were

Born in 1836 into a low-ranking samurai family of Tosa, he left his domain — then a crime — and studied under Katsu Kaishu, the shogunate's naval modernizer.

## What they did

In Nagasaki he founded a trading and shipping company, the Kameyama Shachu (later the Kaientai), often called one of Japan's first modern companies. In 1866 he brokered the once-unthinkable Satsuma–Choshu alliance, which doomed the shogunate.

His eight-point program, the Senchu Hassaku, sketched a post-shogunal state and influenced the peaceful return of power (Taisei Hokan, 1867).

## Legacy

He was assassinated in Kyoto in December 1867, at age 31; the killers' identity is still debated, though the Mimawarigumi are usually credited. He remains the romantic modernizer-hero of the Restoration — an image boosted by Shiba Ryotaro's postwar novel.