Sōma

The Sōma were a samurai house of Taira descent through the Chiba clan, named after the Sōma shrine-estate in northern Shimōsa. Their founder Sōma Morotsune served Minamoto no Yoritomo and joined the conquest of the Northern Fujiwara in 1189, receiving three southern Mutsu districts.

In the Nanboku-chō wars the Sōma held to the Northern Court. In the Sengoku age their domain lay between the Satake and the Date; Date Masamune invaded thirty times, and Sōma Yoshitane submitted to Toyotomi Hideyoshi at the Odawara siege of 1590.

After Sekigahara the Tokugawa government named Sōma Toshitane daimyō of the Sōma Nakamura Domain. He moved his seat to Nakamura Castle, laid out a castle town on the Kyoto model and patronised Sōma ware; his descendants kept the domain through the Edo period.