Kayabe

Kayabe's coast in southern Ezo was already inhabited by Ainu communities when Japanese fishermen established more permanent settlements. Local histories remember Iidaya Yogozaemon of Noto settling at Osatsube in 1677, followed by Higashideya Tagozaemon from Sai in northern Honshu at Usujiri in 1718. Further settlers reached Kakkumi in the eighteenth century. These settlements grew within coastal fishing and trading districts rather than a single inland town.

The relationship with Matsumae changed when the shogunate took direct control of eastern Ezo in 1799. Kayabe and Osatsube belonged to the coastal districts known as Hakodate's six places, where the growing Japanese population led to recognition as village-like settlements early in the new century. Trade and fisheries increasingly shared the coast with official arrangements for settlement and supervision. The history of Kayabe thus joins older Ainu occupancy to successive fishing settlements and the reorganization of southern Ezo's maritime frontier.