Page "Ainu people" Paragraph 9

The Ainu were becoming increasingly marginalized on their own land — over a period of only 36 years, 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.

In addition to this, the land the Ainu lived on was distributed to the Wajin who had decided to move to Hokkaido, who had been encouraged by the Japanese government of the Meiji era to take advantage of the island ’ s abundance of natural resources, and to create and maintain farms in the model of western industrial agriculture.

While at the time the process was openly referred to as colonization (" takushoku " 拓殖 ), the notion was later reframed by Japanese elites to the currently common usage " kaitaku "( 開拓 ), which instead conveys a sense of opening up or reclamation of the Ainu lands.

As well as this, factories such as flour mills and beer breweries and mining practices resulted in the creation of infrastructure such as roads and railway lines, during a development period that lasted until 1904.

During this time the Ainu were forced to learn Japanese, required to adopt Japanese names and ordered to cease religious practices such as animal sacrifice and the custom of tattooing.