12 Facts About Tokugawa Iesada

Tokugawa Iesada was the 13th shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan.

Tokugawa Iesada held office for five years from 1853 to 1858.

Tokugawa Iesada was physically weak and was therefore considered by later historians to have been unfit to be shogun.

Tokugawa Iesada had suffered from smallpox in early childhood, which left his face pockmarked.

On 21 October 1857, Tokugawa Iesada received the newly arrived American Consul Townsend Harris in an audience at Edo Castle.

Under Hotta Masayoshi's advice, Tokugawa Iesada ultimately signed the Harris Treaty of 1858, and subsequently other Unequal Treaties which broke the sakoku policy and opened Japan to foreign influences.

Tokugawa Iesada died childless in 1858, possibly from the cholera outbreak.

Tokugawa Iesada's grave is at the Tokugawa clan temple of Kan'ei-ji in Ueno.

Tokugawa Iesada was initially married to Princess Takatsukasa Atsuko, the daughter of kampaku Takatsukasa Masahiro in 1842.

Tokugawa Iesada died of illness less than a year later.

The years in which Tokugawa Iesada was shogun are more specifically identified by more than one era name, or nengo.

Tokugawa Iesada is featured in the 2008 NHK taiga drama Atsuhime, which chronicles the life of his wife Tensho-in.