The year 1865 was a monumental one in American history.
After four years of fierce fighting, the Civil War ended, and the Constitution abolished slavery. And the 2,000 or so people living in what would become Santa Rosa likely felt a world away from these transformational events. Little did they know that something happening in the direction opposite from the battlefields and halls of Congress would have just as significant an impact on their young city’s development.
In 1865, a 27-year-old Scottish tea exporter and part-time gun runner living in Nagasaki, Japan, Thomas Glover, added human trafficking to his resume. Santa Rosa would never be the same.
Geography and distance saved Glover’s home, the oldest Western building in Japan, from the atomic blast in 1945. There, perhaps in his ornate dining room, rebellious samurai asked him to smuggle 15 young men out of the country. The plan was for them to travel to Great Britain in secret, learn everything they could in English schools and use that knowledge to make Japan equal to any Western nation.
Glover, agreeing to charter a ship, put him and the would-be travelers at great risk. If caught, the punishment for him would be a lengthy imprisonment, and the punishment for the 15 Japanese would be death. The youngest among them, Hikosuke Isonaga, was only 13 when he set sail from his native Kagoshima. He left behind more than just his home. To shield his family from the Shogun’s retribution, he also left behind his name. Hikosuke Isonaga became Kanaye Nagasawa.
The young Nagasawa could have had no idea what lie in store for him while watching his hometown retreat from view. Like the others, he expected to return in a few years when, by that point, a revolution had overthrown the Shogun.
However, fate had other plans for Nagasawa. After studying in England, he traveled to New York before settling in our very own Santa Rosa. For decades, his vineyards covered our city’s hills, and his Round Barn (Rest in Peace) adorned Fountaingrove like a crown. Upon his death in 1934, the wine king of California was undoubtedly the most famous person in city history.
Every day, Santa Rosa residents and tourists pass by the very land that Nagasawa nurtured, and many of us enjoy the park bearing his name. But what of the place Nagasawa left behind, Kagoshima? What, if any, connection exists between it and the city where he left his tremendous mark?
Another Kind of Smoke
Just off the coast of Kagoshima exists Sakurajima, the most active volcano in Japan. The magma bubbling underneath produces the hot, mineral-rich water pumped into the city’s famed onsen baths. What classifies as an eruption happens annually, and the mountain puffs up smoke nearly every day, the dark ash trailing in the wind for miles.
Kagoshima residents live under the threat of a major eruption, just as we do in Santa Rosa with wildfires. It’s not uncommon for the air to turn to smoke, or ash to fall on the city. On less fortunate days, elementary school students venturing outside wear helmets to protect them from debris.
The situation is more dangerous on Sakurajima, where the few thousand residents, many elderly, live with familiar terms such as “advisory notice” and “evacuation warning.” Why do they remain? Why not abandon the island and relocate to the relative safety of Kagoshima proper upwind?
It’s because Sakurajima, like Northern California, has some of the richest soil on the face of the Earth. One may take the 15-minute ferry from the city to discover succulent oranges and plump daikon radishes. Visitors hiking the island’s lava trail can find fruit and vegetable stands selling these and other agricultural delights for pennies on the dollar nearly every month of the year.
The land taketh, but the land certainly giveth.
Thriving Beverage Industry
Kagoshima may be too hot and humid for wine grapes (think Miami weather), but the soil produces sugar-rich sweet potatoes that are best enjoyed roasted during the region’s short winter. This agricultural staple is also the foundation for Kagoshima’s most famous beverage—shochu.
Coming in around 25% ABV and served over ice, shochu shares some similarities with Japan’s other national beverage, sake. To a Western consumer, both carry complex flavors that their simple ingredients, at first glance, seem impossibly capable of creating. Even Francis Xavier, who came to Japan in 1549 to spread Christianity, commented on the unique and perplexing beverage in his writings.
Just as during Nagasawa’s childhood, shochu production drives a sizable portion of Kagoshima’s economy. In 2024, any restaurant worth its salt (or, in this case, sweet potato) offers an extensive list of shochu options. Gift shops at the train station and airport carry hundreds of unique-tasting and strikingly beautiful bottles from different distillers. Oh, and expect a multitude of tasting rooms with English-speaking staff if one should ever visit.
But one must not forget to pay the duty on any shochu they bring home.
A Legacy Recognized
Kanaye Nagasawa never returned to Japan, never fulfilled the hopes and dreams of the samurai who smuggled him out of the country. Even so, Kagoshima recognizes the accomplishments of its native sons who ventured abroad with an impressive monument just outside its Shinkansen station. There, immortalized in bronze, stands the teenage Nagasawa among his peers. His face is proud and hopeful, yet completely unaware of where his long life will take him.
You have no idea, I thought while standing in front of it on a fine fall morning. Santa Rosa wouldn’t be what it is today without you. Thanks.
