As early as the 7th century, mainland Japanese dominated the Ainu, the indigenous people of the northern island of Hokkaido, with superior weapons and exploited them economically with unscrupulous transactions that took advantage of their natural resources. Although the Ainu attempted to fight back against the domination of the mainland Japanese with three uprisings across three centuries. The first uprising was the Koshamin Uprising in 1457, which was triggered by the murder of a young Ainu boy by a Japnaese blacksmith. The second uprising was the Shakushain Uprising in the 1669, which was triggered by Ainu grievances regarding the economic desturction of the Ainu by the Japanese. The third and last major uprising was the Kunahsiri Menashi Uprising triggered in 1789 by exploitation of labor and sexual violence against the Ainu by the Japanese. However, the mainland Japanese repeatedly shut down these uprisings and eliminated any possibility for Ainu independence. The decpitated heads of insurgents were often put on display to deter any more uprisings.

             By the 18th century, the Ainu were put into a state of virtual slavery, and exploitation of Ainu labor and sexual violence against Ainu women was rampant. Further worsening the plight of the Ainu, the Japanese government, with advice from American officials such as Horace Capron, passed the 1899 Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act, which allowed for the assimilation of the Ainu into loyal subjects of the Japanese emperor. The Japanese goverment also transformed Ainu lands into Japanese cities by detroying natural resources with infastructure. As Ainu identity became more and more endangered due to the destruction of Ainu life caused by the mainland Japanese, the Ainu attempted to mobilize politically in the early 20th century; however, such increasing political advocacy was overshadowed by wartime mobilization and propaganda of the Second World War, and the Ainu fell short on many of their political objectives. After the Second World War, the Ainu were dependent on government welfare, and most Ainu leaders pushed for Ainu assimilation into Japanese society, with only a few advocating cultural autonomy or ethnic distinction. Seen as a “dying race” destined to be assimilated into mainstream Japanese society, the Ainu were not even recognized as an indigenous people by the Japanese government.