Marquess was the last king of the Ryukyu Kingdom (8 June 1848 – 10 October 1872) and the head of the Ryukyu Domain (10 October 1872 – 27 March 1879). His reign saw greatly increased interactions with travelers from abroad, particularly from Europe and the United States, as well as the eventual end of the kingdom and its annexation by Japan as Ryukyu Domain (later Okinawa Prefecture). In 1879, the deposed king was forced to relocate to Tokyo. In May 1885, in compensation, he was made a Kōshaku (, Marquess), the second tier of nobility within the Kazoku peerage system.
Early reign
Shō Tai became King of Ryukyu at the age of six and reigned for nearly 31 years. Developments surrounding pressures from Western powers to open the kingdom up to trade, formal relations, and the free coming and going and settlement of Westerners in the Ryukyu Islands dominated the first decade or two of his reign.
While Westerners had been coming to the Ryukyu Islands for several decades prior to Shō Tai's accession in 1848, and were almost always greeted warmly and provided with supplies, it was not until the 1850s that formal policies allowed and encouraged trade and relations with Europeans and Americans. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry made port at Naha several times, both before and immediately after his famous landing at Uraga Harbor in 1853; the Commodore was never permitted to meet with the young King, despite his demands and his forced march to, and entry into, Shuri Castle. He did, however, meet with the royal regent and other high officials of the royal government, eventually yielding the Lew Chew Compact of 1854, along with other agreements, which could be said to parallel the Convention of Kanagawa signed that same year by representatives of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and to represent the "opening" of Ryukyu to trade and relations with the United States. Trade and relations with other Western powers soon followed, backed by Shimazu Nariakira, lord of Satsuma, who saw in the process opportunities to gain wealth and power. Relations with France were particularly strong; a French Mission was established in Naha, which in 1857 formally granted a number of items of field artillery to Shō Tai.
Nariakira died suddenly in 1858. He was succeeded by his half-brother Shimazu Hisamitsu, to whom Shō Tai was obliged to formally swear anew the oath of loyalty to the Shimazu clan that he and his ancestors had sworn since 1611. Hisamitsu reversed his half-brother's policies regarding Ryukyu's interactions with the West; Satsuma's radical opposition to foreign influence was a driving force in the events of the following decade in Japan.
In 1864, after Shō Tai had been on the throne for 16 years, the customary mission was sent to China to formally request investiture from the Chinese Imperial Court. Chinese representatives journeyed to Ryukyu two years later, formally granting on behalf of the Tongzhi Emperor recognition of Shō Tai's authority as king.
Meiji Restoration
Following the 1868 Meiji Restoration, and the abolition of the han system four years later, the relationship of the kingdom to the former Satsuma Domain (now Kagoshima Prefecture) and to the new Japanese central government at Tokyo was unclear and a subject of controversy between various factions in the central government. Shō Tai, his advisors or officials were never consulted for advice, consent, or opinions.
At the same time, in 1871, there occurred an incident in which a Ryukyuan ship wrecked on the Taiwanese coast and its crew was killed by the local natives. Kagoshima pressured Shō Tai to send a formal petition to Tokyo, asking for redress; the event would blossom into an international incident and eventually lead to the dispatch of a Japanese military expedition to Taiwan in 1874. To help resolve this problem and others concerning the relationship between Ryukyu and Japan, Shō Tai was advised to journey to Tokyo and formally pay his respects to Emperor Meiji, acknowledging at the same time his (and therefore his kingdom's) subordination to the Emperor of Japan. Shō Tai refused, and sent Prince Ie, his uncle, and Ginowan Ueekata, one of the kingdom's top ministers, in his place, claiming illness prevented him from making the journey himself. At Tokyo, the envoys were presented, on behalf of their King, with a proclamation declaring the kingdom to now be "Ryukyu Han", that is, a feudal domain under the Japanese Emperor in the manner of those abolished the previous year in the Japan mainland. This new arrangement meant freedom from subordination to Satsuma, but it also meant incorporation into Japan and subordination to the Imperial government in Tokyo.