Kichimatsu Kishi, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetKichimatsu Kishi
Japanese-American businessman
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Niigata, Niigata Prefecture, Japan
About Kichimatsu Kishi
- Kichimatsu Kishi (? ?? Kishi Kichimatsu, ?–1956) was a Japanese immigrant to the United States who worked as a farmer and businessman.
- Along with fellow immigrants from Japan, his impact on rice farming in the southern United States would change the agricultural industry of the region.
- Kishi would establish an agricultural colony in Southeast Texas and would own an oil company.
- Born as one of eight children to a Japanese banker, he attended Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Japan, but was taken from his studies in 1904 to fight in the Russo-Japanese War.He was eventually sent to Manchuria on the mainland of China where he remained until the Japanese victory in 1905.
- He considered remaining there, but the high cost of land and lawlessness prompted him to return to his homeland.
- Years earlier, Sadatsuchi Uchida (Japan’s consul to the United States) toured the southern United States in 1902.
- Uchida reported back to Japan with promising news that the rice farming was underdeveloped and showed potential for large profit.
- At the time, the dense population of Japan and limited workable land meant that many rice farmers would never own their own land.
- This sparked Kishi’s interest in migrating to the United States in 1906.
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