Saigo Takamori (1828-1877), the great hero of the Meiji Restoration, experienced two island exiles totaling about six years. After the death of his lord Shimazu Nariakira in 1858 and the Ansei Purge, Saigo and the monk Gessho attempted double suicide by drowning in Kagoshima Bay; only Gessho died. The Satsuma domain feigned Saigo’s death and secretly exiled him to Amami Oshima (1859-1862), where he married the local woman Aikana and fathered two children. Recalled in 1862, he immediately clashed with the new lord Shimazu Hisamitsu and was sent into formal exile on Okinoerabu Island, initially confined in an open-air cell exposed to the elements. The local magistrate Tsuchimochi Seisho saved his life by moving him to better quarters. There Saigo immersed himself in Confucian classics and the works of Wang Yangming, forming the philosophical foundation of his later leadership. Pardoned in 1864 at age 37, he went on to lead the Satsuma-Choshu Alliance, the Boshin War, and the Meiji government.