[4] and by being ordered to relocate from their ancestral territories in Hitachi Province to a much smaller fief in inhospitable northern Japan.

[1][5] The domain also struggled through agricultural crises, which resulted in several peasant uprisings throughout the course of its history.

It was also beset by an internal O-Ie Sōdō conflict, the Satake disturbance (佐竹騒動, Satake-sōdō), which was brought on by financial issues.

[8] He was also a student of Dutch studies (rangaku) scholar Hiraga Gennai, who he had invited up to Akita to advise him on management of the domain's copper mines.

[8] It was during Yoshiatsu's lifetime that the Akita school (秋田派, Akita-ha) of art was born and briefly flourished.

[19] The Satake then backed out of the alliance and supported the imperial army; eleven days later, on September 1, 1868[20] the Tsugaru clan of the neighboring Hirosaki Domain followed suit.

[22] Kubota forces were hard-pressed to defend their territory, with the result that the alliance troops had made serious advances by the time the war ended in northern Honshū.

[23] In mid-1869, the imperial government rewarded its service in the Boshin War with an increase in kokudaka of 20,000 koku.

[23] However, with the abolition of the han system in 1871, the former domain was absorbed into the new Akita Prefecture[24] and Satake Yoshitaka was ordered to relocate to Tokyo.

He built a jin'ya in what is now Yuzawa, Akita, where his descendants continued to rule until the Meiji restoration.