Kuroda Nagakata (黒田長堅)
Nagakata KURODA (1770 - March 30, 1784) was the seventh lord of Fukuoka Domain and Akizuki Domain in Chikuzen Province. Nagakata's by-names were Sadanosuke and Sennosuke. Nagakata's father was Yoshitoshi YAMAZAKI (Nagakata was his second son). Nagakata's mother was Konoko, a daughter of Nagakuni KURODA, the fifth lord of the domains. Nagakata had no administrative title.
On November 18, 1774, Nagakata succeeded the headship of the family as a son adopted at the deathbed of Nagae KURODA, the sixth lord of the domains. Though Nagakata's father was Yoshitoshi YAMAZAKI who was a kotaiyoriai onreishu (a special high rank among a family status of samurai warriors), Nagakata's mother was a daughter of Nagakuni KURODA and, therefore, Nagakata was adopted as a son adopted at the deathbed. That is, Nagakata belonged to the maternal line, the line of the Kuroda family.
Nagakata died in Edo on February 10, 1784. He died at the age of 15. Nagakata's Buddhist name after his death was Reiunin Kogaku Dosho. Nagakata died without having been granted any audience with the Tokugawa shogunate and he had no child and, therefore, there was no possibility for the Kuroda family of Akizuki clan to be permitted, by the shogunate, to adopt any child and the Kuroda family faced a crisis, that is, dying out as a family. Therefore, Akizuki clan consulted with the main clan, Fukuoka clan and planned to appoint a court noble Ariie KARAHASHI's third son, Toyoteru as a substitute of Nagakata. A daughter of Nagasada KURODA had married Ariie KARAHASHI and Toyoteru was their child. However, the plan to secretly replace Nagakata with Toyoteru was cancelled.
After that, Akizuki clan consulted with the main clan and determined to hide the death of Nagakata, submit an application to permit Nagakata's retirement, and have an adopted son for Nagakata.. More specifically, the second son of Taneshige AKIZUKI was adopted as an adopted succeeding son, Naganobu KURODA (the mother of Tanenogi AKIZUMI was a daughter of Nagakuni KURODA). Due to the above operations, it was written in 'Kansei-jushu-shokefu' that the reason why he could not see any one was that 'though Nagakata had grown up, he was seriously sick and, as a result, he could not walk and could not give audience' and that his application for permission to 'select some one to succeed his family who could bear the serving as' a guard in Nagasaki instead of Naritaka KURODA who was from the main family and was young was permitted. Nagakata's personal history after that is said that he retired on March 17, 1785 and died on September 17 in the same year at the age of 16.