User-submitted Reference

Uchima in Japanese means 'interior', its kanji is 内間.

The surname Uchima arose on the island of Okinawa (in the time of the Ryukyu Kingdom) around 1405, with King Shou En being known as Kanemaru Uchima.

The Uchima family is descended from other oriental surnames such as Taira, Samekawa, Yakura, Higashionna, Yamashiro, Nerome, Shou, Shang, Ojiganashi and Yonashiro, being thus distant descendants of several emperors of Japan, emperors of China and kings of Korea, being also samurai.

In 1336, 36 Fujian families were sent to Okinawa during the Min Dynasty to teach them Chinese culture, which is why Okinawa has an intermediate culture between Japan and China. Of these 36 families, one was the Shang family (descendants of the homonymous dynasty that ruled China from before Christ), from this last family descended the Shou, and from these the Uchima.

Uchima was a lordship on Izena Island (now Okinawa Prefecture) that was granted to Kanemaru in 1459 when he was appointed as royal treasurer by King Shou Taikyuu, Kanemaru's daughter was called Uchima Ufuya.

There were also two titled princesses (or surnames) Uchima, both in the 17th century: the first daughter of Shou Eki and the second, of Shou Tei.

Several branches of the Uchima family moved in 1571 to the Amami and Oshima Islands in Kagoshima Prefecture, from where others shipped silver, lacquer, incense, ivory, textiles and sugar merchants to Sumatra, Pattani, Vietnam, China, Korea and Java. Consequently, the Uchima family was not affected by the reforms of the Satsuma clan in 1624 to the surnames of Okinawa.

The Uchima first arrived in the current territory of Ecuador, from where they emigrated to the north of Nueva Granada (present-day Colombia) in the second half of the 19th century, settling in Valle del Cauca, Caldas, Antioquia, Quindío, Risaralda and Cauca mainly, working for Guillermo Cárdenas. But, being in indigenous territory, they had several stumbles with the natives and had to create bonds of friendship and familiarity with them in order to get the lands.

It is the surname number 3272 in Japan by number of bearers, likewise, there are several families with surname Uchima in the United States, Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil, Canada, Peru and Chile.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator.