How long did the samurai last?

Answer 1

The clan armies of bushi (warriors) existed as early as the 9th century. These were the original samurai, a term that would become popularized later. The Samurai would become an established social class known as thebuke prior the end of the 12th century when the first of the shogunate would rise following the Genpei War.

The samurai arguably never really ended. In the 1880s, the Meiji government was put into place by the efforts of samurai and they would be important both in the professional military and the administration as both warriors and scholars. However, with the disillusion of the clan fief system and several other feudal structures, the samurai lost most of their social position. It could be said that the era of the samurai ended with the failure of Saigo Takamori in the Satsuma rebellion of 1877. Likewise, the end of the samurai as a class was arguably when the government stipend that had taken the place of the fief system was commuted by the Imperial government in 1876, effectively ending their position as a social class. However, some of the samurai such as the daimyo retained their elite positions with the creation of the peerage system or kazkou. This would remain until it was abolished by the Allied Occupation Force and arguably all forms of socially constructed hierarchy or discrimination, with the exception of those considered part of the Imperial family by the Imperial Household Law of 1947, are illegal according to Article 14 of the Japanese Constitution of 1947.