Seii-taishogun (barbarian-subduing great general) was the title originally assigned to whichever military leader was engaged on behalf of the emperor in subjugating the Ezo (Ainu) in the north of Honshu, the main island of Japan. In 1192 Minamoto no Yoritomo was given this title and set up a bakufu government at Kamakura to exercise control over all the Japanese provinces. The shogunate thus established bypassed imperial rule and Japan was ruled by successive dynasties of shoguns until the last, Tokugawa Yoshinobu (or Keiki, 1827—1913), who resigned on November 9th 1867 to make way for the modernising government headed by the emperor Meiji.
A Popular Dictionary of Shinto. Brian Bocking.