So it was nothing like Hollywood with Tom Cruise make it out to be? Tell me it isn't so.
It does amaze me though that the caste system was given up so easily.
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The Last Samurai was actually later. It was the Satsuma Rebellion which was in 1877. The Ken Watanabe character in the movie was based on Saigo Takamori. Saigo was part of the Meiji Restoration, but he quickly grew disillusioned as the Chōshū part of that alliance pushed for things that he thought destroyed the moral fabric of Japan, so he rebelled. And yes, it wasn't at all like The Last Samurai shows. And no white guys who suddenly overnight converted to the cause, helped lead the cause, and became a samurai. 😃
I think the main reason is the caste system was already broken. Merchants — the bottom class — had long since taken control and became the riches class. There were endless attempts by the government to fix that, but none of them worked. As time went on, the samurai — the top class — became more and more and more indebted to the merchants. By the end of the Edo period, it was broken beyond repair. So then when the Meiji shift happened, the samurai were more than happy to simply shift into the role of bureaucrats and actually be paid in money instead of rice.