Enomoto was born as a member of a samurai family in the direct service of the Tokugawa clan in the Shitaya district of Edo. Enomoto started learning Dutch in the 1850s, and after Japan's forced "opening" by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1854, he studied at the Tokugawa shogunate's Naval Training Center in Nagasaki and at the Tsukiji Warship Training Center in Edo. At the age of 26, Enomoto was sent to the Netherlands to study western techniques in naval warfare and to procure western technologies. He stayed in Europe from 1862 to 1867, and became fluent in both the Dutch and English languages. Enomoto returned to Japan on board the, a steam warship purchased from the Netherlands by the Shogunal government. During his stay in Europe, Enomoto had realized that the telegraph would be an important means of communication in the future, and started planning a system to connect Edo and Yokohama. Upon his return, Enomoto was promoted to Kaigun Fukusōsai, the second highest rank in the Tokugawa Navy, at the age of 31. He also received the court title of Izumi-no-kami.
During the Meiji Restoration, after the surrender of Edo in 1868 during the Boshin War to forces loyal to the Satchō Alliance, Enomoto refused to deliver up his warships, and escaped to Hakodate in Hokkaido with the remainder of the Tokugawa Navy and a handful of French military advisers and their leader Jules Brunet. His fleet of eight steam warships was the strongest in Japan at the time. Enomoto hoped to create an independent country under the rule of the Tokugawa family in Hokkaidō, but the Meiji government refused to accept partition of Japan. On 27 January 1869, the Tokugawa loyalists declared the foundation of the Republic of Ezo and elected Enomoto as president. The Meiji government forces invaded Hokkaidō and defeated Enomoto's forces in the Naval Battle of Hakodate. On 27 June 1869, the Republic of Ezo collapsed, and Hokkaidō came under the rule of the central government headed by the Meiji Emperor.
As a Meiji politician
After his surrender, Enomoto was arrested, accused of high treason and imprisoned. However, the leaders of the new Meiji government pardoned Enomoto in 1872, realizing that his various talents and accumulated knowledge could be of use. Enomoto became one of the few former Tokugawa loyalists who made the transition to the new ruling elite, as politics at the time was dominated by men from Chōshū and Satsuma, who had a strong bias against outsiders in general, and former Tokugawa retainers in particular. However, Enomoto was an exception, and rose quickly within the new ruling clique, to a higher status than any other member of the former Tokugawa government. In 1874, Enomoto was given the rank of vice-admiral in the fledgling Imperial Japanese Navy. The following year, he was sent to Russia as a special envoy to negotiate the Treaty of St. Petersburg. The successful conclusion of the treaty was very well received in Japan and further raised Enomoto's prestige within the ruling circles, and the fact that Enomoto had been chosen for such an important mission was seen as evidence of reconciliation between former foes in the government. In 1880, Enomoto became Ministry of the Navy of Japan. In 1885, his diplomatic skills were again called upon to assist Itō Hirobumi in concluding the Convention of Tientsin with Qing China. Afterwards, Enomoto held a series of high posts in the Japanese government. He was Japan's first Minister of Communications after the introduction of the cabinet system in 1885. He was also Minister of Agriculture and Commerce from 1894 to 1897, Minister of Education from 1889 to 1890 and Foreign Minister from 1891 to 1892. In 1887, Enomoto was ennobled to the rank of viscount under the kazoku peerage system, and was selected as a member of the Privy Council. Enomoto was especially active in promoting Japanese emigration through settler colonies in the Pacific Ocean and South and Central America. In 1891, he established—against the will of the cabinet of Matsukata Masayoshi—a "section for emigration" in the Foreign Ministry, with the task of encouraging emigration and finding new potential territories for Japanese settlement overseas. Two years later, after leaving the government, Enomoto also helped to establish a private organization, the "Colonial Association", to promote external trade and emigration.
Death
Enomoto died in 1908 at the age of 72. His grave is at the temple of Kisshō-ji, Bunkyō-ku, Tokyo.
