Chapter 21

“Having learned from our faithful councillors that foreign priests have come into our estates, where they preach a law contrary to that of Japan, and that they even had the audacity to destroy temples dedicated to our Kami and Hotoke; although the outrage merits the most extreme punishment, wishing nevertheless to show them mercy, we order them under pain of death to quit Japan within twenty days. During that space no harm or hurt will be done to them. But at the expiration of that term, we order that if any of them be found in our states, they should be seized and punished as the greatest criminals. As for the Portuguese merchants, we permit them to enter our ports, there to continue their accustomed trade, and to remain in our states provided our affairs need this. But we forbid them to bring any foreign priests into the country, under the penalty of the confiscation of their ships and goods.”

How are we to account for this apparently rapid change of mood on the part of Hideyoshi? Some historians insist that from the very outset he conceived the resolve of suppressing Christianity and expelling its propagandists, but that he concealed his design pending the subjugation of Kiūshiū, lest, by premature action, he might weaken his hand for that enterprise. This hypothesis rests mainly on conjecture. Its formulators found it easier to believe in a hidden purpose than to attribute to a statesman so shrewd and far-seeing a sudden change of mind. A more reasonable theory is that, shortly before leaving Osaka for Kiūshiū, Hideyoshi began to entertain doubts as to the expediency of tolerating Christian propagandism, and that his doubts were signally strengthened by direct observation of the state of affairs in Kiūshiū. While still in Osaka, he one day remarked publicly that “he feared much that all the virtue of the European priests served only to conceal pernicious designs against the empire.” There had been no demolishing of temples or overthrowing of images at Christian instance in the metropolitan provinces. In Kiūshiū, however, very different conditions prevailed. There Christianity may be said to have been preached at the point of the sword. Temples and images had been destroyed wholesale; vassals in thousands had been compelled to embrace the foreign faith; and the missionaries themselves had come to be treated as demi-gods whose nod was worth conciliating at any cost of self-abasement. Brought into direct contact with these evidences of the growth of a new power, temporal as well as spiritual, Hideyoshi may well have reached the conclusion that a choice had to be finally made between his own supremacy and that of the alien creed, if not between the independence of Japan and the yoke of the great Christian states of Europe.

Hideyoshi gauged the character of the medieval Christians with sufficient accuracy to know that for the sake of their faith they would at any time defy the laws of the island. His estimate received immediate verification,Sequel of the Edict of Banishment.for when the Jesuits, numbering 120, assembled at Hirado and received his order to embark at once they decided that only those should sail whose services were needed in China. The others remained and went about their duties as usual, under the protection of the converted feudatories. Hideyoshi, however, saw reason to wink at this disregard of his authority. At first he showed uncompromising resolution. All the churches in Kiōto, Osaka and Sakai were demolished, while troops were sent to raze the Christian places of worship in Kiūshiū and seize the port of Nagasaki. These troops were munificently dissuaded from their purpose by the Christian feudatories. But Hideyoshi did not protest, and in 1588 he allowed himself to be convinced by a Portuguese envoy that in the absence of missionaries foreign trade must cease, since without the intervention of the fathers peace and good order could not be maintained among the merchants. Rather than suffer the trade to be interrupted Hideyoshi agreed to the coming of priests, and thenceforth, during some years, Christianity not only continued to flourish and grow in Kiūshiū but also found a favourable field of operations in Kiōto itself. Care was taken that Hideyoshi’s attention should not be attracted by any salient evidences of what he had called a “diabolical religion,” and thus for a time all went well. There is evidence that, like the feudal chiefs in Kiūshiū, Hideyoshi set great store by foreign trade and would even have sacrificed to its maintenance and expansion something of the aversion he had conceived for Christianity. He did indeed make one very large concession. For on being assured that Portuguese traders could not frequent Japan unless they found Christian priests there to minister to them, he consented to sanction the presence of a limited number of Jesuits. The statistics of 1595 show how Christianity fared under even this partial tolerance, for there were then 137 Jesuits in Japan with 300,000 converts, among whom were 17 feudal chiefs, to say nothing of many men of lesser though still considerable note, and even not a few bonzes.

For ten years after his unlooked-for order of expulsion, Hideyoshi preserved a tolerant mien. But in 1597 his forbearance gave place to a mood of uncompromising severity. The reasons of this second change are very clear,Hideyoshi’s Final Attitude towards Christianity.though diverse accounts have been transmitted. Up to 1593 the Portuguese had possessed a monopoly of religious propagandism and over-sea commerce in Japan. The privilege was secured to them by agreement between Spain and Portugal and by a papal bull. But the Spaniards in Manila had long looked with somewhat jealous eyes on this Jesuit reservation, and when news of the disaster of 1587 reached the Philippines, the Dominicans and Franciscans residing there were fired with zeal to enter an arena where the crown of martyrdom seemed to be the least reward within reach. The papal bull, however, demanded obedience, and to overcome that difficulty a ruse was necessary: the governor of Manila agreed to send a party of Franciscans as ambassadors to Hideyoshi. In that guise the friars, being neither traders nor propagandists, considered that they did not violate either the treaty or the bull. It was a technical subterfuge very unworthy of the object contemplated, and the friars supplemented it by swearing to Hideyoshi that the Philippines would submit to his sway. Thus they obtained permission to visit Kiōto, Osaka and Fushimi, but with the explicit proviso that they must not preach. Very soon they had built a church in Kiōto, consecrated it with the utmost pomp, and were preaching sermons and chaunting litanies there in flagrant defiance of Hideyoshi’s veto. Presently their number received an access of three friars who came bearing gifts from the governor at Manila, and now they not only established a convent in Osaka, but also seized a Jesuit church in Nagasaki and converted the circumspect worship hitherto conducted there by the fathers into services of the most public character. Officially checked in Nagasaki, they charged the Jesuits in Kiōto with having intrigued to impede them, and they further vaunted the courageous openness of their own ministrations as compared with the clandestine timidity of the methods which wise prudence had induced the Jesuits to adopt. Retribution would have followed quickly had not Hideyoshi’s attention been engrossed by an attempt to invade China through Korea. At this stage, however, a memorable incident occurred. Driven out of her course by a storm, a great and richly laden Spanish galleon, bound for Acapulco from Manila, drifted to the coast of Tosa province, and running—or being purposely run—on a sand-bank as she was being towed into port by Japanese boats, broke her back. She carried goods to the value of some 600,000 crowns, and certain officials urged Hideyoshi to confiscate her as derelict, conveying to him at the same time a detailed account of the doings of the Franciscans and their open flouting of his orders. Hideyoshi, much incensed, commanded the arrest of the Franciscans and despatched officers to Tosa to confiscate the “San Felipe.” The pilot of the galleon sought to intimidate these officers by showing them on a map of the world the vast extent of Spain’s dominions, and being asked how one country had acquired such extended sway, replied: “Our kings begin by sending into the countries they wish to conquer missionaries who induce the people to embrace our religion, and when they have made considerable progress, troops are sent who combine with the new Christians, and then our kings have not much trouble in accomplishing the rest.”

On learning of this speech Hideyoshi was overcome with fury. He condemned the Franciscans to have their noses and ears cut off, to be promenaded through Kiōto, Osaka and Sakai, and to be crucified at Nagasaki. “IThe First Execution of Christians.have ordered these foreigners to be treated thus, because they have come from the Philippines to Japan, calling themselves ambassadors, although they were not so; because they have remained here far too long without my permission; because, in defiance of my prohibition, they have built churches, preached their religion and caused disorders.” Twenty-six suffered under this sentence—six Franciscans, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen native Christians, chiefly domestic servants of the Franciscans.31They met their fate with noble fortitude. Hideyoshi further issued a special injunction against the adoption of Christianity by a feudal chief, and took steps to give practical effect to his expulsion edict of 1587. The governor of Nagasaki received instructions to send away all the Jesuits, permitting only two or three to remain for the service of the Portuguese merchants. But the Jesuits were not the kind of men who, to escape personal peril, turn their back upon an unaccomplished work of grace. There were 125 of them in Japan at that time. In October 1597 a junk sailed out of Nagasaki harbour, her decks crowded with seeming Jesuits. In reality she carried 11 of the company, the apparent Jesuits being disguised sailors. It is not to be supposed that such a manœuvre could be hidden from the local authorities. They winked at it, until rumour became insistent that Hideyoshi was about to visit Kiūshiū in person, and all Japanese in administrative posts knew how Hideyoshi visited disobedience and how hopeless was any attempt to deceive him. Therefore, early in 1598, really drastic steps were taken. Churches to the number of 137 were demolished in Kiūshiū, seminaries and residences fell, and the governor of Nagasaki assembled there all the fathers of the company for deportation to Macao by the great ship in the following year. But while they waited, Hideyoshi died. It is not on record that the Jesuits openly declared his removal from the earth to have been a special dispensation in their favour. But they pronounced him an execrable tyrant and consigned his “soul to hell for all eternity.” Yet no impartial reader of history can pretend to think that a 16th-century Jesuit general in Hideyoshi’s place would have shown towards an alien creed and its propagandists even a small measure of the tolerance exercised by the Japanese statesman towards Christianity and the Jesuits.

Hideyoshi’s death occurred in 1598. Two years later, his authority as administrative ruler of all Japan had passed into the hands of Iyeyasu, the Tokugawa chief, and thirty-nine years later the Tokugawa potentates had notForeign Policy of the Tokugawa Rulers.only exterminated Christianity in Japan but had also condemned their country to a period of international isolation which continued unbroken until 1853, an interval of 214 years. It has been shown that even when they were most incensed against Christianity, Japanese administrators sought to foster and preserve foreign trade. Why then did they close the country’s doors to the outside world and suspend a commerce once so much esteemed? To answer that question some retrospect is needed. Certain historians allege that from the outset Iyeyasu shared Hideyoshi’s misgivings about the real designs of Christian potentates and Christian propagandists. But that verdict is not supported by facts. The first occasion of the Tokugawa chief’s recorded contact with a Christian propagandist was less than three months after Hideyoshi’s death. There was then led into his presence a Franciscan, by name Jerome de Jesus, originally a member of the fictitious embassy from Manila. This man’s conduct constitutes an example of the invincible zeal and courage inspiring a Christian priest in those days. Barely escaping the doom of crucifixion which overtook his companions, he had been deported from Japan to Manila at a time when death seemed to be the certain penalty of remaining. But no sooner had he been landed at Manila than he took passage in a Chinese junk, and, returning to Nagasaki, made his way secretly from the far south of Japan to the province of Kii. There arrested, he was brought into the presence of Iyeyasu, and his own record of what ensued is given in a letter subsequently sent to Manila:—

“When the Prince saw me he asked how I had managed to escape the previous persecution. I answered him that at that date God had delivered me in order that I might go to Manila and bring back new colleagues from there—preachers of the divine law—and that I had returned from Manila to encourage the Christians, cherishing the desire to die on the cross in order to go to enjoy eternal glory like my former colleagues. On hearing these words the Emperor began to smile, whether in his quality of a pagan of the sect of Shaka, which teaches that there is no future life, or whether from the thought that I was frightened at having to be put to death. Then, looking at me kindly, he said, ‘Be no longer afraid and no longer conceal yourself, and no longer change your habit, for I wish you well; and as for the Christians who every year pass within sight of the Kwantō where my domains are, when they go to Mexico with their ships, I have a keen desire for them to visit the harbours of this island, to refresh themselves there, and to take what they wish, to trade with my vassals and to teach them how to develop silver mines; and that my intentions may be accomplished before my death, I wish you to indicate to me the means to take to realize them.’ I answered that it was necessary that Spanish pilots should take the soundings of his harbours, so that ships might not be lost in future as the ‘San Felipe’ had been, and that he should solicit this service from the governor of the Philippines. The Prince approved of my advice, and accordingly he has sent a Japanese gentleman, a native of Sakai, the bearer of this message.... It is essential to oppose no obstacle to the complete liberty offered by the Emperor to the Spaniards and to our holy order, for the preaching of the holy gospel.... The same Prince (who is about to visit the Kwantō) invites me to accompany him to make choice of a house, and to visit the harbour which he promises to open to us; his desires in this respect are keener than I can express.”

The above version of the Tokugawa chief’s mood is confirmed by events, for not only did he allow the contumelious Franciscan to build a church—the first—in Yedo and to celebrate Mass there, but also he sent three embassies to the Philippines, proposing reciprocal freedom of commerce, offering to open ports in the Kwantō and asking for competent naval architects. He never obtained the architects, and though the trade came, its volume was small in comparison with the abundance of friars that accompanied it. There is just a possibility that Iyeyasu saw in these Spanish monks an instrument of counteracting the influence of the Jesuits, for he must have known that the Franciscans opened their mission in Yedo by “declaiming with violence against the fathers of the company of Jesus.” In short, the Spanish monks assumed towards the Jesuits in Japan the same intolerant and abusive tone that the Jesuits themselves had previously assumed towards Buddhism.

At that time there appeared upon the scene another factor destined greatly to complicate events. It was a Dutch merchant ship, the “Liefde.” Until the Netherlands revolted from Spain, the Dutch had been the principal distributors of all goods arriving at Lisbon from the Far East; but in 1594 Philip II. closed the port of Lisbon to these rebels, and the Dutch met the situation by turning their prows to the Orient to invade the sources of Portuguese commerce. One of the first expeditions despatched for that purpose set out in 1598, and of the five vessels composing it one only was ever heard of again. This was the “Liefde.” She reached Japan during the spring of 1600, with only four-and-twenty alive out of her original crew of 110. Towed into the harbour at Funai, the “Liefde” was visited by Jesuits, who, on discovering her nationality, denounced her to the local authorities as a pirate and endeavoured to incense the Japanese against them. The “Liefde” had on board in the capacity of “pilot major” an Englishman, Will Adams of Gillingham in Kent, whom Iyeyasu summoned to Osaka, where there commenced between the rough British sailor and the Tokugawa chief a curiously friendly intercourse which was not interrupted until the death of Adams twenty years later. The Englishman became master ship-builder to the Yedo government; was employed as diplomatic agent when other traders from his own countryand from Holland arrived in Japan, received in perpetual gift a substantial estate, and from first to last possessed the implicit confidence of the shōgun. Iyeyasu quickly discerned the man’s honesty, perceived that whatever benefits foreign commerce might confer would be increased by encouraging competition among the foreigners, and realized that English and Dutch trade presented the wholesome feature of complete dissociation from religious propagandism. On the other hand, he showed no intolerance to either Spaniards or Portuguese. He issued (1601) two official patents sanctioning the residence of the fathers in Kiōto, Osaka and Nagasaki; he employed Father Rodriguez as interpreter to the court at Yedo; and in 1603 he gave munificent succour to the Jesuits who were reduced to dire straits owing to the capture of the great ship from Macao by the Dutch and the consequent loss of several years’ supplies for the mission in Japan.

It is thus seen that each of the great trio of Japan’s 16th-century statesmen—Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu—adopted at the outset a most tolerant demeanour towards Christianity. The reasons of Hideyoshi’s change of mood have been set forth. We have now to examine the reasons that produced a similar metamorphosis in the case of Iyeyasu. Two causes present themselves immediately. The first is that, while tolerating Christianity, Iyeyasu did not approve of it as a creed; the second, that he himself, whether from state policy or genuine piety, strongly encouraged Buddhism. Proof of the former proposition is found in an order issued by him in 1602 to insure the safety of foreign merchantmen entering Japanese ports: it concluded with the reservation, “but we rigorously forbid them” (foreigners coming in such ships) “to promulgate their faith.” Proof of the latter is furnished by the facts that he invariably carried about with him a miniature Buddhist image which he regarded as his tutelary deity, and that he fostered the creed of Shaka as zealously as Oda Nobunaga had suppressed it. There is much difficulty in tracing the exact sequence of events which gradually educated a strong antipathy to the Christian faith in the mind of the Tokugawa chief. He must have been influenced in some degree by the views of his great predecessor, Hideyoshi. But he did not accept those views implicitly. At the end of the 16th century he sent a trusted emissary to Europe for the purpose of directly observing the conditions in the home of Christianity, and this man, the better to achieve his aim, embraced the foreign faith, and studied it from within as well as from without. The story that he had to tell on his return could not fail to shock the ruler of a country where freedom of conscience had existed from time immemorial. It was a story of the inquisition and of the stake; of unlimited aggression in the name of the cross; of the pope’s overlordship which entitled him to confiscate the realm of heretical sovereigns; of religious wars and of well-nigh incredible fanaticism. Iyeyasu must have received an evil impression while he listened to his emissary’s statements. Under his own eyes, too, were abundant evidences of the spirit of strife that Christian dogma engendered in those times. From the moment when the Franciscans and Dominicans arrived in Japan, a fierce quarrel began between them and the Jesuits; a quarrel which even community of suffering could not compose. Not less repellent was an attempt on the part of the Spaniards to dictate to Iyeyasu the expulsion of all Hollanders from Japan, and on the part of the Jesuits to dictate the expulsion of the Spaniards. The former proposal, couched almost in the form of a demand, was twice formulated, and accompanied on the second occasion by a scarcely less insulting offer, namely, that Spanish men-of-war would be sent to Japan to burn all Dutch ships found in the ports of the empire. If in the face of proposals so contumelious of his sovereign authority Iyeyasu preserved a calm and dignified mien, merely replying that his country was open to all comers, and that, if other nations had quarrels among themselves, they must not take Japan for battle-ground, it is nevertheless unimaginable that he did not strongly resent such interference with his own independent foreign policy, and that he did not interpret it as foreshadowing a disturbance of the realm’s peace by sectarian quarrels among Christians. These experiences, predisposing Iyeyasu to dislike Christianity as a creed and to distrust it as a political influence, were soon supplemented by incidents of an immediately determinative character. The first was an act of fraud and forgery committed in the interests of a Christian feudatory by a trusted official, himself a Christian. Thereupon Iyeyasu, conceiving it unsafe that Christians should fill offices at his court, dismissed all those so employed, banished them from Yedo and forbade any feudal chief to harbour them. The second incident was an attempted survey of the coast of Japan by a Spanish mariner and a Franciscan friar. Permission to take this step had been obtained by an envoy from New Spain, but no deep consideration of reasons seems to have preluded the permission on Japan’s side, and when the mariner (Sebastian) and the friar (Sotelo) hastened to carry out the project, Iyeyasu asked Will Adams to explain this display of industry. The Englishman replied that such a proceeding would be regarded in Europe as an act of hostility, especially on the part of the Spaniards or Portuguese, whose aggressions were notorious. He added, in reply to further questions, that “the Roman priesthood had been expelled from many parts of Germany, from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland and England, and that although his own country preserved the pure form of the Christian faith from which Spain and Portugal had deviated, yet neither English nor Dutch considered that that fact afforded them any reason to war with, or to annex, States which were not Christian solely for the reason that they were non-Christian.” Iyeyasu reposed entire confidence in Adams. Hearing the Englishman’s testimony, he is said to have exclaimed, “If the sovereigns of Europe do not tolerate these priests, I do them no wrong if I refuse to tolerate them.” Japanese historians add that Iyeyasu discovered a conspiracy on the part of some Japanese Christians to overthrow his government by the aid of foreign troops. It was not a widely ramified plot, but it lent additional importance to the fact that the sympathy of the fathers and their converts was plainly with the only magnate in the empire who continued to dispute the Tokugawa supremacy, Hideyori, the son of Hideyoshi. Nevertheless Iyeyasu shrank from proceeding to extremities in the case of any foreign priest, and this attitude he maintained until his death (1616). Possibly he might have been not less tolerant towards native Christians also had not the Tokugawa authority been openly defied by a Franciscan father—the Sotelo mentioned above—in Yedo itself. Then (1613) the first execution of Japanese converts took place, though the monk himself was released after a short incarceration. At that time, as is still the case even in these more enlightened days, insignificant differences of custom sometimes induced serious misconceptions. A Christian who had violated the secular law was crucified in Nagasaki. Many of his fellow-believers kneeled around his cross and prayed for the peace of his soul. A party of converts were afterwards burned to death in the same place for refusing to apostatize, and their Christian friends crowded to carry off portions of their bodies as holy relics. When these things were reported to Iyeyasu, he said, “Without doubt that must be a diabolic faith which persuades people not only to worship criminals condemned to death for their crimes, but also to honour those who have been burned or cut in pieces by the order of their lord” (feudal chief).

The fateful edict ordering that all foreign priests should be collected in Nagasaki preparatory to removal from Japan, that all churches should be demolished, and that the converts should be compelled to abjure Christianity,Suppression of Christianity.was issued on the 27th of January 1614. There were then in Japan 122 Jesuits, 14 Franciscans, 9 Dominicans, 4 Augustins and 7 secular priests. Had these men obeyed the orders of the Japanese authorities by leaving the country finally, not one foreigner would have suffered for his faith in Japan, except the 6 Franciscans executed at Nagasaki by order of Hideyoshi in 1597. But suffering and death counted for nothing with the missionaries as against the possibility of winning or keeping even one convert. Forty-seven of them evaded theedict, some by concealing themselves at the time of its issue, the rest by leaving their ships when the latter had passed out of sight of the shore of Japan, and returning by boats to the scene of their former labours. Moreover, in a few months, those that had actually crossed the sea re-crossed it in various disguises, and soon the Japanese government had to consider whether it would suffer its authority to be thus flouted or resort to extreme measures.

During two years immediately following the issue of the anti-Christian decree, the attention of the Tokugawa chief and indeed of all Japan was concentrated on the closing episode of the great struggle which assured to Iyeyasu final supremacy as administrative ruler of the empire. That episode was a terrible battle under the walls of Osaka castle between the adherents of the Tokugawa and the supporters of Hideyori. In this struggle fresh fuel was added to the fire of anti-Christian resentment, for many Christian converts threw in their lot with Hideyori, and in one part of the field the Tokugawa troops found themselves fighting against a foe whose banners were emblazoned with the cross and with images of the Saviour and St James, the patron saint of Spain. But the Christians had protectors. Many of the feudatories showed themselves strongly averse from inflicting the extreme penalty on men and women whose adoption of an alien religion had been partly forced by the feudatories themselves. As for the people at large, their liberal spirit is attested by the fact that five fathers who were in Osaka castle at the time of its capture made their way to distant refuges without encountering any risk of betrayal. During these events the death of Iyeyasu took place (June 1, 1616), and pending the dedication of his mausoleum the anti-Christian crusade was virtually suspended.

In September 1616 a new anti-Christian edict was promulgated by Hidetada, son and successor of Iyeyasu. It pronounced sentence of exile against all Christian priests, including even those whose presence had been sanctioned for ministering to the Portuguese merchants: it forbade the Japanese, under the penalty of being burned alive and of having all their property confiscated, to have any connexion with the ministers of religion or to give them hospitality. It was forbidden to any prince or lord to keep Christians in his service or even on his estates, and the edict was promulgated with more than usual solemnity, though its enforcement was deferred until the next year on account of the obsequies of Iyeyasu. This edict of 1616 differed from that issued by Iyeyasu in 1614, since the latter did not prescribe the death penalty for converts refusing to apostatize. But both agreed in indicating expulsion as the sole manner of dealing with the foreign priests. As for the shōgun and his advisers, it is reasonable to assume that they did not anticipate much necessity for recourse to violence. They must have known that a great majority of the converts had joined the Christian church at the instance or by the command of their local rulers, and nothing can have seemed less likely than that a creed thus lightly embraced would be adhered to in defiance of torture and death. It is moreover morally certain that had the foreign propagandists obeyed the Government’s edict and left the country, not one would have been put to death. They suffered because they defied the laws of the land. Some fifty missionaries happened to be in Nagasaki when Hidetada’s edict was issued. A number of these were apprehended and deported, but several of them returned almost immediately. This happened under the jurisdiction of Omura, who had been specially charged with the duty of sending away thebateren(padres). He appears to have concluded that a striking example must be furnished, and he therefore ordered the seizure and decapitation of two fathers, De l’Assumpcion and Machado. The result completely falsified his calculations, and presaged the cruel struggle now destined to begin.

The bodies, placed in different coffins, were interred in the same grave. Guards were placed over it, but the concourse was immense. The sick were carried to the sepulchre to be restored to health. The Christians found new strength in this martyrdom; the pagans themselves were full of admiration for it. Numerous conversions and numerous returns of apostates took place everywhere.

In the midst of all this, Navarette, the vice-provincial of the Dominicans, and Ayala, the vice-provincial of the Augustins, came out of their retreat, and in full priestly garb started upon an open propaganda. The two fanatics—for so even Charlevoix considers them to have been—were secretly conveyed to the island Takashima and there decapitated, while their coffins were weighted with big stones and sunk in the sea. Even more directly defiant was the attitude of the next martyred priest, an old Franciscan monk, Juan de Santa Martha. He had for three years suffered all the horrors of a medieval Japanese prison, when it was proposed to release him and deport him to New Spain. His answer was that, if released, he would stay in Japan and preach there. He laid his head on the block in August 1618. But from that time until 1622 no other foreign missionary suffered capital punishment in Japan, though many of them arrived in the country and continued their propagandism there. During that interval, also, there occurred another incident eminently calculated to fix upon the Christians still deeper suspicion of political designs. In a Portuguese ship captured by the Dutch a letter was found instigating the Japanese converts to revolt, and promising that, when the number of these disaffected Christians was sufficient, men-of-war would be sent to aid them. Not the least potent of the influences operating against the Christians was that pamphlets were written by apostates attributing the zeal of the foreign propagandists solely to political motives. Yet another indictment of Spanish and Portuguese propagandists was contained in a despatch addressed to Hidetada in 1620 by the admiral in command of the British and Dutch fleet then cruising in Far-Eastern waters. In that document the friars were flatly accused of treacherous practices, and the Japanese ruler was warned against the aggressive designs of Philip of Spain. In the face of all this evidence the Japanese ceased to hesitate, and a time of terror ensued for the fathers and their converts. The measures adopted towards the missionaries gradually increased in severity. In 1617 the first two fathers put to death (De l’Assumpcion and Machado) were beheaded, “not by the common executioner, but by one of the first officers of the prince.” Subsequently Navarette and Ayala were decapitated by the executioner. Then, in 1618, Juan de Santa Martha was executed like a common criminal, his body being dismembered and his head exposed. Finally, in 1622, Zuñiga and Flores were burnt alive. The same year was marked by the “great martyrdom” at Nagasaki when 9 foreign priests went to the stake with 19 Japanese converts. The shōgun seems to have been now labouring under vivid fear of a foreign invasion. An emissary sent by him to Europe had returned on the eve of the “great martyrdom” after seven years abroad, and had made a report more than ever unfavourable to Christianity. Therefore Hidetada deemed it necessary to refuse audience to a Philippine embassy in 1624 and to deport all Spaniards from Japan. Further, it was decreed that no Japanese Christian should thenceforth be suffered to go abroad for commerce, and that though non-Christians or men who had apostatized might travel freely, they must not visit the Philippines. Thus ended all intercourse between Japan and Spain. It had continued for 32 years and had engendered a widespread conviction that Christianity was an instrument of Spanish aggression.

Iyemitsu, son of Hidetada, now ruled in Yedo, though Hidetada himself remained the power behind the throne. The year (1623) of the former’s accession to power had been marked by the re-issue of anti-Christian decrees, and by the martyrdom of some 500 Christians within the Tokugawa domains, whither the tide of persecution now flowed for the first time. Thenceforth the campaign was continuous. The men most active and most relentless in carrying on the persecution were Mizuno and Takenaka, governors of Nagasaki, and Matsukura, feudatory of Shimabara. By the latter were invented the punishment of throwing converts into the solfataras at Unzen and the torture of thefosse, which consisted in suspension by the feet, head downwards, in a pit until blood oozed from the mouth, nose and ears. Many endured this latter torture for days, until deathcame to their relief, but a few—notably the Jesuit provincial Ferreyra—apostatized. Matsukura and Takenaka were so strongly obsessed by the Spanish menace that they contemplated the conquest of the Philippines in order to deprive the Spaniards of a Far-Eastern base. But timid counsels then prevailed in Yedo, where the spirit of a Nobunaga, a Hideyoshi or an Iyeyasu no longer presided. Of course the measures of repression grew in severity as the fortitude of the Christians became more obdurate. It is not possible to state the exact number of victims. Some historians say that, down to 1635, no fewer than 280,000 were punished, but that figure is probably exaggerated, for the most trustworthy records indicate that the converts never aggregated more than 300,000, and many of these, if not a great majority, having accepted the foreign faith very lightly, doubtless discarded it readily under menace of destruction. Every opportunity was given for apostatizing and for escaping death. Immunity could be secured by pointing out a fellow-convert, and when it is observed that among the seven or eight feudatories who embraced Christianity only two or three died in that faith, we must conclude that not a few cases of recanting occurred among the commoners. Remarkable fortitude, however, is said to have been displayed. If the converts were intrepid their teachers showed no less courage. Again and again the latter defied the Japanese authorities by coming to the country or returning thither after having been deported. Ignoring the orders of the governors of Macao and Manila and even of the king of Spain himself, they arrived, year after year, to be certainly apprehended and sent to the stake after brief periods of propagandism. In 1626 they actually baptized over 3000 converts. Large rewards were paid to anyone denouncing a propagandist, and as for the people, they had to trample upon a picture of Christ in order to prove that they were not Christians.

Meanwhile the feuds between the Dutch, the Spaniards and the Portuguese never ceased. In 1636, the Dutch found on a captured Portuguese vessel a report of the governor of Macao describing a two days’ festival which had been held there in honour of Vieyra, the vice-provincial whose martyrdom had just taken place in Japan. This report the Dutch handed to the Japanese authorities “in order that his majesty may see more clearly what great honour the Portuguese pay to those he has forbidden his realm as traitors to the state and to his crown.” Probably the accusation added little to the resentment and distrust already harboured by the Japanese against the Portuguese. At all events the Yedo government took no step distinctly hostile to Portuguese laymen until 1637, when an edict was issued forbidding any foreigners to travel in the empire, lest Portuguese with passports bearing Dutch names might enter it. This was the beginning of the end. In the last month of 1637 a rebellion broke out, commonly called the “Christian revolt of Shimabara,” which sealed the fate of Japan’s foreign intercourse for over 200 years.

The promontory of Shimabara and the island of Amakusa enclose the gulf of Nagasaki on the west. Among all the fiefs in Japan, Shimabara and Amakusa had been the two most thoroughly christianized in the early years ofThe Shimabara Revolt.Jesuit propagandism. Hence in later days they were naturally the scene of the severest persecutions. Still the people would probably have suffered in silence had they not been taxed beyond all endurance to supply funds for an extravagant chief who employed savage methods of extortion. Japanese annals, however, relegate the taxation grievance to an altogether secondary place, and attribute the revolt solely to the instigation of five samurai who led a roving life to avoid persecution for their adherence to Christianity. Whichever version be correct, it is certain that the outbreak ultimately attracted all the Christians from the surrounding regions, and was regarded by the authorities as in effect a Christian rising. The Amakusa insurgents passed over to Shimabara, and on the 27th of January 1638 the whole body—numbering, according to some authorities, 20,000 fighting men with 17,000 women and children; according to others, little more than one-half of these figures—took possession of the dilapidated castle of Hara, which stood on a plateau with three sides descending perpendicularly to the sea, a hundred feet beneath, and with a swamp on its fourth front. There the insurgents, who fought under flags with red crosses and whose battle cries were “Jesus,” “Maria” and “St Iago,” successfully maintained themselves against the repeated assaults of strong forces until the 12th of April, when, their ammunition and their provisions alike exhausted, they were overwhelmed and put to the sword, with the exception of 105 prisoners. During the siege the Dutch were enabled to furnish a vivid proof of enmity to the Christianity of the Spaniards and the Portuguese. For the guns in possession of the besiegers being too light to accomplish anything, Koeckebacker, the factor at Hirado, was invited to send ships carrying heavier metal. He replied with the “de Ryp” of 20 guns, which threw 426 shot into the castle in 15 days. Probably the great bulk of the remaining Japanese Christians perished at the massacre of Hara. Thenceforth there were few martyrs.32

It has been clearly shown that Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu were all in favour of foreign intercourse and trade, and that the Tokugawa chief, even more than his predecessor Hideyoshi, made strenuous efforts to differentiateForeign Trade in the 17th Century.between Christianity and commerce, so that the latter might not be involved in the former’s fate. In fact the three objects which Iyeyasu desired most earnestly to compass were the development of foreign commerce, the acquisition of a mercantile marine and the exploitation of Japan’s mines. He offered the Spaniards, Portuguese, English and Dutch a site for a settlement in Yedo, and had they accepted the offer the country might never have been closed. In his time Japan was virtually a free-trade country. Importers had not to pay any duties. It was expected, however, that they should make presents to the feudatory into whose port they carried their goods, and these presents were often very valuable. Naturally the Tokugawa chief desired to attract such a source of wealth to his own domains. He sent more than one envoy to Manila to urge the opening of commerce direct with the regions about Yedo, and to ask the Spaniards for competent naval architects. Perhaps the truest exposition of his attitude is given in a law enacted in 1602:—

“If any foreign vessel by stress of weather is obliged to touch at any principality or to put into any harbour of Japan, we order that, whoever these foreigners may be, absolutely nothing whatever that belongs to them or that they may have brought in their ship, shall be taken from them. Likewise we rigorously prohibit the use of any violence in the purchase or the sale of any of the commodities brought by their ship, and if it is not convenient for the merchants of the ship to remain in the port they have entered, they may pass to any other port that may suit them, and therein buy and sell in full freedom. Likewise we order in a general manner that foreigners may freely reside in any part of Japan they choose, but we rigorously forbid them to promulgate their faith.”

It was in that mood that he granted (1605) a licence to the Dutch to trade in Japan, his expectation doubtless being that the ships which they promised to send every year would make their dépôt at Uraga or in some other place near Yedo. But things were ordered differently. The first Hollanders that set foot in Japan were the survivors of the wrecked “Liefde.” Thrown into prison for a time, they were approached by emissaries from the feudatory of Hirado, who engaged some of them to teach the art of casting guns and the science of gunnery to his vassals, and when two of them were allowed to leave Japan, he furnished them with the means of doing so, at the same time making promises which invested Hirado with attractions as a port of trade, though it was then and always remained an insignificant fishing village. The Dutch possessed precisely the qualifications suited to the situation then existing in Japan: they had commercial potentialities without any religious associations. Fully appreciating that fact, the shrewd feudatory of Hirado laid himself out to entice the Dutchmen to his fief, and he succeeded. Shortly afterwards, an incident occurred which clearly betrayed the strength of the Tokugawa chief’s desire toexploit Japan’s mines. The governor-general of the Philippines (Don Rodrigo Vivero y Velasco), his ship being cast away on the Japanese coast on a voyage to Acapulco, was received by Iyeyasu, and in response to the latter’s request for fifty miners, the Spaniard formulated terms to which Iyeyasu actually agreed: that half the produce of the mines should go to the miners; that the other half should be divided between Iyeyasu and the king of Spain; that the latter might send commissioners to Japan to look after his mining interests, and that these commissioners might be accompanied by priests who would be entitled to have public churches for holding services. This was in 1609, when the Tokugawa chief had again and again imposed the strictest veto on Christian propagandism. There can be little doubt that he understood the concession made to Don Rodrigo in the sense of Hideyoshi’s mandate to the Jesuits in Nagasaki, namely, that a sufficient number might remain to minister to the Portuguese traders frequenting the port. Iyeyasu had confidence in himself and in his countrymen. He knew that emergencies could be dealt with when they arose and he sacrificed nothing to timidity. But his courageous policy died with him and the miners did not come. Neither did the Spaniards ever devote any successful efforts to establishing trade with Japan. Their vessels paid fitful visits to Uraga, but the Portuguese continued to monopolize the commerce.

In 1611 a Dutch merchantman (the “Brach”) reached Hirado with a cargo of pepper, cloth, ivory, silk and lead. She carried two envoys, Spex and Segerszoon, and in the very face of a Spanish embassy which had just arrivedOpening of Dutch and English Trade.from Manila expressly for the purpose of “settling the matter regarding the Hollanders,” the Dutchmen obtained a liberal patent from Iyeyasu. Twelve years previously, the merchants of London, stimulated generally by the success of the Dutch in trade with the East, and specially by the fact that “these Hollanders had raised the price of pepper against us from 3 shillings per pound to 6 shillings and 8 shillings,” organized the East India Company which immediately began to send ships eastward. Of course the news that the Dutch were about to establish a trading station in Japan reached London speedily, and the East India Company lost no time in ordering one of their vessels, the “Clove,” under Captain Saris, to proceed to the Far-Eastern islands. She carried a quantity of pepper, and on the voyage she endeavoured to procure some spices at the Moluccas. But the Dutch would not suffer any poaching on their valuable monopoly. The “Clove” entered Hirado on the 11th of June 1613. Saris seems to have been a man self-opinionated, of shallow judgment and suspicious. Though strongly urged by Will Adams to make Uraga the seat of the new trade, though convinced of the excellence of the harbour there, and though instructed as to the great advantage of proximity to the shōgun’s capital, he appears to have conceived some distrust of Adams, for he chose Hirado. From Iyeyasu Captain Saris received a most liberal charter, which plainly displayed the mood of the Tokugawa shōgun towards foreign trade:—

1. The ship that has now come for the first time from England over the sea to Japan may carry on trade of all kinds without hindrance. With regard to future visits (of English ships) permission will be given in regard to all matters.2. With regard to the cargoes of ships, requisition will be made by list according to the requirements of the shōgunate.3. English ships are free to visit any port in Japan. If disabled by storms they may put into any harbour.4. Ground in Yedo in the place which they may desire shall be given to the English, and they may erect houses and reside and trade there. They shall be at liberty to return to their country whenever they wish to do so, and to dispose as they like of the houses they have erected.5. If an Englishman dies in Japan of disease, or any other cause, his effects shall be handed over without fail.6. Forced sales of cargo, and violence, shall not take place.7. If one of the English should commit an offence, he should be sentenced by the English General according to the gravity of his offence.(Translated by Professor Riess.)

2. With regard to the cargoes of ships, requisition will be made by list according to the requirements of the shōgunate.

3. English ships are free to visit any port in Japan. If disabled by storms they may put into any harbour.

4. Ground in Yedo in the place which they may desire shall be given to the English, and they may erect houses and reside and trade there. They shall be at liberty to return to their country whenever they wish to do so, and to dispose as they like of the houses they have erected.

5. If an Englishman dies in Japan of disease, or any other cause, his effects shall be handed over without fail.

6. Forced sales of cargo, and violence, shall not take place.

7. If one of the English should commit an offence, he should be sentenced by the English General according to the gravity of his offence.

(Translated by Professor Riess.)

The terms of the 4th article show that the shōgun expected the English to make Yedo their headquarters. Had Saris done so, he would have been free from all competition, would have had an immense market at his very doors, would have economized the expense of numerous overland journeys to the Tokugawa court, and would have saved the payment of many “considerations.” The result of his mistaken choice and subsequent bad management was that, ten years later (1623), the English factory at Hirado had to be closed, having incurred a total loss of about £2000. In condonation of this failure it must be noted that a few months after the death of Iyeyasu, the charter he had granted to Saris underwent serious modification. The original document threw open to the English every port in Japan; the revised document limited them to Hirado. But this restriction may be indirectly traced to the blunder of not accepting a settlement in Yedo and a port at Uraga. For the Tokugawa’s foreign policy was largely swayed by an apprehension lest the Kiūshiū feudatories, over whom the authority of Yedo had never been fully established, might, by the presence of foreign traders, come into possession of such a fleet and such an armament as would ultimately enable them to wrest the administration of the empire from Tokugawa hands. Hence the precaution of confining the English and the Dutch to Hirado, the fief of adaimyōtoo petty to become formidable, and to Nagasaki which was an imperial city.33But evidently an English factory in Yedo and English ships at Uraga would have strengthened the Tokugawa ruler’s hand instead of supplying engines of war to his political foes. It must also be noted that the question of locality had another injurious outcome. It exposed the English—and the Dutch also—to crippling competition at the hands of a company of rich Osaka monopolists, who, as representing an Imperial city and therefore being pledged to the Tokugawa interests, enjoyed Yedo’s favour and took full advantage of it. These shrewd traders not only drew a ring round Hirado, but also sent vessels on their own account to Cochin China, Siam, Tonkin, Cambodia and other places, where they obtained many of the staples in which the English and the Dutch dealt. Still the closure of the English factory at Hirado was purely voluntary. From first to last there had been no serious friction between the English and the Japanese. The company’s houses and godowns were not sold. These as well as the charter were left in the hands of the daimyō of Hirado, who promised to restore them should the English re-open business in Japan. The company did think of doing so on more than one occasion, but no practical step was taken until the year 1673, when a merchantman, aptly named the “Return,” was sent to seek permission. The Japanese, after mature reflection, made answer that as the king of England was married to a Portuguese princess, British subjects could not be permitted to visit Japan. That this reply was suggested by the Dutch is very probable; that it truly reflected the feeling of the Japanese government towards Roman Catholics is certain.

The Spaniards were expelled from Japan in 1624, the Portuguese in 1638. Two years before the latter event, the Yedo government took a signally retrogressive step. They ordained that no Japanese vessel should go abroad;The Last Days of the Portuguese in Japan.that no Japanese subject should leave the country, and that, if detected attempting to do so, he should be put to death, the vessel that carried him and her crew being seized “to await our pleasure”; that any Japanese resident abroad should be executed if he returned; that the children and descendants of Spaniards together with those who had adopted such children should not be allowed to remain on pain of death; and that no ship of ocean-going dimensions should be built in Japan. Thus not only were the very children of the Christian propagandists driven completely from the land, but the Japanese people also were sentenced to imprisonment within the limits of their islands, and the country was deprived of all hope of acquiring a mercantile marine. The descendants of the Spaniards, banished by the edict, were taken to Macao in two Portuguese galleons. They numbered 287 and the propertythey carried with them aggregated 6,697,500 florins. But if the Portuguese derived any gratification from this sweeping out of their much-abused rivals, the feeling was destined to be short-lived. Already they were subjected to humiliating restrictions.

Back to Index Next