Chapter XI. Christianity In The Seventeenth Century.
To the readers of the story of Japan the most interesting episode is that of the introduction and subsequent extirpation of Christianity. We have therefore given an account of the first arrival of the Jesuit missionaries with the sainted Xavier at their head, and we have seen their labors crowned with a very wide success. During the times of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi the question had assumed something of a political aspect. In several of the provinces of Kyūshū the princes had become converts and had freely used their influence, and sometimes their authority, to extend Christianity among their subjects. In Kyōto and Yamaguchi, in Ōsaka and Sakai, as well as in Kyūshū, the Jesuit fathers had founded flourishing churches and exerted a wide influence. They had established colleges where the candidates for the church could be educated and trained. They had organized hospitals and asylums at Nagasaki and elsewhere, where those needing aid could be received and treated.
It is true that the progress of the work had met [pg 241] with a severe setback in a.d. 1587, when Taikō Sama issued an edict expelling all foreign religious teachers from Japan. In pursuance of this edict nine foreigners who had evaded expulsion were burnt at Nagasaki. The reason for this decisive action on the part of Taikō Sama is usually attributed to the suspicion which had been awakened in him by the loose and unguarded talk of a Portuguese sea captain.[203] But other causes undoubtedly contributed to produce in him this intolerant frame of mind. Indeed, the idea of toleration as applied to religious belief had not yet been admitted even in Europe. At this very time Philip II., who had united in his own person the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, was endeavoring to compel, by force of arms, the Netherlands to accept his religious belief, and was engaged throughout all his immense dominions in the task of reducing men's minds to a hideous uniformity.
Even in several of the provinces of Japan where the Jesuits had attained the ascendancy, the most forcible measures had been taken by the Christian princes to compel all their subjects to follow their own example and adopt the Christian faith. Takeyama, whom the Jesuit fathers designate as Justo Ucondono, carried out in his territory at Akashi a system of bitter persecution. He gave his subjects the option of becoming Christians or leaving his territory. Konishi Yukinaga, who received part of the province of Higo as his fief after the Korean war enforced with great persistency the acceptance [pg 242] of the Christian faith, and robbed the Buddhist priests of their temples and their lands. The princes of Ōmura and Arima, and to a certain extent the princes of Bungo, followed the advice of the Jesuit fathers in using their authority to advance the cause of Christianity. The fathers could scarcely complain of having the system of intolerance practised upon them, which, when circumstances were favorable, they had advised to be applied to their opponents. It was this impossibility of securing peace and harmony, and the suspicion of the territorial ambition of Spain and Portugal, which drove Taikō Sama to the conclusion that the foreign religious teachers and the faith which they had so successfully propagated, were a source of imminent danger to his country. To him it was purely a political question. He had no deep religious impressions which had led him to prefer the precepts of the old Japanese faith to those of Christianity. These systems could not apparently live together, and it seemed to him the safest and most sensible way to extinguish the weaker and most dangerous before it became too strong. Hence he began that policy of repression and expulsion which his successor reluctantly took up.
During the first years of Ieyasu's supremacy the Christians were not disturbed. He was too much occupied with the establishment of the new executive department which he had planned. In 1606 the Portuguese resident bishop, Father Louis Cerqueria, was received by Ieyasu at Kyōto. The fathers speak of this audience with great hopefulness, and [pg 243] did not seem to be aware that the court which most of the Christian princes were at that time paying to Hideyori was likely to prejudice Ieyasu against them. Again in 1607 Ieyasu, who was then at Kofu in the province of Kai awaiting the completion of his castle at Yedo, expressed a desire to see the Provincial. Accordingly when he waited on Ieyasu he was received very cordially. The Christian fathers were much encouraged by these indications of the favor of Ieyasu. But whatever they may have been, they cannot be interpreted as showing any intention on his part to promote their religious proselytism. Even in the very midst of these assumed favors he issued in 1606 what may be called a warning proclamation,[204] announcing that he had learned with pain that, contrary to Taikō Sama's edict, many had embraced the Christian religion. He warned all officers of his court to see that the edict was strictly enforced. He declared that it was for the good of the state that none should embrace the new doctrine; and that such as had already done so must change immediately.
This proclamation of Ieyasu did not, however, prevent the Catholics at Nagasaki from celebrating in a gorgeous manner the beatification[205] of Ignatius Loyola, the founder and first General of the Society of Jesus. The bishop officiated in pontifical robes, and the members of the society, together with the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians, made a [pg 244] solemn procession through the city. This celebration was in distinct contravention of the orders which had been issued against such public displays. It was made more emphatic by being also held on the same day in the province of Arima, whose daimyō was an ardent advocate of the Christian doctrine. These open and determined infractions of the directions of the government provoked Ieyasu to take severe measures. He began by punishing some of the native Christians connected with his own court, who were charged with bribery and intrigue in behalf of the daimyō of Arima. A number of these accused Christians were banished and their estates confiscated.
In the meantime both the English and Dutch had appeared on the scene, as will be more fully detailed in the next chapter. Their object was solely trade, and as the Portuguese monopoly hitherto had been mainly secured by the Jesuit fathers, it was natural for the new-comers to represent the motive of these fathers in an unfavorable and suspicious light. “Indeed,” as Hildreth[206] says, “they had only to confirm the truth of what the Portuguese and Spanish said of each other to excite in the minds of the Japanese rulers the gravest distrust as to the designs of the priests of both nations.”[207]
Whether it is true as charged that the minds of the Japanese rulers had been poisoned against the Jesuit fathers by misrepresentation and falsehood, it may be impossible to determine definitely; but it is fair to infer that the cruel and intolerant policy of the Spanish and Portuguese would be fully set forth and the danger to the Japanese empire from the machinations of the foreign religious teachers held up in the worst light.
During the latter years of Ieyasu's life, after he had settled the affairs of the empire and put the shōgunate upon a permanent basis, we see growing evidence of his prejudice against Christianity. That he had such prejudice in a very pronounced form is clear from his reference to the “false and corrupt school” in chapter xxxi. of the Legacy. And he had inherited from Taikō Sama the conviction that the spread of this foreign faith was a menace to the peace of the empire. The instructions[208] which were issued [pg 246] to the members of the Society of Jesus, however, forbade any father to meddle in secular affairs or to interfere in any way with the political concerns of the government in which they were laboring. That there were occasional instances of the disregard of this regulation by the enthusiastic members of the order may be supposed, but it will be unjust and unfounded to attribute to this society a settled policy of interference in the affairs of the nations where they were employed as missionaries.
Ieyasu, evidently having made up his mind that for the safety of the empire Christianity must be extirpated, in 1614 issued an edict[209] that the members of all religious orders, whether European or Japanese, should be sent out of the country; that the churches which had been erected in various localities should be pulled down, and that the native adherents of the faith should be compelled to renounce it. In part execution of this edict all the members of the Society of Jesus, native and foreign, [pg 247] were ordered to be sent to Nagasaki. Native Christians were sent to Tsugaru, the northern extremity of the Main island. Takeyama, who had already been banished by Taikō Sama to the province of Kaga, was ordered to leave the country. He was sent in a Chinese ship to Manila, where he soon after died. In order to repress any disturbance that might arise from the execution of this edict, ten thousand troops were sent to Kyūshū, where the converts were much the most numerous, and where the daimyōs in many cases either openly protected or indirectly favored the new faith.
In accordance with this edict, as many as three hundred persons are said to have been shipped from Japan October 25, 1614. All the resident Jesuits were included in this number, excepting eighteen fathers and nine brothers, who concealed themselves and thus escaped the search. Following this deportation of converts the most persistent efforts continued to be made to force the native Christians to renounce their faith. The accounts given, both by the foreign and by the Japanese writers, of the persecutions which now broke upon the heads of the Christians are beyond description horrible. A special service was established by the government which was called the Christian Enquiry,[210] the object of which was to search out Christians in every quarter and drive them to a renunciation of their faith. Both the foreign priests who had remained in the country in spite of the edict and the native converts [pg 248] were hunted down and punished with the most appalling tortures. Rewards were offered for information involving Christians of every position and rank, even of parents against their children and of children against their parents. At what time this practice began it is difficult to say, but that rewards were used at an early period is evident from the re-issue of an edict in 1655, in which it is stated[211] that formerly a reward of 200 pieces of silver was paid for denouncing a father (bateren) and 100 for denouncing a brother (iruman); but from this time the rewards should be: for denouncing a father, 300 pieces; a brother, 200 pieces; and a catechist, 50 pieces. In 1711 this tariff was raised, for denouncing a father to 500 pieces, a brother to 300 pieces, and a catechist to 100 pieces; also for denouncing a person who, having recanted, returned to the faith, 300 pieces. These edicts against Christianity were displayed on the edict-boards as late as the year 1868.
The persecution began in its worst form about 1616. This was the year in which Ieyasu died, but his son and successor carried out the terrible programme with heartless thoroughness. It has never been surpassed for cruelty and brutality on the part of the persecutors, or for courage and constancy on the part of those who suffered. The letters of the Jesuit fathers are full of descriptions of the shocking trials to which the Christians were subjected. The tortures inflicted are almost beyond belief. Mr. [pg 249] Gubbins, in the paper[212] to which reference has already been made, says: “We read of Christians being executed in a barbarous manner in sight of each other, of their being hurled from the tops of precipices, of their being buried alive, of their being torn asunder by oxen, of their being tied up in rice-bags, which were heaped up together, and of the pile thus formed being set on fire. Others were tortured before death by the insertion of sharp spikes under the nails of their hands and feet, while some poor wretches by a refinement of horrid cruelty were shut up in cages and there left to starve with food before their eyes. Let it not be supposed that we have drawn on the Jesuit accounts solely for this information. An examination of the Japanese records will show that the case is not overstated.”[213]
The region around Nagasaki was most fully impregnated with the new doctrine, and it was here that the persecution was by far the most severe. This was now an imperial city, governed directly by officers from the government of Yedo. The governor [pg 250] is called Kanwaytsdo by Warenius, relying on Caron and Guysbert, but I have been unable to identify him by his true Japanese name. Beginning from 1616 there was a continuous succession of persecutions. In 1622 one hundred and thirty men, women, and children were put to death, among whom were two Spanish priests, and Spinola an Italian. The next year one hundred more were put to death. The heroism of these martyrs awakened the greatest enthusiasm among the Christians. In the darkness of the night following the execution many of them crept to the place where their friends had been burnt and tenderly plucked some charred fragments of their bodies, which they carried away and cherished as precious relics. To prevent the recurrence of such practices the officers directed that the bodies of those burnt should be completely consumed and the ashes thrown into the sea. Guysbert in his account mentions that among those executed at Hirado was a man who had been in the employ of the Dutch factory and his wife. They had two little boys whom the factor offered to take and have brought up by the Dutch. But the parents declined, saying that they preferred to have the boys die with them. A plan was devised by which the heads of households were required to certify that none of their families were Christians, and that no priests or converts were harbored by them.
All this terrible exercise of power and the constantly recurring scenes of suffering were more than the governor could endure, and so we find him at last complaining that he could not sleep and that his [pg 251] health was impaired. At his earnest petition he was relieved and a new governor appointed in 1626. He signalized his entrance upon his duties by condemning thirteen Christians to be burnt, viz.: Bishop Franciscus Parquerus, a Portuguese, seventy years old; Balthazar de Tores, a Dominican, fifty-seven years old, together with five Portuguese and five Japanese laymen. When it came to the crisis the five Portuguese renounced their faith and escaped death. On the twelfth of July nine more were executed, five by burning and four by beheading. On the twenty-ninth of July a priest was caught and executed who had concealed himself in a camp of lepers, and who had hoped in that way to escape detection.
The governor exerted himself to bring about recantations on the part of those who had professed themselves Christians. He promised special favors to such as would renounce their faith, and in many cases went far beyond promises to secure the result. He set a day when all the apostates dressed in their best clothes should present themselves at his office. Fifteen hundred appeared on this occasion, and were treated with the greatest kindness and consideration. But the officers began to see that putting Christians to death would not prevent others from embracing the same doctrine. There grew up such an enthusiasm among the faithful that they sought rather than avoided the crown of martyrdom. As Guysbert points out, the knowledge of the Christian religion possessed by these converts must have been exceedingly small; they knew the Lord's prayer [pg 252] and the Ave Maria, and a few other prayers of the Church, but they had not the Scriptures to read, and many of them could not have read them even if they had been translated into their own language. And yet these humble and ignorant people withstood death, and tortures far worse than death, with a heroism worthy of all praise.
On the eighth of February, 1627, twelve persons were captured in a hiding-place about a mile from Nagasaki; they were first branded with a hot iron on the forehead, and then on each cheek; then because they would not recant they were burnt to death. Subsequently forty more were captured, among whom were a father and mother with their three young children. The children were frightened at the dreadful preparations, and would have recanted, but their parents refused to permit them to take advantage of the offers of clemency. After the branding and beating, those who were not yet driven to recant were sent off to the boiling springs of Onsen in Arima. Here they were tortured by having the boiling water of the springs poured upon them, and by being compelled to breathe the suffocating sulphurous air which these springs emitted.
On the fourteenth of the following May, nine martyrs suffered all the torments which could be contrived and finally were drowned. August seventeenth five Christians were burnt and eighteen otherwise put to death, of whom one was a Franciscan monk and the rest were natives. October twenty-sixth three Japanese magnates who had joined Hideyori against Ieyasu were discovered to [pg 253] be Christians, and were shipped off to Macao. In the following year, 1628, it is said that three hundred and forty-eight persons were tortured for their faith, including torture by the boiling springs, beating with clubs, and burning. It had been reduced to such a science that when they saw a subject becoming weak and likely to die, they suspended their torments until he revived. Whenever a priest was captured in any household the whole family by whom he had been concealed were put to death.
Another new governor was sent to Nagasaki on the 27th of July, 1629. He came with the high purpose of rooting out every vestige of Christianity. He set about his work in the most systematic manner. Nagasaki, it must be understood, is laid out in streets which can be closed up by gates. Each street had its head man, and every five houses in each street were under the special charge of a separate overseer. These overseers were responsible as to what occurred and who were concealed in each of the houses under his charge. The gates were all closed at night and opened again in the morning.
The governor went through these streets house by house, and examined every person in every house. If the occupants were not Christians, or if they renounced their Christianity, they were allowed to go undisturbed; but if any one persisted in the new doctrine he was sent off to be tortured by hot water at the boiling springs. This torture was now improved by requiring the victim to have his back slit open and the boiling water poured directly on the raw flesh. He used the most monstrous [pg 254] means to force the people to renounce their faith. He compelled naked women to go through the streets on their hands and knees, and many recanted rather than suffer such an ordeal. Other cases are recorded too horrible to be related, and which only the ingenuity of hell could have devised. That any should have persisted after such inhuman persecutions seems to be almost beyond belief. Guysbert says that in 1626 Nagasaki had forty thousand Christians, and in 1629 not one was left who acknowledged himself a believer. The governor was proud that he had virtually exterminated Christianity.
But the extermination had not yet been attained. The severity of the measures adopted in Nagasaki had indeed driven many into the surrounding provinces, so that every place of shelter was full. They awaited in terror the time when they too should be summoned to torture and death. Usually they had not long to wait, for the service of the Christian Enquiry was active and diligent. New refinements of cruelty were constantly invented and applied. The last and one of the most effectual is denominated by the foreign historians of these scenes the Torment of the Fosse. Mathia Tanner, S. J., in his History of the Martyrs of Japan, published in Prague, 1675, gives minute accounts of many martyrdoms. His descriptions are illustrated by sickening engravings of the tortures inflicted. Among these he gives one illustrating the suspension of a martyr in a pit on the 16th of August, 1633. The victim is swathed in a covering which confines all parts of the [pg 255] body except one hand with which he can make the signal of recantation. A post is planted by the side of the pit, with an arm projecting out over it. The martyr is then drawn up by a rope fastened to the feet and run over the arm of the post. He is then lowered into the pit to a depth of five or six feet and there suffered to hang. The suffering was excruciating. Blood exuded from the mouth and nose, and the sense of pressure on the brain was fearful. Yet with all this suffering the victim usually lived eight or nine days. Few could endure this torture, and it proved a most effectual method of bringing about recantations. Guysbert says that he had many friendly conversations with those who had experienced the torture of the Fosse. They solemnly assured him “that neither the pain caused by burning with fire, nor that caused by any other kind of torture, deserves to be compared with the agony produced in this way.” Not being able longer to endure the suffering, they had recanted and been set free. Yet it is told as a miraculous triumph of faith that a young girl was submitted to this torture, and lived fifteen days without recanting and at last died.
It is surely not unnatural that human nature should succumb to such torments. Even the well seasoned nerves of the Jesuit fathers were not always able to endure to the end. The enemies of the Jesuits delight in narrating the apostasy of Father Christopher Ferreyra, seventy years old, a Portuguese missionary and the provincial of the order. He was captured in Nagasaki, 1633, and was tortured [pg 256] by suspension in the Fosse. After five hours he gave the signal of recantation and was released. He was kept for some time in prison and compelled to give information concerning the members of his order in Japan. He was set at liberty and forced to marry, assuming the Japanese dress and a Japanese name. There was a report set on foot by the Jesuits that in his old age when on his death-bed he recovered his courage and declared himself a Christian, whereupon he was immediately carried off by the Japanese officers to the torture of the Fosse, where he perished a penitent martyr.
It was at this time that the method of trial called E-fumi,[214] or trampling on the cross, was instituted. At first pictures on paper were used, then slabs of wood were substituted as more durable, and finally in the year 1660 an engraver of Nagasaki, named Yusa, cast bronze plates from the metal obtained by despoiling the altars of the churches. These plates were about five inches long and four inches wide and one inch thick, and had on them a figure of Christ on the cross. We take from the French edition of Kæmpfer's History of Japan[215] an account of what he calls “this detestable solemnity.” It was conducted by an officer called the kirishitan bugyō, or Christian inquisitor, and began on the second day of the first month. In Nagasaki it was commenced [pg 257] at two different places at once, and was carried on from house to house until the whole city was finished. The officers of each street were required to be present. The metal plate on which was a figure of the Saviour upon the cross was laid upon the floor. Then the head of the house, his family, and servants of both sexes, old and young, and any lodgers that might be in the house, were called into the room. The secretary of the inquisitor thereupon made a list of the household and called upon them one by one to set their feet on the plate. Even young children not able to walk were carried by their mothers and made to step on the images with their feet. Then the head of the family put his seal to the list as a certificate to be laid before the governor that the inquisition had been performed in his house. If any refused thus to trample on the cross they were at once turned over to the proper officers to be tortured as the cases required.
This same method of trial was used in the provinces about Nagasaki, the governor lending to the officers the plate which they might use.
Without following the entire series of events which resulted in the extirpation of Christianity, it will be sufficient to give a brief narrative of the closing act in this fearful tragedy. It is just, however, to explain that the Shimabara rebellion was not due to the Christians alone, but that other causes contributed to and perhaps originated it. In view, however, of the cruel persecutions to which the Christians were subjected, it is not surprising that they should have been driven to engage in such a [pg 258] rebellion as that in Arima.[216] The wonder rather is that they were not often and in many places impelled to take up arms against the inhumanities of their rulers. The explanation of this absence of resistance will be found in the scattered condition of the Christian communities. Nowhere, unless it might be in Nagasaki, was the number of converts collected in one place at all considerable. They were everywhere overawed by the organized power of the government, and the experience of those who joined in this Arima insurrection did not encourage a repetition of its horrors.
The beginning of the revolt is traced to the misgovernment of the daimyō of Arima. The original daimyō had been transferred by the shōgun to another province, and when he removed from Arima he left nearly all his old retainers behind him. The newly instituted daimyō, on the contrary, who came to occupy the vacated province brought with him a full complement of his own followers. To make room for these new retainers the old ones were displaced [pg 259] placed from their dwellings and holdings, and compelled to become farmers or to take up any other occupation which they could find. Like the samurai of other parts of Japan who had been unaccustomed to any calling except that of arms, these displaced retainers proved very unsuccessful farmers, and were of course very much dissatisfied with the new course of things. The daimyō was a cruel and inconsiderate man, who made small account of the hardships and complaints of the samurai farmers. The taxes were made heavier than they could pay, and when they failed to bring in the required amount of rice, he ordered them to be dressed in straw rain-coats which were tied around their neck and arms. Their hands were fastened behind their backs, and in this helpless condition the rain-coats were set on fire. Many were fatally burned, and some to escape the burning threw themselves into the water and were drowned.
This senseless cruelty awakened an intense feeling of hatred against the daimyō. And when his son who succeeded him was disposed to continue the same tyrannical policy, the farmers rose in insurrection against their lord. The peasants of the island of Amakusa, which lies directly opposite to the province of Arima, also joined in this rising, owing to their discontent against the daimyō of Karatsu.
The Christians, who had so long groaned under the persecutions of their rulers, seized this opportunity to rise, and joined the farmers. They declared that the time had now come for them to avenge the innocent blood of Christians and priests who had perished throughout the empire. The rising of the [pg 260] Christians began at the village of Oyei in Amakusa, October, 1637. The excitement was intense, and in a few days it is said that eight thousand three hundred men and one thousand women were assembled at this village. They chose as their chief Shirō Tokisada, the son of the head man of the village of Hara, who proposed to march immediately upon Nagasaki and open negotiations with foreign nations, and if possible obtain from them the help of troops. He was an enthusiast and without experience in war. The leading spirit in the insurrection seems to have been a rônin[217] named Ashizuka, who recommended that the insurgents should cross over to Shimabara. But Shirō and his enthusiastic followers resolved to attack the castle of Tomioka situated on the north-west coast of Amakusa. They were, however, unable to make any impression upon it, and were obliged to withdraw. Ashizuka and a few followers succeeded in breaking into the castle of Shimabara and seizing the arms and ammunition and provisions which were stored there. The government rice stores were seized both on the mainland and on the island of Amakusa. All the insurgents, including men, women, and children, then gathered into a deserted castle at Hara, which was capable of holding 40,000 to 50,000 persons. It was supposed to be impregnable, and was put in order and provisioned for a long siege. The number gathered here is estimated by the Japanese writers at 40,200, but this number without doubt is an exaggeration.
The local rulers finding themselves unable to cope with the rebellion, and seeing its proportions swelling every day, appealed to Yedo for help. The shōgun at this time was Iemitsu, the son of the preceding shōgun, and grandson of Ieyasu. He possessed many of the good qualities of his grandfather, and is looked upon, with the exception of Ieyasu, as the greatest of the Tokugawa line. He had imbibed all the prejudices of his predecessors against foreigners and against the religion of the foreigners. He feared that this rebellion was begun at their instigation, and would be carried on with their encouragement and help. He prepared therefore for a sharp and desperate struggle, which he was determined should be carried out to the bitter end.
Itakura Naizen was sent down as commander-in-chief, and given full powers. Under his direction the siege of the castle, in which the rebels were gathered, was commenced on the 31st of December, 1637. The daimyōs of Kyūshū, on the demand of the government, sent additional troops, so that the besieging army amounted to 160,000 men. Yet with all this force, urged on by an ambition to end this rebellion, no serious effect had yet been produced on the castle. The attacks which had been made had produced no breach in its walls. We have no information concerning the progress of affairs among the inmates. It must be remembered that a part of the rebels were samurai farmers, who were inured to arms, and who knew perfectly that neither consideration nor mercy would be shown them or their families in case the castle were taken. [pg 262] The remainder of the besieged force were the Christian insurgents, who had been driven to this rebellion by their cruel persecution. Nothing could be worse than what they had already endured, and they had no expectation that if they were beaten in this contest any pity would be shown to them. Despair made the attitude of both divisions of the rebels one of determined resistance, and their obstinacy led the besiegers to put forth every effort.
Pleasure Yacht.
Pleasure Yacht.
Merchant Vessel.
One step which they took in this matter led to much discussion and to the widening of the breach between the Dutch and the Portuguese. On the 11th of January, 1638, the besiegers applied to the Dutch at Hirado for a supply of gunpowder, which request was complied with, and at the same time an apology was tendered that no larger quantity could be sent. Again, on the 15th of February a request for cannon to be used in the siege was received, and the guns were sent. Mr. Koeckebacker says: “We gave the largest and most uniform guns in our possession.”[218] Finally, on the 19th of February, Mr. Koeckebacker was asked to send one of the Dutch ships[219] then at Hirado to the assistance of the besiegers. The de Ryp was accordingly sent, and Mr. Koeckebacker himself accompanied her. The guns which had been first sent were mounted as a land battery, and the guns of the [pg 264] de Ryp from her anchorage in the bay were trained on the castle. It was a new experience for the Japanese to see cannon used in the siege of a castle, but the effect was much less than had been expected. No practicable breach was made, and the final result seemed as far off as ever. “During the fifteen days from the 24th of February to the 12th of March, there were thrown into the camp of the enemy four hundred and twenty-six cannon balls from the twenty guns of the ship de Ryp.”[220]
In the meantime the Japanese officers began to feel that it was not a dignified proceeding to call upon a foreign nation to help them to put down a local rebellion. Even the insurgents had shot an arrow into the imperial camp to which a letter was attached, deriding them for calling for assistance when there were so many courageous soldiers in Japan. Whatever may have been the cause, the Dutch received notice on the 12th of March that their ship was no longer required, and accordingly they returned to Hirado. The castle was taken by assault on the 12th of April, 1638, after a siege which had lasted one hundred and two days, and about seven months from the breaking out of the rebellion. By special orders from Yedo the insurgents captured in the castle were to the last man, woman, and child put to death.[221] The father of [pg 265] Shirō, the young leader, was crucified, and Shirō himself was decapitated, and his head exposed for seven days on the great pier at Nagasaki. The daimyō, whose misgovernment had brought on this rebellion in Amakusa, was stripped of most of his territories, and he was so intensely hated in what remained to him that he committed hara-kiri. The daimyō of Arima, whose misconduct and neglect had driven the samurai farmers into their fatal rising, was also permitted to take his own life.
The help, which the Dutch rendered in this siege, exposed them to much vituperation. Naturally, the Jesuit historians have taken a very unfavorable view of the Dutch share in this sad transaction. Dr. Geerts in his defence of the Dutch argues: “Koeckebacker did no more than any one else of any nationality would probably have done in the same difficult position.... His endeavor was to preserve from decline or destruction the interests intrusted to him, and this was done at the smallest possible price.... Moreover, the letters of Koeckebacker clearly show that the Japanese government [pg 266] did not ask the aid of the Dutch in the persecution of Christians, as has often been asserted by foreign authors, who have not taken the trouble to inform themselves thoroughly on the subject, but they requested the guns and the aid of the Dutch vessel for the purpose of subduing rebellious subjects.... There could be no valid reason for Koeckebacker to refuse the pressing request for aid, and consequently he agreed to give assistance, as every wise man would have done in his place.... Koeckebacker did not take part in the general massacre which followed on the 11th of April, when the fortress of the rebels was taken by the imperial troops, as he left with his ship for Hirado on the 12th of March, leaving the guns behind in Arima. Had it been in his power to prevent such a general massacre after the fortress had been taken, and the rebels were prisoners, he would no doubt have done so.”[222]
This frightful termination to the rebellion, followed as it was by severe and persistent measures against Christians everywhere, was apparently the death-blow to the church in the empire. No further efforts were made, either by the daimyōs of provinces or by the heads of the church, to make open headway against the determined efforts of the government. Whatever was done was in secret, and every means was tried on the part of those who still clung to the Christian belief, and especially of those who were still daring enough to try to minister to them, to conceal their locality and their identity.[223]
The history of Christianity in Japan from this time downward was that of a scattered and dismembered remnant struggling for existence. A long line of edicts reaching to modern times was directed against “the corrupt sect,” repeating again and again the directions for its suppression. The kirishitan bugyō, or Christian inquisitor, had his office in Yedo, and under him was a numerous and active corps of assistants. Inouye Chikugo-no-Kami for a long time held this position. A place is still pointed out called Karishitan Zaka, or Christian Valley, where once stood the house in which were confined a number of the foreign priests. Here may be seen the grave of Father Chiara, who had under torture abjured his faith, and remained a prisoner for forty years, dying 1685.[224] Professor Dixon says that “there are two bamboo tubes inserted in sockets in front of the tomb, which I have never found empty, but always full of flowers in bloom. No one knows who [pg 268] offer these flowers, but they must be descendants of the Doshin Christians, or believers in Christianity, or worshippers of Koshin.” Here also was confined Father Baptiste Sidotti, a Sicilian Jesuit who ventured to enter Japan in 1707 with the purpose of resuming the work of the Jesuits which the persecution had interrupted.
And yet with all this vigilance and severity on the part of the government, what was the amazement of the Christian world to learn that the old faith still survived! In the villages around Nagasaki there were discovered in 1865,[225] not only words and symbols which had been preserved in the language, but even communities where had been kept alive for more than two centuries the worship bequeathed to them by their ancestors. We shall have occasion hereafter to refer to this interesting memento of the Christianity of the seventeenth century.