The Anti-Christian Policy of the Tokugawas.
The quarrels between the Franciscans and Jesuits,[16] however, were probably more harmful to Christianity than were the whispers of the Protestant Englishmen or Hollanders. In 1610, the wrath of the government was especially aroused against the bateren, as the people called the padres, by their open and persistent violation of Japanese law. In 1611, from Sado, to which island thousands of Christian exiles had been sent to work the mines, Iyéyasŭ believed he had obtained documentary proof in the Japanese language, of what he had long suspected—the existence of a plot on the part of the native converts and the foreign emissaries to reduce Japan to the position of a subject state.[17] Putting forth strenuous measures to root out utterly what he believed to be a pestilential breeder of sedition and war, the Yedo Shōgun advanced step by step to that great proclamation of January 27, 1614,[18] in which the foreign priests were branded as triple enemies—of the country, of the Kami, and of the Buddhas. This proclamation wound up with the charge that the Christian band had come to Japan to change the government of the country, and to usurp possession of it. Whether or not he really had sufficient written proof of conspiracy against the nation's sovereignty, it is certain that in this state paper, Iyéyasŭ shrewdly touched the springs of Japanese patriotism. Not desiring, however, to shed blood or provoke war, he tried transportation. Three hundred persons, namely, twenty-two Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustines, one hundred and seventeen foreign Jesuits, and nearly two hundred native priests and catechists, were arrested, sent to Nagasaki, and thence shipped like bundles of combustibles to Macao.
Yet, as many of the foreign and native Christian teachers hid themselves in the country and as others who had been banished returned secretly and continued the work of propaganda, the crisis had not yet come. Some of the Jesuit priests, even, were still hoping that Hidéyori would mount to power; but in 1615, Iyéyasŭ, finding a pretext for war,[19] called out a powerful army and laid siege to the great castle of Osaka, the most imposing fortress in the country. In the brief war which ensued, it is said by the Jesuit fathers, that one hundred thousand men perished. On June 9, 1615, the castle was captured and the citadel burned. After thousands of Hidéyori's followers had committed hara-kiri, and his own body had been burned into ashes, the Christian cause was irretrievably ruined.
Hidétada, the successor of Iyéyasŭ in Yedo, who ruled from 1605 to 1622, seeing that his father's peaceful methods had failed in extirpating the alien politico-religious doctrine, now pronounced sentence of death on every foreigner, priest, or catechist found in the country. The story of the persecutions and horrible sufferings that ensued is told in the voluminous literature which may be gathered from every country in Europe;[20] though from the Japanese side "The Catholic martyrology of Japan is still an untouched field for a [native] historian."[21] All the church edifices which the last storm had left standing were demolished, and temples and pagodas were erected upon their ruins. In 1617, foreign commerce was restricted to Hirado and Nagasaki. In 1621, Japanese were forbidden ever to leave the country. In 1624, all ships having a capacity of over twenty-five hundred bushels were burned, and no craft, except those of the size of ordinary junks, were allowed to be built.