A history of the Japanese people

by F. Brinkley; Dairoku Kikuchi

*Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "Japan," by Brinkley.

PERIOD SUBSEQUENT TO 1613

Throughout a period of two years immediately following the issue of the anti-Christian edict of 1614, the attention of Ieyasu, and indeed of the whole Japanese nation, was concentrated on the struggle which took place between the adherents of the Tokugawa and the supporters of Hideyori. That struggle culminated in an assault on the castle of Osaka, and fresh fuel was added to the fire of anti-Christian resentment inasmuch as many Christian converts espoused Hideyori's cause, and in one part of the field the troops of Ieyasu had to fight against a foe whose banners were emblazoned with a cross and with images of Christ and of St. James, the patron saint of Spain. Nevertheless, the Christian converts possessed the sympathy of so many of the feudal chiefs that much reluctance was shown to inflict the extreme penalty of the law on men and women whose only crime was the adoption of an alien religion. Some of the feudal chiefs, even at the risk of losing their estates, gave asylum to the converts; others falsely reported a complete absence of Christians in their dominions, and some endeavoured earnestly to protect the fanatics; while, as to the people at large, their liberal spirit is shown in the fact that five priests who were in Osaka Castle at the time of its capture were able to make their way to distant refuges without any risk of betrayal.

ENGRAVING: GREEN-ROOM OF A THEATRE (In the Middle of the Tokugawa
Period)

On the other hand, there were not wanting feudatories who, judging that zeal in obeying the edict would prove a passport to official reward, acted on that conviction. Notably was this true of Hasegawa, who received the fief of Arima by way of recompense for barbarous cruelty towards the Christians. Yet it is on record that when this baron sent out a mixed force of Hizen and Satsuma troops to harry the converts, these samurai warned the Christians to flee and then reported that they were not to be found anywhere. During these events the death of Ieyasu took place (June 1, 1616), and pending the dedication of his mausoleum the anti-Christian crusade was virtually suspended.

ENGLISH AND DUTCH INTRIGUES AGAINST SPANIARDS AND PORTUGUESE

It has been frequently alleged that if the Spaniards and the Portuguese endeavoured to bring the Hollanders into bad odour, the English and the Dutch intrigued equally against the Portuguese and the Spaniards. The accusation cannot be rebutted. Cocks, the factor of the English commercial mission to Japan, has himself left it on record that, being at the Yedo Court in the fall of 1616, "I enformed the two secretaries that yf they lookt out well about these two Spanish shipps in Xaxama [Satsuma] full of men and treasure, they would fynd that they were sent off purpose by the king of Spaine, having knowledge of the death of the ould Emperour [Ieyasu], thinking som papisticall tono [daimyo] might rise and rebell and so draw all the papists to flock to them and take part, by which means they might on a sudden seaz upon som strong place and keepe it till more succors came, they not wanting money nor men for thackomplishing such a strattgin." The two vessels in question were "greate shipps arrived out of New Spaine, bound, as they said, for the Philippines, but driven into that place per contrary wynd, both shipps being full of souldiers, with great store of treasure, as it is said, above five millions of pezos." It is true that a Spanish captain sent from these vessels to pay respects to the Court in Yedo "gave it out that our shipps and the Hollanders which were at Firando [Hirado] had taken and robbed all the China junks, which was the occasion that very few or non came into Japan this yeare," and therefore Cocks was somewhat justified in saying "so in this sort I cried quittance with the Spaniards." It appears, however, that the Spaniards were not believed, whereas the Englishman could boast, "which speeches of myne wrought so far that the Emperour sent to stay them, and had not the greate shipp cut her cable in the hawse so as to escape, she had been arrested." It was this same Cocks who told a Japanese "admirall" that "My opinion was he might doe better to put it into the Emperour's mynd to make a conquest of the Manillas, and drive those small crew of Spaniards from thence."

In fact, none of the four Occidental nationalities then in Japan had any monopoly of slandering its rivals. The accusation preferred by Cocks, however, must have possessed special significance, confirming, as it did, what the pilot of the San Felipe had said twenty years previously as to the political uses to which the propagandists of Christianity were put by the King of Spain, and what Will Adams had said four years earlier as to the Imperial doctrine of Spain and Portugal that the annexation of a non-Christian country was always justifiable. The "greate shipps out of New Spaine," laden with soldiers and treasure and under orders to combine with any Christian converts willing to revolt against the Yedo Government, were concrete evidence of the truth of the Spanish sailor's revelation and of the English exile's charge. It has always to be remembered, too, that Kyushu, the headquarters of Christianity in Japan, did not owe to the Tokugawa shoguns the same degree of allegiance that it had been forced to render to Hideyoshi. A colossal campaign such as the latter had conducted against the southern island, in 1587, never commended itself to the ambition of Ieyasu or to that of his comparatively feeble successor, Hidetada. Hence, the presence of Spanish or Portuguese ships in Satsuma suggested danger of an exceptional degree.

In the very month (September, 1616) when Cocks "cried quittance with the Spaniards," a new anti-Christian edict was promulgated by Hidetada, son and successor of Ieyasu. It pronounced sentence of exile against all Christian priests, not excluding even those whose presence had been sanctioned for the purpose of ministering to the Portuguese merchants; it forbade the Japanese, under penalty of being burned alive and having all their property confiscated, to connect themselves in any way with the Christian propagandists or with their co-operators or servants, and above all, to show them any hospitality. The same penalties were extended to women and children, and to the five neighbours on both sides of a convert's abode, unless these became informers. Every feudal chief was forbidden to keep Christians in his service, and the edict was promulgated with more than usual severity, although its enforcement was deferred until the next year on account of the obsequies of Ieyasu. This edict of 1616 differed from that issued by Ieyasu in 1614, since the latter did not explicitly 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. It, is also noteworthy that, just as the edict of Ieyasu was immediately preceded by statements from Will Adams about the claim of Spain and Portugal to absorb all non-Christian countries, so the edict of Hidetada had for preface Cock's attribution of aggressive designs to the Spanish ships at Kagoshima in conjunction with Christian converts. Not without justice, therefore, have the English been charged with some share of responsibility for the terrible things that ultimately befell the propagandists and the professors of Christianity in Japan. As for the shogun, Hidetada, and his advisers, it is probable that they did not foresee much occasion for actual recourse to violence. They knew 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. The foreign propagandists also might have escaped all peril by obeying the official edict and leaving Japan. They suffered because they defied the laws of the land.

Some fifty of them happened to be in Nagasaki at the time of Hidetada's edict. Several of these were apprehended and deported, but a number returned almost immediately. This happened under the jurisdiction of Omura, who had been specially charged with the duty of sending away the bateren (padres). He seems 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, for so far from proving a deterrent, the fate of the two fathers appealed widely to the people's sense of heroism. Multitudes flocked to the grave in which the two coffins were buried. The sick were carried thither to be restored to health, and the Christian converts derived new courage from the example of these martyrs. Numerous conversions and numerous returns of apostates took place everywhere.