Red Seal Ships - Destinations

Destinations

The crew of the red seal ships were international, for many Chinese, Portuguese, and Dutch pilots and interpreters joined the sails. The first Red Seal ships were required to have a Portuguese pilot on board, although the Japanese progressively developed pilots of their own. The Portolan maps used on the Red Seal ships were drawn on the Portuguese model, with directions in the Japanese language.

Major Southeast Asian ports, including Spanish Manila, Vietnamese Hoi An, Siamese Ayutthaya, Malay Pattani, welcomed the Japanese merchant ships, and many Japanese settled in these ports, forming small Japanese enclaves.

The Japanese seem to have been feared throughout Asian countries, according to a contemporary, Sir Edward Michelbourne:

The Japons are not suffered to land in any port in India (Asia) with weapons; being accounted a people so desperate and daring, that they are feared in all places where they come.

A Dutch commander wrote (c. 1615): "they are a rough and a fearless people, lambs in their own country, but well-nigh devils outside of it".