Sakoku Edict of 1635 - Japan Before Seclusion

Japan Before Seclusion

Before the issuing of the exclusion edicts in 1633, Japanese fascination with European culture brought trade of various goods and commercial success to the country. Items such as eyeglasses, clocks, firearms, and artillery were in high demand in Japan, and trade began to flourish between the Japanese and Europe.

With the exchange of goods came the exchange of ideas as well. Christian missionaries, such as Francis Xavier, were of the first to travel to Japan to teach Catholicism. For a time, they were encouraged to enlighten the Japanese people, and Oda Nobunaga, during his reign as military leader of Japan in the 1570s and 1580s, encouraged the conversion of the Japanese to Catholicism. His hopes of competing with his Buddhist rivals pushed him to allow Catholic missionary activity within Japan. In Kyoto, Japan’s capital city, a large portion of the population had already been converted to Christianity by the seventeenth century.

Following Nobunaga was Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who ruled over Japan from 1582 to 1598. Anti-European attitudes began under Hideyoshi, whose suspicion of the Europeans first began with their intimidating appearance; their armed ships and sophisticated military power produced doubt and distrust, and following the conquest of the Philippines by the Spanish, Hideyoshi was convinced they were not to be trusted. The true motives of the Europeans came quickly into question.

Those who converted to Catholicism were questioned about their loyalty to Japan, and in 1597, Hideyoshi ordered the crucifixion of nine Catholic missionaries and seventeen Japanese converts. This was only the start of the hostility towards European influence and interaction; persecutions, beheadings, and forced secessions would all but eliminate the Christian community over the next few decades.