Posted: 27 March 2005 at 7:07am | IP Logged

Tokugawa Ieyasu hesitated to retaliate against Captain Pessao when he arrived in Nagasaki aboard the Madre de Deus, since the ship's cargo represented such a valuable economic benefit to Japan. At about the same time, the Spanish galleon San Francisco ran aground in Edo Bay. The ship's captain, Governor Don Rodrigo de Vivero y Velasco, was brought to Edo and asked if the Spanish could meet the Japanese demand for silk. The governor's enthusiastic reply that Spain would gladly send two or three ships each year to Japan proved to Tokugawa Ieyasu the Japanese could live without the Portuguese. They also found they could play the Spanish off against the Portuguese and the Protestant Dutch and English off against the Spanish Catholics. In early January 1610, the Japanese struck a blow against the Portuguese from which they never fully recovered when they attacked and sank the Madre de Deus as it departed Nagasaki.

In 1609, the same year the Dutch received Japanese permission to establish a trading base at Hirado, administrator Jacques Specx sent a shipload of pepper to Tsushima Island, bound for Korea. Thedaimyo of Tsushima sent the ship back to Hirado (Figure 1). It was difficult for the VOC to swallow that the trade monopoly with Korea was in hands other than theirs and they were keen to change that situation. In 1611, Tokugawa Ieyasu received a letter from The Hague in Holland dated December 18, 1610, and addressed to the "most Almighty Emperor and King of Japan."  In his letter, Prince Maurits asserted the true object of the Catholics in Japan was the fomentation of political dissension and civil strife. He also wrote:

"Furthermore my subjects are willing to visit and trade sincerely all countries and places, I thus request Your Imperial Majesty that the same trade on Corea may favor Your Majesty's help."

Despite the lovely words, the prince got nothing. In fact, the message struck a raw nerve.

Tokugawa Ieyasu once tolerated the presence of Christian missionaries, but he soon concluded they were a potential menace to Japan. His advisors warned him that Christian doctrine enjoined the faithful to obey their spiritual leaders (the Jesuits), not their temporal leader (the Shogun). The Dutch and English fanned growing suspicions that Christian missionaries were actually the forerunners of Spanish colonization and attempts to dominate the Far East. These suspicions were enhanced by the arrogance of Sebastian Vizcaino, who obtained Japanese permission to survey Japan's east coast in 1611-1613 for ports that could be used by Spanish galleons bound for Mexico from the Philippines if they were blown off course. Ieyasu became further irritated against the Christians by intrigues involving the Christian daimyo Lord Arima in Kyushu and by the discovery that some of Tokugawa's own household were Christians.

The shifting political winds and aggressive missionaries finally tested the limits of Tokugawa Hidetada's patience. On January 27, 1614, he issued an edict that prohibited the practice of Christianity in Japan. Although the edict was not strictly enforced, it had a chilling effect on missionaries and Christians alike, many of whom survived only by being discreet. Two years later, Shogun Tokugawa restricted all foreign merchants, except the Chinese, to the ports of Nagasaki and Hirado and restricted foreign residents to Edo, Kyoto, and Sakai. A dramatic example of the vigorous and determined campaign to root out Christian missionaries and their followers occurred in 1621, when a Japanese junk transporting two Spanish Franciscans was intercepted off the Formosa coast and escorted to Hirado. Both friars were executed on orders from the Shogun, along with the entire ship's crew and every Christian prisoner in the jails of Suzuta and Nagasaki. On September 10, 1622, fifty-five Christians were publicly burned or beheaded in Nagasaki, including a number of women and children. A total of 120 missionaries and converts were executed in Japan that year.

Tokugawa Iemitsu, Hidetada's son and the third Tokugawa Shogun, celebrated his rise to power in early 1623 by ordering fifty Christians burned at the stake in Edo. He persecuted Christians with a cold-blooded fervor that exceeded that of his father and grandfather. Iemitsu accelerated Japan's growing tendency toward seclusion by further tightening the restrictions on foreigners, securing the benefits of foreign trade for himself, and preventing the Kyushu daimyo from increasing their power through independent trade with foreigners. Tokugawa Iemitsu expressed Japan's official seclusion policy in five separate directives issued between 1633 and 1639 to his two commissioners in Nagasaki. The first of his edicts closed Japan to all outside foreign interference. The seventeen-article directive issued in 1633 prohibited all Japanese ships and subjects from leaving Japan for a foreign country without a license. Any Japanese subject living abroad, except those who had resided abroad less than five years and had been unavoidably detained, would be put to death if they tried to return to Japan. He ordered the Nagasaki commissioners to investigate anyone suspected of being a Christian and offered a reward to anyone who revealed the location of a foreign priest. Foreign ships arriving in Japan were put under armed guard and thoroughly searched for foreign priests. Any foreigner who helped a foreign priest or any other prohibited foreigner would be imprisoned.

The shogun's edicts of 1634 and 1635 were similar to the first, but the 1635 edict was more specific in its prohibitions . By 1636, no Japanese ship, without exception, could leave Japan for any reason and those who were already on foreign shores were absolutely forbidden to return. A fourth edict, issued in 1636, contained nineteen articles that further increased the pressure against foreigners. The children of "southern barbarians" (Portuguese and Spanish) were forbidden from remaining in Japan and any Japanese who adopted these children, together with the children, were handed over to the Portuguese for deportation.

Beginning in 1569, the Shimabara Peninsula, which stretches southeastward from Nagasaki, and the Amakusa Islands to the south of the peninsula became home to thousands of Christian converts thanks to the missionary activities of Father Luis d'Almeida and the supportive efforts of the Christian daimyo Konishi Yukinaga (Figure 2). After Lord Konishi's defeat by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Kyushu became the domain of Lord Matsukura Shigemasa, a brutal tyrant who squeezed the peasants for nearly everything they had. In addition to the regular taxes paid by each household, which included an annual tribute of rice, wheat and barley, farmers were forced to turn over 80% of their crops and livestock and obliged to perform other tasks that increased Lord Matsukura's wealth. Lord Terazawa Hirotaka, Governor of Nagasaki, heavily taxed his subjects in the small town of Shimabara and conscripted laborers to build the massive Shimabara Castle, completed in 1625. High taxes and forced labor did not exhaust Lord Terazawa's harsh demands. The peasants of Amakusa and Shimabara were also mercilessly persecuted for their foreign faith and punished for the slightest offenses. The most common punishments were crucifixion, being boiled alive, or being hung over a burning pit and left to suffocate.

Less than a year after Lord Terazawa Hirotaka's death in 1633, his son, Terazawa Katakata, Lord of Amakusa, joined with Lord Matsukura in executing peasants who could not pay their taxes. The shogun's anti-Christian edicts only added to the sport. A farmer who refused to pay up was forced to wear a coat made of straw (mino, in Japanese) which was then was set ablaze. According to Nicholas Koeckebacker, the Dutch administrator in Hirado, the Japanese described the victim's agonizing pain as mino odori, or "raincoat dancing."

Living in grinding poverty and unable to tolerate the unceasing insolence and atrocious tyranny of the governors and Lord Matsukura's officers, the peasants of Shimabara believed the end was near and desperately looked for a savior to deliver them. They found him in Masuda Shiro, a charismatic sixteen-year-old who quickly emerged as a rebel leader. In October 1637, peasants from Shimabara and the nearby Amakusa islands, together with large numbers of ronin (samurai without a master), launched a rebellion. Angry peasants, armed with only with swords, rakes and rocks directed much of their anger at Shimabara Castle. They burned the town of Shimabara to the ground, killing one of the governors and more than thirty noblemen. In one instance, when a farmer's virgin daughter was seized, stripped, and tortured with burning sticks for his nonpayment of debts, the man retaliated by killing an "officer of justice" and his companions. Once the gauntlet had been thrown down, there was no turning back.

On November 8, as soon as the Portuguese "Black Ship" sailed from Nagasaki for Macao, the Governors of Nagasaki also departed for the imperial court at Edo. Soon after they reached Edo they got word of the rebellion spreading in Shimabara. Without waiting to learn of the details, Lord Matsukura Shigemasa and the Nagasaki daimyo hurriedly set out from Edo to meet the challenge. Since Nagasaki was designated a Crown city, Lord Terazawa Katakata quickly marshaled reinforcements to guard the suburbs. Over 40,000 men of Chikugo camped in the hills around Nagasaki under orders to defend the city and keep its inhabitants under surveillance. No one could move around freely without offering documents to prove their residence. Lord Terazawa also dispatched nine noblemen with 3,000 samurai from northern Kyushu to suppress the Amakusa rebels and punish the ringleaders. The rebels decimated Lord Terazawa's small force two days later, killing 2,800 men in a pitched battle fought on December 27.

On January 2, 1638, Lord Matsukura and Lord Terazawa set out for Shimabara accompanied by a force of 500 samurai. An additional 800 samurai from Omura along with four large ships arrived in Nagasaki to guard the river approach to the city. The same day, 800 samurai from Hizen arrived at Isahaya, about twenty miles west of Shimabara. The daimyo established their field headquarters in a village about a mile-and-a-half from Shimabara Castle to await the arrival of imperial troops from Edo. The Amakusa rebels suffered heavy casualties in a repeat engagement on January 3, and at least 1,000 survivors escaped to Shimabara to fight alongside rebels led by Masuda Shiro.

During their rampage, the rebels destroyed Japanese religious symbols, replaced them with Christian emblems and took control of the abandoned Hara Castle at the southern tip of the peninsula. Within the castle's massive walls guarded by three moats, they assembled a force of 35,000 men, not including numerous women and children, under the banner of the Christian cross. In capturing Hara, they burned the daimyo's rice stores and ships and came very close to capturing Shimabara Castle. Soon after the rebellion began, Christian converts from Amakusa and Shimabara began openly proclaiming their adherence to Christianity. Many carried banners emblazoned with Portuguese inscriptions such as "Louvada seia o Santissimo Sacramento" (Praised be the most Holy Sacrament) and "San Tiago."  This physical evidence may well have confirmed their "treason" to Tokugawa Iemitsu, but they were not traitors. They were men and women driven to the brink of despair with nothing to lose by rebelling against a rapacious government.

On January 4, while the rebels were still enjoying their brief "victory," ten ninja warriors arrived at Hara from Omu Province. Every night for the next two weeks these veterans of the Battle of Sekigahara secretly entered the castle to gather intelligence and map the castle's defenses. Fifteen days later they sent a detailed report to the shogun in Edo. Tokugawa Iemitsu sent an army of over 10,000 men to lay siege to the rebel stronghold at Hara Castle. Armed with little more than a few guns, swords and lances, the rebels defiantly taunted their attackers and managed to inflict heavy losses on government forces without losing a man. Lord Matsukura scavenged some fifty pieces of artillery from Japanese ships in Nagasaki in addition to a large number of smaller weapons taken from Chinese ships and bombarded the castle. He also requested the Dutch send an armed ship from Hirado to bomb the fortress from the sea. The Dutch ship had little effect on the siege and the rebels managed to kill two Dutch sailors before it departed.

The roads and fields around Hara Castle were littered with countless men who died from exposure to the bitter cold winter weather, many of whom had never fired a shot. Rebel raids, such as the deadly assault on February 3 which killed over 2,000 Hizen warriors, the governor and many noblemen, only compounded the attackers' misery. Masuda Shiro's rebellious peasants fiercely held off the shogunate's samurai for four months until dwindling supplies and cold weather began to take their toll. In early February, six defectors from Hara Castle brought Lord Matsukura some welcome news. Hara Castle had provisions for only seventy days and the defenders along the outer perimeter lacked both gunpowder and provisions.

Government forces decisively crushed the rebellion on Amakusa by mid-February. Fifty diehard rebels crossed the narrow strait to Shimabara and joined with the rebels in Hara Castle for the final showdown. Beginning on March 10, a combined force of nearly 200,000 warriors under the command of Lord Itakura Shigemasa assembled on the plains of Shimabara:  30,000 from Chikuzen, 40,000 from Higo; 25,000 from Chikugo, 2,700 from Bungo, 3,000 from Amakusa, 5,000 from Omura, 3,000 from Hirado, and 500 men belonging to Lord Terazawa Katakata. Faced with the prospect of a long siege and certain starvation, the rebels took the initiative and conducted a night assault against the Hizen, Bungo and Chikugo forces on April 4. Captured prisoners from the confused battle that left 380 rebels dead, revealed that the rebels were without food, gunpowder and ammunition. Hizen samurai took advantage of the information and captured the castle's outer defense perimeter on April 12. The castle moats filled with the dead and dying as rebels withdrew toward the main castle, reduced to throwing cooking pots at their attackers.

Fires surrounded Hara Castle during the rebellion's brutal and merciless final act on April 15, 1638. Between 5,000 and 6,000 rebels chose to burn rather than surrender. Many rebels threw their children into the flames to prevent them from being taken and cruelly put to death. After taking Hara Castle, government forces systematically slaughtered everyone they encountered. Not a single rebel survived the Battle at Hara Castle except those who fled, and they were later hunted down and executed. Masuda Shiro was captured and decapitated and his head was sent to Nagasaki and exhibited. The ferocity of the final assault is evident from the 10,800 rebel heads taken in the final two days of fighting and placed in the fields beneath the castle walls. Stretcher cases, countless wounded and servants weeping for their dead masters filled the roads leading from Shimabara;  gruesome testimony to the brutality of the battle. The castle itself was later destroyed and the combined lands of Shimabara and Amakusa were divided among various daimyo.

The governors and daimyo of Kyushu tried to make the insurrection in Shimabara and Amakusa appear to be the result of religious fervor, largely to deflect attention from their own despotic excesses and prevent their losing favor with the Tokugawa shogunate. The violence of the rebellion and the setbacks encountered by the shogun's forces stunned the bakufu in Edo. Despite the economic benefits brought to Japan by the Black Ships from Macao, Tokugawa Iemitsu saw the hand of foreign Christian adversaries in the Shimabara Rebellion. He now feared not only Christianity, but the possibility that Spain would try to duplicate through force of arms and conversion in Japan what it had already achieved in the Philippines.

Determined to end the Portuguese trade, Tokugawa Iemitsu resolved to prohibit Christianity in Japan and issued an edict that called for a policy of strict national seclusion. No foreign ships were allowed to enter Japanese ports, and no Japanese citizen was permitted to leave or reenter Japan. The Portuguese trade ships arriving in Japan that year were turned away without unloading their cargo. In May 1639, the bakufu expressly forbid Portuguese ships from coming to Japan and all Portuguese and all children of mixed racial parentage were ordered out of the country. The last of the Portuguese Black Ships remaining in Japan sailed for Macao on October 17, 1639, carrying news of the end of an epoch.

In June 1640, the Macao Senate foolishly dispatched an empty Portuguese trade ship to Nagasaki carrying four of its leading citizens who hoped to plead for a resumption of trade. The Governor of Nagasaki received the entourage graciously, but the Grand Council at Edo answered by ordering sixty-one of the ship's multinational compliment executed. Thirteen Chinese crewmen were released to return to Macao with the dreadful news. The official rescript concerning the execution of the Macao Embassy directly linked the actions of the "worm-like barbarians of Macau" with the Shimabara Rebellion.

"If we had not destroyed and annihilated them [the rebels] as quickly as possible, their numbers would have greatly increased, and the revolt would have spread like the rebellion of Chang Lu [revolt of Yellow Turbans in China in 184 AD] . . . The instigators of this revolt were deserving of the severest punishment, and therefore a government envoy was sent to Nagasaki, warning your people that they should never return to this country, and that if they did, everybody on board the ships would be killed infallibly, . . ."

Japan had been moving toward isolation for some time, but the Shimabara Rebellion brought a quick end to Japanese contact with the outside world. Only the Dutch were allowed to remain in Japan, partly because of their assistance against the Christian rebels at Hara Castle and partly because they alone never declared themselves to be Christian, or at least never expressed any intention to conduct missionary activities. In 1640, the Dutch factory on Hirado was ordered to move to Deshima, a rocky, artificial island exactly one hectare in size originally built in Nagasaki Bay in 1635-36 to house Portuguese merchants.

Deshima was tightly packed with offices, warehouses, guest houses for visiting officers and dignitaries, and employee barracks. There was no church or minister, since the Dutch were prohibited from practicing Christianity on Deshima. Food provided by the VOC and the Japanese included chickens, fish, fresh fruits and vegetables. Those who died on Deshima had to be taken five miles out to sea and dumped overboard, since the Japanese prohibited burials on the island. Every Dutch ship that anchored at Nagasaki had to lock its artillery pieces and turn over all weapons and bibles to the Japanese along with the ship's sails and rudder to prevent it from leaving without permission. The Dutch had to live on Deshima without their wives and families and were prohibited from crossing the small bridge between the island and the mainland without permission and that was seldom granted. If the Japanese wanted contact with the Dutch for any reason, a small delegation was permitted to cross the bridge. The Chinese, though initially unfettered in their trade with Japan, were eventually placed under similar restrictions.

The Japanese considered Holland to be a vassal state, but had only a vague idea of its actual location and their demeanor towards the Dutch was, at best, well-mannered arrogance. The Dutch were considered foul-smelling strangers and expected to behave humbly and respectfully toward all Japanese. Most of the VOC chiefs succeeded in making themselves "beloved and pleased" by bearing every condition imposed by the Japanese and telling them whatever they liked to hear. Any VOC chief who failed to properly "butter-up" the Japanese and caused friction was quickly replaced.

Dutch behavior toward the Japanese on Deshima and Dutch attitudes towards local populations elsewhere in East Asia were as different as night and day. VOC contracts with local chiefs were highly advantageous to the Dutch and if local "savages" dared to complain or, worse, dared to violently resist the Company, it hit back with a heavy hand. For example, after eight VOC employees died during a Chinese attack against the settlement at Provintien on Formosa, the Dutch military took revenge for the shedding of "Dutch Christian blood" by killing between two and three thousand Chinese in a twelve day period. Deshima proved that business could be conducted differently. If the Japanese saw no advantage to the Dutch presence, they would have expelled them just as they had the Portuguese. Likewise, if the situation had not proved so profitable to the Dutch, they would never have stayed. The different approach taken with the Japanese proved the Dutch understood that one could earn just as much profit with a little "buttering up," as by shedding blood.

The sudden move toward national seclusion legitimized and strengthened the shogun's authority domestically and effectively removed Japan as an active participant in the Ming Chinese tribute system in East Asia. The momentous decision to embark on a policy of seclusion and isolation excluded Japan from the rapid advances in science, technology and industry that took place in the Western world over the next two hundred fifty years. Except for trade with the Ryukyu Islands and Choson, which was confined to Satsuma and Tsushima Island respectively, the only foreign trade permitted was with the Dutch and Chinese on Deshima Island. Japan closed its door to the outside world and kept it closed until the mid-nineteenth century. Unlike Choson however, the Japanese kept a small crack in the door. That small crack was Deshima.

Posted: 19 July 2005 at 12:12am | IP Logged

Amakusa Shiro Memorial Hall
Kumamoto Prefecture, Amakusa District, Oyano Town

The flame of a revolutionary movement, one striving for "liberty and equality", was first lit in 1630 in the Amakusa area of Kumamoto prefecture. Before long, it has spread through the desoate fields of the region. At its heart, wrapped in the veils of legend, was "Amakusa" Shiro, the young leader and most famous revolutionist of the Amakusa - Shimabara rebellion. This memorial hall focuses on the truthful aspects of Amakusa Shiro and the masses who followed him, and shows how their hopes and dreams continue to be important today.

Hall Hours	AM9:00 - PM5:00
Closed	Year-end holiday period
Transportation	Bus: 1hr 20min. from Kumamoto Kotsu Center via Hondo-bound Express Bus to Oyano Keisatsu-sho Mae stop. Train: 55min. from Kumamoto Station via Misumi line to Misumi terminal. From Misumi station 20min. via Hondo - bound bus to Oyano Keisatsu - sho Mae stop.
Inquiries To	Amakusa Siro Memorial Hall Oaza Naka 977-1, Oyano-machi, Amakusa-gun, Kumamoto-ken 869-36 Tel. 0964-56-5311 Oyano Town hall Sightseeing Section (Kankoshokoka) Oaza Kami 1514, Oyano-machi, Amakusa-gun, Kumamoto-ken 869-36 Tel. 0964-56-1111

Amakusa Shiro: A Revolutionist Who Wanted To Create A New Era Of Freedom And Equality

In October of 1637, the people of Amakusa and Shimabara rose up together to demand "liberty and equality". This monumental action is known today as the Amakusa-Shimabara Rebellion. Its leader was a young man of only 15, Amakusa Shiro. The attempted revolution ended four months later when the revolutionary forces were wiped out in battle at harajo Castle on the Shimabara Peninsula. But in that time, the people, with Amakusa Shiro as their driving forcer were united in an unwavering pursuit of their goal.

Amakusa Shiro's real name was Shirotokisada Masuda. His father, Jinbei Masuda, was once a retainer to Yukinaga Konishi, a Christian Daimyo of what is now the Uto area of Kumamoto Prefecture. A child prodigy, at 5 his writing ability is said to have been good enough to put an adult to shame. Stories of his miracles - walking on water, healing the sick with the touch of his hands - have been passed down for many generations. The authencity of these accounts aside, there is no question that he was an outstanding young man, whose good looks and intelligence could charm anyone he came into contact with.

His oft-repeated philosophy was "Tenchi dokon banbutsu ittai, issai shujo fusen kisen," or roughly, "all things on earth originate from the same roots, all human beings without regard to rank." This vision of equality found a very receptive audience in the people of the area, who had endured many years of suffering from famine, tyranny and suppression of their religious faith.

The Amakusa islands are joined to the main island of Kyushu by the Amakusa Five Bridges. The first bridge, or Tenmonbashi, joins Oyano, in Amakusa, with Misumi, on Kyushu. The second through fifth bridges (Oyanobashi, Nakanobashi, Maejimabashi, Matsushimabashi) join Oyano with Matsushima on Amakusa Upper Island, and the road which spans them is well known as the Amakusa Pearl Line.

From Kumaoto to the Tenmonbashi Takes about 1 hour by bus or car, or 55 minutes by train to Misumi terminal. Ferries also join Amakusa with the Shimabara Peninsula. From Misumi it takes 1 hour to Shimabara Gaiko (outer port); from Matsushima, about 1.5 hours.

The ruins of Harajo Castle are 45 minutes from Shimabara Gaiko station by Shimabara private railway to harajo station, and then a 10 mintue walk. The high ground of the inner citadel is now used as a park.

1. Amakusa Five Bridges
2. Martyr's Park
3. Amakusa Christian Hall
4. Sakitsu Catholic Church
5. Amakusa "Collegio" Hall
6. Oe Catholic Church
7. Amakusa Rosario Hall
8. Harajo Castle Ruins
9. Shimabara Castle
10. Santa Maria Hall

Memorial Hall Floor Plan
1. Information
2. Entrance
3. Waiting hall
4. Time Tunnel
5. Western Ship
6. Special Theme Area - European culture and Japan
7. Projection Hall - 3D pictures of the Amakusa-Shimabara Rebellion
8. Diorama - Amakusa Shiro going ashore; the battle for Harajo castle
9. Meditation Area

Amakusa Shiro's Fight Began In The Era Of Long-Distance Navigation, When East-West Contact First Brought Ideas Of Liberty And Equality to Japan

Japan's first contact with the west came in 1543, when Portuguese sailors were washed ashore at Tanegashima in Kagoshima-ken. Japan's "discovery" came relatively late, approximately one century into the era of long-distance navigation. It was to be the Japanese people's first encounter with those they dubbed the "Southern Barbarians."

Historical Timeline And Oriterius' East India Map
1492 Columbus arrives in North America
1522 Magellan accomplishes his journey around the world
1543 Portuguese land on Tanegashima - guns introduced to Japan
1549 Francis Xavier arrives in Japan
1550 Portuguese ships first arrive in Japan
1582 Delegation of young japanese departs for Rome
1587 Hideyoshi Toyotoumi orders all missionaries deported
1609 Dutch traders establish a base in Hirado
1613 Christianity is outlawed in Japan
1635 National isolation policy is implemented

Francis Xavier
Francis Xavier first set foot in Japan in 1549. he captivated many people with the new ideas he spread through his teaching. Within a few years he had converted thousands, from peasants to Daimyo, to Christianity. This exposure to new foreign cultures planted seeds which eventually grew into some of the most significant events in Japanese history.

Folding Screen Painting
The European ships brought not only novel commodities to Japan. They were also responsible for the introduction of western manners and customs. The looks of curiosity and interest on the faces in a folding screen painting of the period give an interesting insight into people's feeling about the arrival of the new foreign cultures.

European Youth Delegation
In 1582 several Christian Daimyo organized a delegation of 4 young men and sent them to Europe. In Rome, they recieved a warm reception from the Roman people and were granted an audience with Pope Grogory XIII.

Christian Daimyo
Various Daimyo originally sought the missionaries' patronage for trade purposes. As they became personally exposed to the religion, however, their faith deepened. By the end of the 16th century Sumitada Omura, Harunobu Arima, Sorin Otomo and others had one after another converted to Christianity.

Amakusa Books
A European-style printing press, brought to the Amakusa "College" (Daishin School), became instrumental in the flourishing of Western culture. Publishing works, which came to be known as the "Amakusa Books", included Aesop's Fables among others.

Automated Clocks
In addition to commodities for trade, the European ships brought advanced machinery of the era, which greatly fascinated the Japanese people. One such item was the automated clock. It wasn't long before Amakusa and other areas began making their own products, and soon thereafter the first Japanese clock was produced.

Western Instruments
Flutes, lutes, (pictured) and other instruments also contributed to the spread of Western culture.

Chronology Of The Amakusa-Shimabara Rebellion

1623 Christianity is outlawed
1626 Underground organization is formed in Oyano
1629 Faithful are arrested in great numbers and subsequently "martyred"
1636 Famine worsens; many die of starvation

1637-38

Oct. 24 Amakusa/Shimabara peasants' representatives convene a secret meeting on Yushima island (in modern Oyano Town); Amakusa Shiro is elected leader.

Oct. 25 Forceful uprising begins in Shimabara

Oct. 27 Forceful uprising begins in Amakusa

Dec.5 Amakusa-Shimabara forces link up and occupy Harajo castle on the Shimabara peninsula

Dec. 20 40,000 men of the Shogunte army attack Harajo area and are beaten back

Jan. 1 Shogunate army again fails in an assault on the castle. Their Supreme Commander Shigemasa Itakura is killed in the battle

Jan. 4 Nobutsuna Matsudaira assumes command of the Shogunate forces

Jan. 13 Dutch ships commence firing on the castle

Feb. 27 Shogunate forces again lay siege to the castle

Feb. 28 Harajo falls to Shogunate forces

In 1637, the peasants of Amakusa and Shimabara, long suffering from sever religious oppression, cruel tax collection and continuing famine, were finally pushed beyond the limits of their tolerance. led by Amakusa Shiro, they rose up against this tyranny in October of that year.

In December, the respective revolutionary armies joined forces and barricaded themselved in the abandoned Harajo castle. A handwritten document of the time (pictured right) shows Amakusa Shiro's call for solidarity among the 37,000 strong army. In the three months until the castle fell, most of them never set foot outside its walls.

Under the command of Shigemasa Itakura, an army comprised of forces of serveral Kyushu Daimyo surrounded Harajo castle. In December they attacked the castle several times, though unsuccessfully. The Amakusa Shiro side, with resolute conviction and clever tactics, managed to hold out until February when additional forces sent by the Shogun finally launched the last successful attack.

The struggle for "liberty and equality" was proclaimed over when the last of 37,000 revolutionists perished in the flames of Harajo. Yet even today, long after the last battle, the fire for "liberty and equality" lit by the hand of Amakusa Shiro continues to burn on in the hearts of the people of Amakusa and Shimabara.

Posted: 19 July 2005 at 12:14am | IP Logged

As seen through the eyes of Japanese history and contemporary folklore, the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637-1638 has often been depicted as a heroic but doomed act of victims of the Tokugawa despotism, and an uprising tinged with a Christian character. But whether or not one can ascribe a religious origin to the rebellion, or whether the deeper causes were of an economic nature not only agitated the concerned authorities at the time but has long been and remains an intriguing subject for historians of this event. Led by a youth called Masuda Shiro from Amakusa, the peasant rebels of Shimabara, along with their Christian convert followers, held out against the overwhelming Tokugawa forces until driven to the brink by hunger and eventual massacre in a final assault on 12 April 1638 in their stronghold in Hara Castle. Ignominiously, the Dutch at Hirado acquiesced in the Tokugawa request to dispatch a warship to attack the rebel headquarters. More importantly, the episode turned the tables absolutely against Christian activities in the country leading to the final expulsion orders against the Portuguese traders.

The account of the Shimabara rebellion by Duarte Correa, a Portuguese sea captain turned Jesuit or Jesuit sympathizer, published in Lisbon in 1643, deserves special mention even alongside contemporary Japanese and Dutch accounts. Dated October 1638, Correa s account takes the form of a carta or letter addressed to the "Jesuit father in Macau," Ant nio Francisco Cardim (1596-1659), pioneer mapmaker of Japan and eminent martyrologist. Ironically, given Correa s own immolation at the hands of religious adversaries, the carta was dedicated to Bishop Dom Francisco de Castro, the Inquisitor General of the Kingdom of Portugal. Still, we do not know how this letter was smuggled out of Omura prison where Correa was incarcerated, or how it was delivered up to Macau and eventually Portugal. Nevertheless, it provides a rare and sympathetic account of the rebellion from one of the victims of the persecution. Yet, it is not a jaundiced account, as Correa reveals some compassion and respect for the victims of this epic battle on both sides.

Leon Pages is the first historian in the modern period to make use of Correa a account; indeed, he reprints the Portuguese version as an appendix. Pages describes Correa as a former ship captain and merchant who visited Japan for the first time in 1619. G.J.C. Henriques, writing in 1901, remarks that little is known of Correa, aside from what is set forth in his pamphlet. But citing Barbosa Machado s Historical Dictionary, Henriques states that, having left his birthplace, Alemquer, Correa travelled to the East where, in Macau, he married a women "of virtuous antecedents." She evidently left him a widower, he continues, as his account reveals that he was received into the Jesuit Order at the hands of the Provincial Father Matheus de Couros. According to Machado's account, Correa then travelled to Nagasaki where, upon learning of his Christian identity, the authorities had him arrested and, on 4 November 1637, removed to Omura. Having suffered various tortures to induce him to renounce the faith, Correa was bound to the stake and "roasted" in August 1639. But, as Pages elaborates, Correa would have had more than a premonition of his fate, as he was earlier witness in Nagasaki to the persecutions of 1622, 1626, 1627 and 1628, and offered testimony to ecclesiastical authorities in, respectively, Manila and Macau.

It is thus of great interest that Henriques republished Correa's account in Alemquer, Portugal under the title An Account of the RISING AT XIMABARA and of the notable siege thereof, and of the deaths of our Portuguese fellow-countrymen for the faith. Coincidentally, Alemquer was also Correa's birthplace. All the more felicitous, then, that Henriques rendered this work into English, especially as he found that only two copies of the 1643 document had survived, one held in the Lisbon Public Library, and the other which he privately purchased at a book sale in Lisbon. To embellish this narrative, very few copies of Henriques translation exist today. Writing in 1988, the historian Benjamin Vieira Pires describes the Henriques translation "as rare as the Portuguese version." The present author s copy was "discovered" in a alfarrabista or second-hand bookshop in the Bairos Alto quarter of Lisbon.

While a number of standard accounts of the Shimabara Rebellion have drawn upon or allude to the 1643 document, to my knowledge, no full accounting of Correa s narrative has appeared in English language and no use has been made of Henriques translation and valuable preface in twentieth century writing on the Shimabara Rebellion. It is of interest that none have challenged the authenticity of the document, nor its general interpretation, although some have sought to corroborate with the use of Dutch and Japanese documents. Indeed, Boxer offers that since all of Correa s informants were Japanese and none of them Christian ("as far as is known"), then there is no reason to doubt the truth of his broader statements. The following offers only a slightly contextualized rendering of the entire Duarte manuscript, at least in the interest of making this work better known to an English readership.

First Stirrings of Rebellion

According to Correa, on 8 November 1637, as soon as the Macau ships departed Nagasaki, the Governors of Nagasaki (Nagasaki bugyo) also set out for the court at Edo. No sooner had they arrived, however, than news was received of a rebellion in the Kingdom of Arima by the Christians of Shimabara who had killed one of the governors and more than thirty nobleman. The rebels had also besieged the fortress at Shimabara and burnt down all the houses in the town. News of the rebellion soon reached Omura and Nagasaki, although it was then unknown whether the rebellion was Christian motivated or connected with the tax burden. In any event, the Nagasaki Governors returned poste haste to the city on 17 January 1638 relieved to find it secure. But, as Nagasaki was designated a Crown city (tenryo), reinforcements were speedily assembled to guard the suburbs. More than 40,000 men of Chikugo were quartered in the hills with the duty to defend the city and keep its inhabitants under surveillance. No one could move around freely without offering letters testifying as to residence. Similarly, reinforcements were rushed to defend the hills surrounding Shimabara.

Events in Amakusa

To interrupt Correa s account, it should be mentioned that the Shimabara Rebellion had important preludes and was of broader geographical scope than the Shimabara peninsula. As with the peninsula, the remote Amakusa Islands served as a cradle of the forbidden religion after the first exclusion acts were brought down. Beginning with the evangelization of Lu s d Almeida in February 1569 and continuing under the Christian daimyo, Konishi Yukinaga (Don Augustino), Amakusa boasted many converts. With the arrival in Nagasaki in July 1590 of the first printing Jesuit press, Amakusa and, before it, Katsusa in Shimabara also served as centres of missionary activity. But after Konishi's defeat, Amakusa came under the domain of Terazawa Hirotaka, Governor of Nagasaki from 1592-1602.

But, Correa relates, about the same time as events unfolded in Shimabara, certain villages in Amakusa commenced to rebel. According to some of his informants, this was because of their Christian faith, and, according to others, because of the tyranny practised by the daimyo of Arima. In any case, as soon as the "lord of Amacusa", Terazawa [Katakata, son of Hirotaka who died in 1633], received news of the revolt, he dispatched nine noblemen with 3,000 warriors. In a battle fought on 27 December 1637, Terazawa s forces were routed with a loss of 2,800 killed. Survivors escaped and the wounded were evacuated to Nagasaki. Among those killed was Miwake Tobe, a general and a man of great income and high status. Correa is in no doubt as to the Christian zeal of the rebels women included who shouted the names of Jesus and Mary at the enemy. But in a subsequent battle on 3 January 1638, the Amakusa rebels suffered many casualties, with at least 1,000 survivors fleeing the scene only to regroup in Shimabara alongside the rebels on the peninsula.

Nicholas Koeckebacker, the Dutch factor in Hirado who explained these events to superiors in Batavia, corroborates that the rebellion at Amacusa was out of discontent at the "many vexations" inflicted upon them by their overlord, the Prince of Karatsu. As the Dutchman witnessed, on 25 December 1637, Karatsu, fifteen miles north of Hirado, sent numerous boat loads of soldiers to Amakusa to punish the ringleaders, only to be routed. He adds that a few days later the Christians of Arima (Shimabara) made common cause with the peasant-rebels of Amakusa, destroying Japanese religious symbols and replacing them with Christian emblems. Writing on 10 January, Koeckebacker put the number of rebels at 18,000. But on 17 February Koeckebacker reported that the rebellion on Amakusa had been decisively crushed, observing that fifty diehard rebels had crossed over the narrow strait to Shimabara for a final showdown.

The Shimabara Rebellion

Correa continues that the Shimabara rebels took over two fortresses, "Ficnojo" and "Haranojo" (Hara fortress). This latter, today a tourist and memorial site, surrounded by three walls with three moats, was occupied. Rallying some 35,000 men, not including numerous women and children, they burned the daimyo s rice stores and vessels and came very close to capturing the Shimabara fortress. Meanwhile, the government plan to defeat the rebels was drawn up in Nagasaki by the Governor of Nagasaki, joined by "Nangatodono" who hurriedly returned from a visit to the court to meet the challenge. On 2 January 1638 the two governors set out for Shimabara accompanied by a force of 500 men wearing their respective insignia. Additionally, they requested 800 men from Omura along with four large vessels to guard the river at Nagasaki. On the same day 800 men from Hizen arrived at Isahaya. After the governors of Nagasaki arrived near Shimabara they established their residence in a village half a league (a mile and a half) distant from the fortress to await the arrival of lords from the court. The rebels in turn defended the Hara fortress a further eight leagues (some 24 miles) distant from Shimabara fortress but within sight across the plain.

Correa explains that, according to information supplied by a government spy, the rebel force numbered 30,000 armed with some guns, swords and lances. The government, on its side, rallied fifty pieces of artillery brought in from Nagasaki from Japanese vessels, in addition to a large number of smaller weapons taken from Chinese ships. The government then set about the construction of an earthwork to facilitate the bombardment of the rebel force. As this strategy had little effect, they requested the services of a Dutch ship brought in from Hirado to bomb the fortress from the seaward. In this affair, also corroborated by Dutch sources. The rebels managed to kill a Dutchman on the main-top and another in the act of ascending, before it departed the scene.

Still under siege and taunting the enemy, the defiant rebel forces inflicted heavy losses on government forces without loss on their side. In February, however, six defectors from the rebel ranks brought welcome news to the attackers that the outer perimeter of rebel defences lacked both powder and provisions, while only seventy days provisions remained in the main fortress. In Correa s account, the attacking forces suffered innumerable losses from exposure to the winter cold leaving the roads and fields literally full of dead bodies. Their misery was compounded by rebel sorties, such as the one on 3 February in which the rebels killed over 2,000 men from Hizen including the governor and many nobles. Altogether Hizen had lost 8,000 men slain by the rebels, many of whom had never fired a shot.

From 10 March the government forces began to assemble in Shimabara. By the beginning of April, 30,000 rebel forces were squared off against a combined force of 200,000: 30,000 from Chikuzen, 40,000 from Higo; 25,000 from Chikugo, 2,700 from Bungo, 3,000 from Amakusa, 5,000 from Omura, 3,000 from Hirado, and 500 men belonging to the lord of Shimabara. Faced with the prospects of a long siege and certain death by hunger, on 4 April the rebel forces took the initiative of mounting a nocturnal assault upon Hizen, Bungo and Chikugo forces. This attack, which saw much indiscriminate and confused fighting, left approximately 380 rebels dead. Captured prisoners revealed that no food remained in the fortress; and neither did any powder or cannon balls remain. Taking advantage of this intelligence, Hizen opened an assault on the fortress on 12 April capturing the outer line of the rebel defence system. Forced back to the middle line of defence the rebels were reduced to flinging their last cooking pots at the attackers. Even their defensive ditch (34 feet deep and 80 feet wide) began to fill up with dead and living. The end came on 15 April (1638) "not one being left except those who fled, and were caught and put to death later on."

According to Correa, after the victory by the government forces, some 35,000 to 37,000 men, women and children were decapitated, their heads placed around the field. Judging from the rich clothes and swords of many the victims they appeared to be of noble blood. The leader of the rebellion, Correa confirms, was the eighteen year old "Maxondanoxiro" (Masuda Shiro), a native of Higo, also going by the Christian name of Jerome. Shiro was captured and decapitated by a soldier of the lord of Higo and his head taken to Nagasaki and exhibited. Still, the number of dead left upon the plain was said to be double that of the rebels. Correa states that from the vantage point of his prison located beside the road from Shimabara, he witnessed numerous servants weeping for their dead masters in addition to countless wounded and stretcher cases, testimony of the ferocious battle. As a sequel to the rebellion, the Hara fortress was destroyed and the lands of Arima and Amakusa together were divided among various lords. The hapless lords of Nagato, Arima and Shimabara were beheaded.

Millennial Rebels or Economic Victims?

Whether pre-modern peasant rebellions were laced with millennial objectives or whether peasants were driven to rebel out of economic hardship, often exacerbated by rapacious tax burdens and other political impositions, is also a question that has engaged modern historians leading to an impressive and complex literature.

But on these questions Correa s voice is refreshingly modern. Correa writes that, according to an enquiry by the Nagasaki Governors as to the cause of the rebellion, they found it owing to "the atrocious tyranny of the Governors appointed by Nangatodono, Lord of the Lands of Arima." To wit, in addition to the ordinary annual tribute of rice, wheat and barley imposed upon farmers they were forced to pay two other imposts, one on the nono (ninth part) and the other on the canga (for each yoke of oxen?), and the prime leaves of the better half of each tobacco plant, along with specified numbers of egg plants. In addition to regular taxes paid by each household, they were also obliged to cut wood for the soldiers used in salt pans and otherwise increase the revenues of the lord. These impositions did not exhaust the demands made upon the people, however. Persecutions and punishments imposed upon women included plunging them into icy water. In one case a farmer whose virgin daughter was seized, stripped, and tortured by burning sticks, for his nonpayment of debts, retaliated by killing an "officer of justice" and his companions.

But Correa is judicious in his analysis. He states that it was because the farmers were unable to bear any longer the insolence and tyranny practised by the Governors and "Nangatodono's officers that they rose in rebellion against their lord. It was not because they were Christians, as it answered the purpose of the lord s officers to say that it was, so as to hide their despotism, and prevent their losing favor with the Tokugawa leaders. Correa hedges a bit in his own conclusion stating that he could not adduce cause but that, in any case, "those who were Christians went about, as it [if] were thunderstruck, saying it was God s punishment."

One can concur that the religious dimension of the rebellion was also tinged with a millennial element and, not to put too fine a point on it, would not have been out of tune with even pre-Christian and Buddhist ritualistic. In any case, as Murdoch and Boxer have written, whatever the real or ostensible cause of the rising, it soon assumed a religious character. The point is that the Christianized rebels of Amakusa and Shimabara, in common with generations of peasant rebels in Japan, sprang from a common root. That they carried banners with Portuguese inscriptions such as "Louvada seia o Santissimo Sacramento" (Praised be the most Holy Sacrament) and "San Tiago" may have confirmed their treason in the eyes of the bakufu, but for devotees of a transcendent religious ethos, it may also be seen as mere talisman or religious epiphenomena of a messianic belief in divine redemption. Indeed, once the gauntlet had been thrown down, there was no turning back. Murdoch opines that "in mere moral the insurgent (so-called) farmers of 1637-38 were far very far superior to their adversaries." Such a moral interpretation also fits the facts, namely that, despite the overpowering firepower of the shogunate, the rebels were practically unwavering in their devotion to an ideal.

But these thoughts are not novel. Sansom, writing in 1931, also suggests that it is "sometimes difficult to disentangle the spiritual from the economic factor" as in such movements as the (fanatic) Ikko or Ikki risings of the fifteenth century, a reference to militant "followers of Amida" whose defensive actions sapped the power of the feudal authority in diverse parts of Japan in this epoch. But, we repeat, on these questions Correa was eloquent, these were peasants who, driven to the brink, had nothing to lose by rebelling against a rapacious government.

Sequels

Jolted by the violence of the Shimabara Rebellion and the various setbacks encountered by the Tokugawa forces, the bakufu resolved to prohibit completely Christianity. To this end, in the spring of 1639, it formally forbade the coming of Portuguese ships to Japan, while all Portuguese and all children of mixed racial parentage were ordered out of the country. Boxer observes that Duarte, executed at Nagasaki on 28 May, was the first victim of this policy. The last captain-majors remaining in Japan departed by galliots on 17 October reaching Macau at the end of October along with the dismaying news of the end of an epoch. Unwisely, in June 1640, the Macau Senate dispatched to Nagasaki four of its leading citizens in an attempt to have the exclusion policy reversed. While the bugyo was cordial, the Grand Council at Edo (roju) answered by having sixty-one of the ship's multinational compliment executed and thirteen spared to return to Macau with the shocking news. It is not so surprising that the official rescript concerning the execution of the Macau Embassy linked the actions of the "worm-like barbarians of Macau" with the Shimabara Rebellion.

If we had not destroyed and annihilated them [the rebels] as quickly as possible, their numbers would have greatly increased, and the revolt would have spread like the rebellion of Chang Lu [revolt of Yellow Turbans in China in AD 184] . . . The instigators of this revolt were deserving of the severest punishment, and therefore a government envoy was sent to Nagasaki, warning your people that they should never return to this country, and that if they did, everybody on board the ships would be killed infallibly, etc., etc.

In 1646, the year of the Portuguese restoration, an envoy of the House of Braganza was admitted to Nagasaki, along with the crew of a Japanese junk which had taken shelter in Macau during a storm. Yet the Portuguese were dismissed with the order never to return. Catholicism, driven underground, then entered the long kakure tradition. Again, in July 1685, the Portuguese of Macau attempted a diplomatic opening with Nagasaki. The Dutch in Deshima were obviously well placed to witness this event. From the pages of the Dagregister for July and August we find the following entries; (July 1685) News of a ship, which turns out to be Portuguese -- Commotion -- It brings 12 Japanese, which drifted off course to Macau -- The Portuguese do not want to trade, but ask for a "receipt" -- Some ropes, sails and anchors have been brought ashore, together with the Japanese -- their story They have been imprisoned -- The bongiosen (bugyo) suspects the Japanese and Portuguese -- The Governor sends refreshments -- We fear for the life of the Japanese -- The Portuguese ask permission to await the arrival of the Dutch ships -- (August 1685) The Portuguese ship is ordered to leave -- The Portuguese receive permission to leave and are warned never to return again; their reward -- The Portuguese leave for Macau -- (April 1688) The Japanese who had drifted off to Macau, are released.

From a world-history perspective, it is significant that, as far as the bakufu was concerned, the rebellion was the last straw. Whatever the benefits of the Macau trade in the past, the Japanese saw in the rebellion -- however erroneously -- the hand of foreign Christian adversaries. Fears that the Spanish would attempt to replicate in Japan what they achieved in the Philippines by force of arms and conversion was dreaded by the shogunate. But, at the same time, the poor showing of the samurai armies against the Christian peasants of Shimabara led to the cancellation of a projected joint Japanese-Dutch expedition against Manila. Not only did the rebellion ring down the sakoku or seclusion period, but it effectively removed active Japanese participation in the tributary-trade system as developed under Ming China. The new terms under which Japan participated in the Asian world-economy actually privileged the Dutch over the Iberian powers, contributing dramatically to the hegemonic sequence in seventeenth-century East Asia in which the latter irrevocably lost rank to the former.

Posted: 19 July 2005 at 12:23am | IP Logged

IT WAS in the castle town of Shimabara east of Nagasaki, with smouldering Mount Unzen in the background and the pine-covered hills of Kumamoto across the bay, that some 20,000 Christian peasants rose up against the Tokugawa military dictatorship in 1637. Even with vastly superior forces, it took the shogunate months of bitter fighting to put them down. But by 1638 thousands of the peasants and their samurai mercenaries had been slaughtered. Though many more had gone underground, where they and their descendants practised their faith in secret for the next 200 years, Japanese throughout the country were forced to register at local Buddhist temples and barred from alien faiths. The Catholic church today recognises 3,125 Japanese martyrs from the Tokugawa era.

The defeat of the Shimabara rebellion reversed a century of Christian advance in Japan. Francis Xavier, a Jesuit missionary, had arrived in 1549, and counted Japan as one of his greatest successes. By 1615, more than 500,000 of its 18m people had been converted by Xavier and his Portuguese followers.

From the start, the Tokugawa shoguns—from 1603 Ieyasu Tokugawa, then his son Hidetada, then from 1632 a grandson, Iemitsu—had viewed the Christians, with their religious intolerance and allegiance to a foreign pope, as a subversive force that must be contained. That became all the more urgent once local war lords, like the great Date in northern Japan, converted to Christianity. Had not the Tokugawa leadership in Edo (Tokyo) systematically persecuted the Christians and then all-but stamped their religion out after Shimabara, Japan might today look for its theology to Rome (and perhaps in its economy be akin to Brazil?).

The Shimabara uprising also gave the shogunate the last excuse it needed to purge the country of foreigners completely, and to tighten even further its own stranglehold on foreign trade. The shoguns knew, from the accounts of visitors from Goa, Malacca and Macau, that after the European traders came the missionaries—and after or with these the soldiers.

In the early 1600s, Ieyasu’s political reunification of Japan was still a fragile thing. His brilliant predecessor, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, had encouraged a profitable trade with the Europeans. Ieyasu, favourable at first, soon came to deem the risk of subjugation by foreigners, with their formidable ships and weaponry, too high a price to pay for the wealth it brought his exchequer.

So the squeeze began. The English surrendered their trading contracts in 1623, mainly because the Tokugawa restrictions made the business unprofitable. The next year the Spanish were forced to leave, for aiding underground missionaries. Then in 1639 the Portuguese, long associated with the Jesuits, were expelled; and their envoys were executed when they turned up again hopefully from Macau a year later. Only a small enclave of Dutch traders was allowed to remain, thanks to their non-proselytising Protestantism, along with visiting Chinese—all confined to a small island in Nagasaki bay. Meanwhile, the construction of ocean-going ships was banned. Japan was cut off.

Its centuries of isolation, from 1639 to 1853, were not thrown away. The Tokugawa era (1603-1868) put an end to centuries of warfare, ushering in a longer period of peace and stability than most nations have ever enjoyed. With virtually no foreign trade, the state was financed entirely from agricultural taxes. That meant misery for millions of ordinary Japanese. But because Ieyasu’s military machine was no longer needed to subjugate warring clans and keep the foreigners in check, the army was allowed to dwindle and its costs with it. And instead of being sword-wielding warriors, the educated samurai officers were transformed into pen-pushers for the sprawling bureaucracy needed by the highly centralised administration that Ieyasu had put in place (and which remains largely intact to this day).

Such a concentration of power engendered prolific patronage. Much of the Japanese high culture and creative wealth that we know today, from wood-block prints to kabuki theatre, blossomed during this era of seclusion. And by turning inward upon their own thoughts, the Japanese were free to develop an enduring notion of their own culture and identity. It is this national heritage from the relatively recent Tokugawa era—not the inheritance from some mythical Yamato two millennia ago, as nationalists like to think—that endows today’s Japanese with traits, tastes and talents that mark them out from their Asian neighbours.

But in technological, political and social developments, the Japanese paid a heavy price for their centuries of self-imposed isolation. They were abreast of Europe in such fields—even ahead in some—until the end of the 16th century. But they missed out on the intellectual tempest that later struck the West, bringing it the industrial revolution and such notions as individual rights and social justice. Japan has paid dearly ever since, as it struggled to catch up with western ways of thinking. Even now, this is one reason why it still lacks the confidence to make a moral, intellectual and political contribution to world affairs to match its economic one.

Posted: 19 July 2005 at 12:35am | IP Logged

Battle Remnants underscore ferocity of shogunate

A 17th century battleground is a trove of proof that rebellion was brutally crushed in feudal times, regardless of the reasons.
A carpet of human bone, hundreds of bullets and tiny metal crosses bear grim testimony to the brutal way in which 37,000 Christians and rebellious farmers died when their castle fell to shogunate forces in 1638, say archaeologists excavating the site in Minami Arima, Nagasaaki Prefecture.
Hara Castle fell Feb 28, 1638, after a three month siege. In the final two days of the battle 10,800 rebels were beheaded and between 5000 and 6000 chose to burn rather than surrender.
The attacking shogunate forces lost 1,100 men according to records from that period.
The ferocity of the attack was evident from tthe amount of charred earth around the castle, a site of about 18,000 square meteres. Archaeologists dug more than twenty ditches and found the bones in layers of ash and charcoal 30 to 40 centimetres deep.
Most of the bones are just shards, but others are more than a dozen centimetres in length. Almost intact skulls and jawbones with teeth are among the excavated items. Most were badly burnt.
Shinji Matsumoto, an official in charge of excavation of the Minami-Arima Board of Education, said the bones almost certainly are those of the defenders. He said that human remains turned up in every place that his team dug up.
The board, the Nagaski prefectural government, and the Agency for cultural affairs began a ten-year excavation project in the ruins of Hara Cstle in 1992.
According to Hirofumi Yamamoto, an assistant professor at Tokyo University, the rebels threw their children into the flames rather than risk them being taken alive and cruelly put to death.
Yamamoto, an expert on the period, saidd forces loyal to warlord called Hosokawa kept a detailed account of their attack.
Archaeologists also have unearthed more tha 400 matching bullets. The ball, made of iron or lead range from one centimtere to 1.8 centimetres in diameter. Some are unmarked, an indicaion that they missed their targets.
The team found 16 lead crosses, 2-3 centimetres in length and between 1.5 and 2.6 centimetres in witdh, along with glass rosaries and brinze icons of Christ, the Virgin Mary, Franis Xavier and other saintly figures.
The roses are of extremely crude workmanship wer apparenly cast from the molten bullets in Hara Castle. Some were obviously made in great haste because they were so prmitive.
According to document of the period, the entrenched rebels fired only a few bullets a day during the final month of the seige. This Yamamoto said suggests hat the rebels chose to melt their bullets for crosses rather tha fire them on the attacking forces.
By the end of the seige the rebels were starving and had run out of ammunition. Shogunate government records show that rebels killed around Feb 22- six days before the castle fell - had only barley and seaweed in their stomachs.
Heavy taxes led farmers in the Shimabara Pninsula of wha is now Nagasaki Prefecture to rise up against the government in 1637 and 1638. Authorities forced them to turn over 80% of their crops.
Farmers who refused were forced to wear coats made of straw - mino in Japanese - and set alight. The term used to describe the way victems writhed in pain was - mino odori - raincoat dancing, the head of the Dutch commercial mission in Nagasaki reported.
At the same time, the Tokugawa shogunate was persecuting Christians. Crucifiction was a common form of punishment as was being boiled alive ar left to suffocate over a burning pit.
This led to the Shimabara farmers to join hands with the Christians on Amakusa Island in what is now Kumamoto Prefecture.
With their supplies exhausted, the Christians and non-Christians alike presumably immersed themselves in prayer in the final days.
Hara Castle was designated a nationally important historical site in 1938, but before now it has hardly been investigated. The excavation begun in 1992 has only touched the section where the castle stood. Nothing as yet has been done about the outworks.