A Major Reason behind Japan’s Centuries long Closure to the West

The following was first posted on August 9, 2014 at 11:02 when a nuke code-named “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki 69 years ago

Toyotomi Hideyoshi who prohibited "Human Trafficking" 

by Christian Missionaries 

                      The first Japanese Embassy to Europe, in 1586

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (March 17, 1537 – September 18, 1598) was a preeminent ruler, warrior, general and politician of the Sengoku period who had finally unified the regions from Tohoku to Kyushu on September 9, 1592, thereby bringing an end to the Sengoku period that had lasted for a century in Japanese history marked by social upheaval, political intrigue and near-constant military conflict. 

When he succeeded his former liege lord Oda and initially honored his  foreign policy by giving Gaspar Coelho, Society of Jesus an opportunity to meet him at his Osaka Castle on March 16, 1586 and later by conferring a permission to propagate Christianity in Japan upon him in May 4 the same year.

However, when he conquered Kyshu island, the most southwesterly of Japan’s four main islands, he came to know that Christians had been engaged in exporting not only Japanese traditional artifacts but also Japanese women and men captured as booties by the Japanese Christianized feudal lords during military conflicts among feudal lords. 

From Nagasaki where Christianized Japanese were most concentrated in those days, Japanese women and men had been exported to the West by the Christian Missionaries. 

They had been purchasing Japanese women and men at the very low price while Christians had been preaching Japanese “their god’s mercy and grace”.

This despicable fact had really angered Toyotomi Hideyoshi and had made him decide to issue a decree of expelling Christian missionaries on June 18, 1587. However, the decree did not prohibit business with the West other than “human trafficking”.

Soon after Portuguese advanced into Asia in 15th century, they began trading Chinese as slaves.  By the late 16th century, they found it lucrative to trade Asians as slaves and reached Japan for expanding “slave trade” under the name of propagating “Christianity”.

The Tenshō embassy ( named after the Tenshō Era in which the embassy took place) sent by the Japanese Christian Lord Ōtomo Sōrin to the Pope and the kings of Europe in 1582 witnessed miseries of many Japanese sold to the West through the Christian slave trade. 

All these events had later culminated in the closure of Japan (except the designated areas) to the West.