Your search

In authors or contributors
  • This article analyzes the transition of the religious and geopolitical landscape in Japan at the turn of the seventeenth century, marked by the end of the Catholic monopoly and the arrival of the first Protestant Europeans. For fifty years, the Christian presence was perceived by the Japanese authorities as a unified bloc, despite tensions between the Iberian crowns. However, the arrival of the Dutch ship *Liefde* in 1600 and the subsequent protection granted by Tokugawa Ieyasu to its crew introduced a new variable into the European presence in the Far East. Drawing on documentary sources from the Society of Jesus—namely the correspondence of Alessandro Valignano and Bishop D. Luís Cerqueira—and on accounts by Portuguese contemporaries, the author examines the immediate reaction of the Jesuits and the agents of the Macau trade to the intrusion of the "red-haired men" (*kômôjin*). The study highlights the strategic importance of military technology, specifically the use of European artillery by Ieyasu at decisive moments such as the Battle of Sekigahara and the sieges of Osaka. It concludes that, although the immediate commercial threat posed by the newcomers was initially limited, their presence irreversibly altered the dynamics of influence, challenging Luso-Jesuit hegemony and laying the groundwork for new diplomatic and religious conflicts in the Japanese archipelago.

Last update from database: 9/11/26, 6:15 PM (UTC)

Explore