Document 1: Edict of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1587)

In 1587, the Japanese ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi demanded the trade in Japanese slaves by the Portuguese in Japan be stopped and required the Portuguese to free the Japanese they had bought, promising to return the value in silver for each freed slave. This appeared as part of a series of edicts restricting the spread of Christianity and the activities of European missionaries in Japan. One of the reasons behind Hideyoshi’s decision to issue the anti-Christian edicts was the practice of slavery by the Portuguese.

Translated from the Portuguese by Lúcio de Sousa. Published in Portuguese in Luís Fróis, História de Iapam (Lisboa: Biblioteca Nacional, 1976), vol. 4, pp. 401-403. This translation CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

The third one: I have known that the Portuguese and the Siamese and the Cambodians who come to these places for trading buy a large number of people and take them captive to their kingdoms, depriving the Japanese of their country, their family, children and friends, and this is unbearable. The priest should act in such a way that all the Japanese who have been sold so far, to India and other remote places, be returned to Japan; and, when that is not possible, because they are in remote kingdoms, at least those whom the Portuguese now have as a result of their purchase should be freed, and I will give out silver for what they cost.

Document 2: Letter from Gaspar Coelho to Claudio Acquaviva (1587)

Portuguese carracks, named black boats (kurobune or kurofune) in Japanese, were the first western ships that arrived in Japan in the 16th century. Around 1543, the Portuguese initiated their first contacts, establishing a commercial route that connected Goa, via Malacca, to Japan. From 1557 on, the city of Macau was integrated into this structure. Annually, these Portuguese carracks departed from China and carried countless Asian and European goods. On their return from Japan to Macau, in addition to silver and other Japanese goods, these ships also carried many slaves. An unofficial letter from the Vice-Provincial Jesuit Gaspar Coelho to Father General Claudio Acquaviva (Head of the Society of Jesus in Rome) dated October 2, 1587, following the publication of the anti-Christian edict in 1587 in Japan by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, explains the slave trade.

Translated from the Italian by Lúcio de Sousa. Rome, ARSI (Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu), Jap. Sin. 10 II, fl. 272. This translation CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

The second evil they[1] carry out, with which they cause enormous scandal, is to want to purchase Japanese men and women, in whatever way they can, through force. As the Japanese are poor, they represent a good opportunity of profit by selling them. The merchants are always using a thousand ways of deception. These traders travel through the villages and steal the sons and daughters from their parents. The Japanese cannot bear to see their people as slaves, or being taken to other countries. Sometimes, after the Portuguese have gotten hold of them with chains and stocks, until the carrack leaves (out of fear that the slaves might run away), some of them cut their bodies, as is their tradition, and kill themselves, and others throw themselves alive into the sea. And because the priests allowed [this] and gave authorization to the merchants stating that the Japanese could be enslaved, they practice many injustices against the Japanese. I feel a great compassion and pity to see this horrible spectacle: the poor slaves with chains being loaded into the ship.

[1] Portuguese merchants.

Document 3: The Macao Ship and Slave Trade in Nagasaki (1588)

In the next letter, the Jesuit Father Antonio López complained to Rome (to Father General Claudio Acquaviva, Head of the Society of Jesus) that, despite maintaining the title of Rector of the College of Nagasaki, he had been banished because he publicly opposed the enslavement of Japanese people. Furthermore, he accused the Spanish priest Gregorio de Céspedes of collaborating with Macao merchants in the trade of such slaves.

Translated from the Spanish by Lúcio de Sousa. Rome, ARSI (Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu), Jap. Sin. 12 II, fl. 202v. This translation CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

The other person was Father Pedro Gómez, who is now Vice-Provincial, but this was before he received his new post, on the captivity of the Japanese, which I have always been against, and because of that, I was banished from this house saying that it prevented them from carrying the Japanese captives away,[1] although they did not remove me from my post. And this is very true that I did so, but God knows how it was more of his service than that and so do men, and then it was clearly seen, because when I departed from here, Father Pedro Gómez stayed in my place, who, being old and not knowing the language,[2] they gave him a Castilian Father as helper, named Gregorio de Céspedes, and so they loaded the ship of China[3] with Japanese,[4] so that there were on it more than a thousand souls,[5] and it was very dangerous because of the prohibition of Quambacudono[6] stating, under severe penalties, that no carried people with the title of captive [should be brought] outside Japan.

[1] To be sold and sent to other countries.

[2] Japanese.

[3] Official vessel that connected Macao to Nagasaki.

[4] Slaves.

[5] More than 1000 slaves.

[6] Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Document 4: Letter from Antonio López (1588)

To illustrate the horror of slavery in the Japanese city of Nagasaki and the threats to the stability of the Jesuit mission derived from the collaboration between the members of the Society of Jesus and the slave traders, the Jesuit Antonio López describes a dark episode (1588). According to the cleric, a Portuguese merchant illegally embarked a young woman on the commercial ship bound for Macao, placing her in a box.

Translated from the Spanish by Lúcio de Sousa. Rome, ARSI (Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu), Jap. Sin. 12 II, fls. 202v-203. This translation CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

So it happened that a Portuguese, wanting to embark a girl and fearing the guards, put her in a large box and ordered her to be taken to the beach to be embarked. The poor girl, knowing what they were doing with her, shouted from within the drawer saying: “I beg you to let me out of here.” The guards, hearing the voice, took the box, which was locked, and asking for the key to open it, Father Gregorio appeared: “Leave the drawer that belongs to the Fathers and the Church.” But they did not obey and transported it before the governor and opening the box it they took out the poor, half-dead girl. Now, your paternity can see what a shame this is for us all. Then they wanted to imprison the Portuguese, but he took refuge in the church.

Document 5: Will of Domingos Monteiro (1592)

Despite the lack of information about the Portuguese ship captains who traveled to Japan in the sixteenth century, the last will of Domingos Monteiro, the most important merchant who monopolized the trade route from Macau to Japan in 1576, 1577 and 1578, shows that Japanese slave trade was one of his main sources of income.

Translated from the Portuguese by Lúcio de Sousa. Porto, AHSCMP (Arquivo Histórico da Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto)/ H, Bco. 6, nº 17, fl. 281v. This translation CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

I declare that I have many Japanese girls whom I leave all emancipated with fifty pardaos each, also the ones in the house of Fernão Lobo, as well as the ones I took my sister-in-law in Goa. I also leave free the slaves who are old enough to marry (women), and also the Japanese slave living in the house of Gaspar Pinto. I have another slave named Violante, to whom I give four hundred pardaos. I leave all the other male slaves emancipated, each with ten pardaos, and to a slave named Antonio Monteiro I will give one hundred pardaos and to his two sisters ninety pardaos (each).

Discussion Questions

  1. The Portuguese community in Japan in the sixteenth century could not agree about whether trading in Japanese slaves was acceptable. Based on the sources collected here, who argued in favor of trading in slaves and why? Who argued against trading in slaves and why?
  2. Besides the Portuguese, who else seems to have been involved in enslaving Japanese people and exporting them in the sixteenth century?
  3. What strategies did Japanese rules use to protect their subjects against being traded as slaves? What strategies did individual Japanese people use to resist being traded as slaves? How effective were these strategies?

Related Primary Sources

Related Secondary Sources

  • Charles Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far East 1550–1770 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1948), 222–241.
  • Thomas Nelson, “Slavery in Medieval Japan,” Monumenta Nipponica 59(4) (2004): 463–492.
  • Lúcio de Sousa, The Portuguese Slave Trade in Early Modern Japan: Merchants, Jesuits and Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Slaves (Leiden: Brill, 2018).
  • José Luis Álvarez-Taladriz, “Apuntes sobre el Cristianismo yla Esclavityd en Japon.”  Appendix to Alessandro Valignano, Adiciones del sumario de Japón, ed. José Luis Álvarez-Taladriz (privately published, n.d.), 498-511.

Themes

Agency, Law, Manumission, Religion, Social Death, Trade