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The Nanban trade period (Japanese: 南蛮貿易時代, nanban-bōeki-jidai, "southern barbarian trade period") in Japanese history extends from the arrival of the first Europeans to Japan in 1543, to their near-total exclusion from the archipelago in 1650, under the promulgation of the "Sakoku" Seclusion Laws.
Nanban (南蛮 Lit. “Southern Barbarian”) is a Japanese word which originally designated people from South Asia and South-East Asia. It followed a Chinese usage in which surrounding “barbarian” people in the four directions had each their own designation (see Han chauvinism). In Japan, the word took on a new meaning when it came to designate Europeans, the first of whom started to arrive in Japan in 1543, first from Portugal, then Spain, and later the Netherlands and England. The word Nanban was thought naturally appropriate for the new visitors, since they came in by ship from the South, and their manners were considered quite unsophisticated by the Japanese.
Cultural encounter
Japanese accounts of Europeans
The Japanese were first rather dismissive of the manners of the newly arrived foreigners. A contemporary Japanese account relates:- "They eat with their fingers instead of with chopsticks such as we use. They show their feelings without any self-control. They cannot understand the meaning of written characters" (from Boxer, “Christian century”).
Soon enough however, the Japanese adopted several of the technologies and cultural practices of their visitors, whether in the military area (the arquebus, European-style cuirasses, European ships), religion (Christianity), decorative art, and language (integration to Japanese of a Western vocabulary).
Many foreigners were befriended by Japanese rulers, and their ability was sometimes recognized to the point of promoting one to the rank of Samurai (William Adams), and giving him a fief in the Miura Peninsula, south of Edo.
European accounts of Japan
Rennaissance Europeans were quite admiring of the country. Japan was considered as a country immensely rich in precious metals, mainly owing to Marco Polo's accounts of gilded temples and palaces, but also due to the relative abundance of surface ores characteristic of a volcanic country, before large-scale deep-mining became possible in Industrial times. Japan was to become a major exporter of copper and silver during the period.Japan was also perceived as a sophisticated feudal society with a high culture and a strong pre-industrial technology. It was more populated and urbanized than any Western country (in the 16th century, Japan had 26 million inhabitants against 16 million for France and 4.5 million for England). It had Buddhist “universities” larger than any learning institution in the West, such as Salamanca or Coimbra. Prominent European observers of the time seemed to agree that the Japanese "excel not only all the other Oriental peoples, they surpass the Europeans as well" (Alessandro Valignano, 1584, "Historia del Principio y Progreso de la Compañía de Jesús en las Indias Orientales).
Early European visitors were amazed by the quality of Japanese craftsmanship and metalsmithing. This stems from the fact that Japan itself is rather poor in natural resources found commonly in Europe, especially iron. Thus, the Japanese were famously frugal with their consumable resources; what little they had they used with expert skill. Its copper and steel were the best in the world, its weapons the sharpest, its paper industries were unequaled: the Japanese were blowing their noses in disposable soft "tissue" papers made from washi, when most people in the western world still used their sleeves. When the samurai Hasekura Tsunenaga visited Saint-Tropez, France in 1615 he made a sensation with the sharpness of his swords and his disposable tissue papers:
- ''"They never touch food with their fingers, but instead use two small sticks that they hold with three fingers. They blow their noses in soft silky papers the size of a hand, which they never use twice, so that they throw them on the ground after usage, and they were delighted to see our people around them precipitate themselves to pick them up. Their swords cut so well that they can cut a soft paper just by putting it on the edge and by blowing on it."
- ("Relations of Mme de St-Troppez", October 1615, Bibliotheque Inguimbertine, Carpentras).
Japanese military prowess was also well noted : "A Spanish royal decree of 1609 specifically directed Spanish commanders in the Pacific ‘not to risk the reputation of our arms and state against Japanese soldier’" (“Giving up the gun”, Noel Perrin). Troops of Japanese samurai were later employed in the Spice Islands in Southeast Asia by the Dutch to fight off the English.
Trade exchanges
Soon after the first contacts in 1543, Portuguese ships started to arrive in Japan. At that time, there was already trade exchanges between Portugal and Goa (since around 1515), consisting in 3 to 4 carracks leaving Lisbon with silver to purchase cotton and spices in India. Out of these, only one carrack went on to China in order to purchase silk, also in exchange for Portuguese silver. Accordingly, the cargo of the first Portuguese ships (usually about 4 smaller-sized ships every year) arriving in Japan almost entirely consisted of Chinese goods (silk, porcelain). The Japanese were very much looking forward to acquiring such goods, but had been prohibited from any contacts with by the Emperor of China, as a punishment for Wakō pirate raids. The Portuguese therefore found the opportunity to act as intermediaries in Asian trade.
From the time of the acquisition of Macao in 1557, and their formal recognition as trade partners by the Chinese, the Portuguese Crown started to regulate trade to Japan, by selling to the highest bidder the annual "Capitaincy" to Japan, in effect confering exclusive trading rights for a single carrack bound for Japan every year. The carracks were very large ships, usually between 1000 and 1500 tons, about double or triple the size of a regular galleon or a large junk.
That trade continued with few interruptions until 1638, when it was prohibited on the ground that the ships were smuggling priests into Japan.
Portuguese trade was progressively more and more challenged by Chinese smugglers on junks, Japanese Red Seal Ships from around 1592 (about ten ships every year), Spanish ships from Manila from around 1600 (about one ship a year), the Dutch from 1609, the English from 1613 (about one ship per year).
Dutch involvement
The Dutch, who, rather than "Nanban" were called "Kōmō" (Jp:紅毛, lit. "Red Hair") by the Japanese, first arrived in Japan in 1600, onboard the Liefde. Their pilot was William Adams , the first Englishman to reach Japan.In 1605, two of the Liefde's crew were sent to Pattani by Tokugawa Ieyasu, to invite Dutch trade to Japan. The head of the Pattani Dutch trading post, Victor Sprinckel, refused on the ground that he was too busy dealing with Portuguese opposition in Southeast Asia. In 1609 however, the Dutch Jacques Specx arrived with two ships in Hirado, and through Adams obtained trading privileges from Ieyasu.
The Dutch also engaged in piracy and naval combat to weaken Portuguese and Spanish shipping in the Pacific, and ultimately became the only westerners to be allowed access to Japan from the small enclave of Dejima after 1638 and for the next two centuries.
Technological and cultural exchanges
Nanban guns
One of many things the Japanese were interested in was Portuguese guns. The first three Europeans to reach Japan were Portuguese (Fernão Mendes Pinto) and came on a Chinese ship to the southern island of Tanegashima, and they had arquebuses and ammunition with them. At that time, Japan was in the middle of a civil war called the Sengoku period (Period of the country at war). Strictly speaking, the Japanese were already familiar with gunpowder (invented by, and transmitted from China), and had been using basic Chinese guns and cannon tubes called Teppō (鉄砲 Lit.”Iron cannon”) for around 270 years before the arrival of the Portuguese. The Portuguese guns however were light, had a matchlock firing mechanism and were easy to aim with.The Famous Daimyo who virtually unified Japan, Oda Nobunaga, made extensive use of guns (arquebus) playing a key role in the Battle of Nagashino, dramatised in Akira Kurosawa's 1980 film Kagemusha (Shadow Warrior).
Within a year, Japanese swordsmiths and ironsmiths managed to reproduce the mechanism and mass-produce the guns. Barely fifty years later, "by the end of the 16th century, guns were almost certainly more common in Japan than in any other country in the world", its armies equipped with a number of guns dwarfing any contemporary army in Europe (Perrin).
The guns were strongly instrumental in the unification of Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu, as well as in the invasion of Korea in 1592 and 1597.
Nanban ships
The ships of the Southern Barbarian were also quite influential on the Japanese shipbuilding industry, and actually stimulated many Japanese ventures abroad.The Bakufu established a system of commercial ventures on licensed ships called Red seal ships, which sailed throughout Eastern and South East Asia for trade. These ships incorporated many elements of Nanban ship designs, such as sails, rudder, and gun disposition. They brought many Japanese traders and adventurers to South-East Asian ports, who sometimes became quite influential in local affairs, such as the adventurer Yamada Nagamasa in Siam, or later became Japanese popular icons such as Tenjiku Tokubei.
By the beginning of the 17th century, the Bakufu built several ships of purely Nanban design, usually with the help of foreign experts, such as the galleon San Juan Bautista, which crossed the Pacific two times on embassies to Nueva España (Mexico).
Catholicism in Japan
With the arrival of the leading Jesuit Francis Xavier in 1549, Catholicism progressively developed as a major religious force in Japan. Although the tolerance of Western "padres" was initially linked to trade, Catholics could claim around 200,000 converts by the end of the 16th century, mainly located in the southern island of Kyūshū. The Jesuit managed to obtain jurisdiction on the trading city of Nagasaki.
The first reaction from the kampaku Hideyoshi came in 1587, when he promulgated the interdiction of Christianity, and ordered the departure of all "padres". This resolution was not followed upon however (only 3 out of 130 Jesuits left Japan), and the Jesuits were essentially able to pursue their activities. Hideyoshi had written that:
- ''"1. Japan is a country of the Gods, and for the padres to come hither and preach a devilish law, is a reprehensible and devilish thing...
- 2. For the padres to come to Japan and convert people to their creed, destroying Shinto and Buddhist temples to this end, is a hitherto unseen and unheard-of thing... to stir the canaille to commit outrages of this sort is something deserving of severe punishment." (From Boxer, "The Christian century in Japan")
Hideyoshi's reaction to Christianity proved stronger when a shipwrecked Spanish galleon brought Franciscans to Japan in 1597. Twenty-six Christians (6 Franciscans, 17 of their Japanese neophytes, and 3 Japanese Jesuit lay brothers - included by mistake-) were crucified in Nagasaki on February 5, 1597. It seems Hideyoshi's decision was taken following encouragements by the Jesuit to eliminate the rival order, the Spanish's bragging that military conquest usually followed Catholic proselytism, and by his own desire to take over the cargoe of the ship. Although close to a hundred churches were destroyed, most of the Jesuits remained in Japan.
The final blow came with Tokugawa Ieyasu's firm interdiction of Christianity in 1614, which led to underground activities by the Jesuits, and to their participation to Hideyori's revolt in the Siege of Osaka. Repression of Catholicism became virulent after Tokugawa's death in 1616, leading to the torturing and killing of around 2,000 Christians (70 westerners, and the rest Japanese), and the apostasy of the remaining 200-300,000. The last major reaction of the Christians in Japan was the Shimabara rebellion in 1637.
Other Nanban influences
The Nanban also had some other various influences:- Nanbandō (南蛮胴) designates a type of cuirass covering the trunk in one whole piece, a design imported from Europe.
- Nanbanbijutsu (南蛮美術) generally describes Japanese art with Nanban themes or influenced by Nanban designs.
- Nanbanga (南蛮画) designates the numerous pictorial representations that were made of the new foreigners, and define a whole style category in Japanese art (See an example at:or [http://www.rekihaku.ac.jp/koohoo/journal/no122/byobu1.jpg)
- Nanbannuri (南蛮塗り) describes lacquers decorated in the Portuguese style, and were very popular items from the late 16th century (See example at: *).
- Nanbangashi (南蛮菓子) is a variety of cakes derived from Portuguese or Spanish recipies, in particular the popular "Kasutera" (カステラ) named after Castile. These "Southern barbarian" cakes, often with reproductions of 16th century barbarians in the box design, are on sale in many Japanese supermarkets today.
- Nanbanji was the first Christian church in Kyoto. With the support from Nobunaga Oda, the Jesuit Padre Gnecchi-Soldo Organtino established this church in 1576. 11 years later (1587), Nanbanji was destroyed by Hideyoshi Toyotomi. Currently, The bell is preserved as "Nanbanji-no-kane" (the Bell of Nanbanji) at Shunkoin temple in Kyoto.Shunkoin Temple
The decline of Nanban exchanges
After the country was pacified and unified by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603 however, Japan progressively closed itself to the southern barbarians, mainly because of the growing threat of Christianization.
By 1650, except for the trade outpost of Dejima in Nagasaki, for the Netherlands, and some trade with China, foreigners were subject to the death penalty, and Christian converts were persecuted. Guns were almost completely eradicated to revert to the more "civilized" sword. Travel abroad and the building of large ships was also prohibited. Thence started a period of seclusion, peace, prosperity and mild progress known as the Edo period.
The "barbarians" would come back more than 200 years later strengthened by industrialization, and end Japan's isolation, with the forcible opening of Japan to trade by an American military fleet under the commandement of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1854.
Usages of the word "Nanban"
The term Nanban did not disappear from common usage until the Meiji restoration, when Japan decided to Westernize radically in order to better resist the West, and essentially stopped considering the West as fundamentally uncivilized. Words like Yofu (洋風), lit. ocean style, and Obeifu (欧米風), lit. European American style replaced Nanban in most usages.
Still, the exact principle of westernization was Wakon-Yōsai (和魂洋才 Lit. Japanese spirit Western talent), which tends to imply that, although technology might be acquired from the West, Japanese spirit is still superior to Western spirit, but probably not to a point overtly justifying the usage of the word “barbarian” anymore...
Today the word Nanban is only used in a historical context, and is essentially felt as picturesque and affectionate. It can sometimes be used in a cultured jokingly manner to refer to Western people or civilization.
There is an area where Nanban is used exclusively to refer to a certain style. It is cooking and in names of dishes. These Nanban dishes are not American or European dishes but an odd collection of dishes not using soy sauce or miso but using curry powder and vinegar as its flavoring. Some of these dishes resemble Southeast Asian cuisines but are so heavily changed to fit Japanese tastes like ramen that they should be considered separate dishes.
Timeline
- 1543 - Portuguese sailors (among them possibly Fernão Mendes Pinto) arrive in Tanegashima and transmit the arquebus.
- 1549 - St Francis Xavier arrives in Kagoshima.
- 1555 - Establishment of Macao by the Portuguese. Dispatch of annual trading ships to Japan.
- 1570 - Japanese pirates occupy parts of Taiwan, from where they prey on China.
- 1575 - Battle of Nagashino, where firearms are used extensively.
- 1577 - First Japanese ships travel to Cochin-China.
- 1579 - The Jesuit Alessandro Valignano arrives in Japan.
- 1580 - The Jesuits receive Nagasaki from the Christian Daimyo Arima Harunobu.
- 1584 - Mancio Ito arrives in Lisbon with three other Japanese, accompanied by a Jesuit father.
- 1588 - Hideyoshi prohibits piracy.
- 1592 - Japan invades Korea in the Seven-Year War with an army of 160.000.
- - First known mention of Red Seal Ships.
- 1597 - Martyrdom of 26 Christians (essentially Franciscans) in Nagasaki.
- - First known mention of Red Seal Ships.
- - The Battle of Sekigahara unites Japan under Tokugawa Ieyasu.
- - Hasekura Tsunenaga leaves for his embassy to the Americas and Europe. He returns in 1620.
- - Death of Hasekura Tsunenaga.
- 1623 - The English close their factory at Hirado, because of unprofitability.
- - Death of Hasekura Tsunenaga.
- - Yamada Nagamasa sails from Siam to Japan, with an Ambassador of the Siamese king Songtham. He returns to Siam in 1626.
- - Prohibition of trade with the Spanish Philippines.
References
Giving Up the Gun, Noel Perrin, David R. Godine Publisher, Boston. ISBN 0879237732
Samurai, Mitsuo Kure, Tuttle publishing, Tokyo. ISBN 0804832870
The Origins of Japanese Trade Supremacy. Development and Technology in Asia from 1540 to the Pacific War, Christopher Howe, The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226354857
External links
- Nanban folding screens
- Nanban art (Japanese)
- Japanese Art and Western Influence
- Shunkoin Temple the Bell of Nanbanji
Economy of feudal Japan | Feudal Japan | Japan history of foreign relations | Japanese eras
Epoche des Nanban-Handels | 南蛮貿易 | Нанбански трговачки период | Nanban-kaupan kausi
"Nanban trade period"