The Sakoku Edicts and the Politics of Tokugawa Hegemony By Micha ...

to be known as the sakoku edicts. There were versions of these edicts issued in the years preceding, but the 1635 version was subtly different. For example, the earlier versions provided a grace period to any Japanese living overseas that allowed them to return to Japan without penalty. After this grace period, however, there was to be no exception: all attempts to return would be met with arrest and death. Another subtle difference is that whereas earlier edicts were signed by only a few of the shogunal councillors, the 1635 edicts bore all of the relevant signatures, demonstrating in effect that there was no longer any ambiguities among the shogunal advisors about the course Japan should adopt for trade, travel abroad, Christianity, and contact with Europeans.⁴⁷ I begin, in this introduction, by translating the edicts in their entirety. I then divide the edicts into three sections, each of which I treat in a separate chapter.⁴⁸

The first chapter deals with the first three edicts, which take the form of prohibitions against Japanese citizens traveling into or out of Japan. The second chapter examines the five articles that ban Christianity in general and more specifically Iberian missionaries. This ban did not originate with the sakoku edicts but was first instituted as far back as Hideyoshi's expulsion edicts of 1597, which resulted in the martyrdom of twenty-six Christians at Nagasaki, including Portuguese priests. The sakoku edicts, however, do spell out the specific mechanisms to be used to root out Christianity, and these, therefore, are the main focus of the chapter. The third chapter explains the remaining nine edicts, which involve the mechanics of foreign trade and the restrictions involved in that trade. It is perhaps significant that over half of the sakoku edicts regulate foreign trade, whereas only three edicts ban Japanese from traveling abroad and only five are concerned with rooting out Christianity. Although I certainly do not want to read too much into this fact, I do believe it is a good illustration of the purpose of the sakoku edicts: they were not intended to cut Japan off entirely from foreigners but were merely designed to place foreign trade firmly under Tokugawa control. The following chapters address restrictions on foreign trade after the edicts of 1635. The fourth chapter focuses on the banning of all Portuguese trade from Japan after the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637–1638.