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

fully one-third of the world's silver, even taking into account the massive exploitation of the Spanish new world mines at Zapatecas and San Luis de Potosi.¹³ This production, combined with the fact that the Society of Jesus met with some success in converting souls for Christ, ensured that the Portuguese took an abiding interest in relations with Japan.¹⁴

The Portuguese position became ever more profitable in Japan, especially when some semblance of national stability was achieved—first by Oda Nobunaga (who by his death in 1583 was able to unite roughly two-thirds of the country), followed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who succeeded by conquest and alliances to finish the project of unification in 1590. Before this unity, the Portuguese encountered Japan in the so-called “Warring States Period,” in which various daimyo competed for regional control, in this case on the island of Kyushu. The various daimyo of Kyushu would compete for the Portuguese ships to call at their harbors and even used the politics of Christian conversion to lure the ships from Macao. There are cases of daimyo forcing the mass conversion of those in their domains in an effort to secure Portuguese trade, and when the trade was not forthcoming, the daimyo then recanted their “faith.”¹⁵ Therefore, from the very beginning, Portuguese trade was intimately linked to the Jesuit missionaries; and it is significant that despite years of trying to divorce these two, the Japanese rulers finally concluded that it was impossible and banned Portuguese contact of any kind with Japan.¹⁶

The Portuguese finally settled on Nagasaki as their main port of call, a city that lay in the domains of the mura clan in Kyushu. There is some dispute as to whether the daimyo actually ceded the city to the Jesuits, but regardless of that, both the merchants and the Jesuits made Nagasaki their main base of operations—a situation that remained until the Portuguese were kicked out of Japan for good in 1639.¹⁷ Two aspects of Portuguese trade with Japan stand out: the rather startling success the Jesuits had in converting Japanese to the Catholic faith and the tremendous amounts of silver the Portuguese were able to secure. The numbers of Christian converts are disputed, but there is general agreement of an upper limit of around 250,000 Christians in Japan when the Tokugawa definitively banned Christianity in 1614.¹⁸ Although certainly some Christians