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

Far from immediately banning the new faith, there was an initial period of either acceptance or rejection that depended on the particular domain in which the missionaries operated, followed by a flowering of the faith, then a period of official intolerance but unofficial flourishing, culminating in official repression that all but eradicated Catholicism from Japan. Even the forms of punishment changed subtly over time for European and Japanese found to be Christians: at first, the issue was one of pure eradication, but over time, the authorities became almost obsessed with forcing believers to recant their faith, and a wide variety of creative measures was introduced to allow that to happen. Execution became a final, drastic measure that was used less and less as the methods of torture became increasingly subtle. Most of Japan's responses to foreign trade and intercourse evolved in a similar manner, taking their final form only in the first half of the seventeenth century.

I also became interested in elucidating the idea that the sakoku edicts were primarily concerned with strengthening the bakufu's central power at the expense of the powerful daimyo of western Japan. As I demonstrate in the following pages, virtually all of the positions adopted toward foreigners and foreign trade, including those that halted the propagation of Christianity, were measures that in some way strengthened bakufu control in the country. Therefore, even though the sakoku edicts appear to be concerned primarily with foreign policy, in reality they were efforts to bolster bakufu strength and prestige at home.