1639 National Seclusion: The Death of Shirō and How Japan Was Closed for the Next 230 Years

In July 1639 (Kan'ei 16), at Edo Castle. The Tokugawa bakufu promulgated the 'Ban on Portuguese Ship Arrivals.

' Thereafter, southern-barbarian trade was completely halted, and official contact with foreign countries was limited to the Dutch factory (Dejima in Nagasaki), Chinese ships, and Korean embassies alone.

This system continued for 230 years until Perry's arrival in 1854, and came to be called 'sakoku' (national seclusion) by later generations.

The direct trigger for the establishment of this system was the Shimabara Rebellion suppressed the previous year in 1638, and the death of its commander-in-chief Amakusa Shirō.

After the Keichō ban on Christianity of 1614, the bakufu had strengthened Kirishitan suppression in stages, but foreign trade continued.

Portuguese and Spanish ship arrivals were permitted with restrictions, and the Dutch and English factories at Hirado continued to operate.

From 1633 to 1635, the sea-restriction policy of banning Japanese overseas travel and returning home was gradually put in place, but the arrival of foreign ships themselves was in the middle of being regulated.

At this stage, the later 'sakoku' system had not yet been completed.

The shock the bakufu received in the Shimabara Rebellion was compound. First, that the Kirishitan community was a presence that could mobilize 15,000 combatants.

Second, that this uprising force possessed the military capacity to pin down 120,000 bakufu troops for over three months.

Third, the threat of the latent connection between Portuguese-Spanish missionaries and the Kirishitan community.

This recognition became the decisive trigger for making the exclusion of Kirishitan-related foreign forces the absolute priority for the bakufu.

By the ban on Portuguese ship arrivals of July 1639, southern-barbarian trade was completely severed.

In 1641, the Dutch factory at Hirado was moved to Dejima at Nagasaki, and thereafter European trade was limited to the Dutch alone.

By this series of policies, the system later called 'sakoku' was completed. The deaths of Shirō and the uprising force became the direct political engine for the establishment of this system.

230 years later, in 1854, seclusion ended with Perry's arrival, but at the starting point of Japan's external closure of 230 years lay the death of a seventeen-year-old boy.

In 2018, 'Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region,' including the Hara Castle ruins, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

The memory of a religious war of four hundred years ago was positioned as a common historical heritage of modern Japan and the world.

That the boy Amakusa Shirō of around sixteen became the starting point of Japan's external closure of 230 years and led even to the World Heritage inscription four hundred years later — this historical continuity symbolizes the weight that the single event of the Shimabara Rebellion carries.