Amakusa Shirō

Born around 1621 at Ōyano-jima in the Amakusa District of Higo Province (the modern Ōyano-machi in Kami-Amakusa City, Kumamoto Prefecture) as the son of Masuda Jinbei.

His real name was Masuda Shirō Tokisada. His father Jinbei was a former retainer of Konishi Yukinaga and retained his Kirishitan faith fervently.

In 1637 (Kan'ei 14), the sixteen-year-old Shirō was raised up as the commander-in-chief of a large-scale uprising by peasants, rōnin, and Kirishitan across Shimabara and Amakusa.

The direct causes of the uprising were harsh land-tax collection by Shimabara-domain lord Matsukura Katsuie and Karatsu-domain lord Terasawa Katataka, and the intensification of the bakufu's suppression of Kirishitan.

Shirō was said from childhood to work strange miracles and was believed by the Kirishitan faithful to be the return of the 'Savior' and chosen as commander-in-chief.

In December 1637, the uprising force shut themselves up in Hara Castle in Hizen Province (a fortress that had been abandoned) and endured the bakufu army's siege for more than three months.

Against 37,000 in the uprising force, the bakufu mobilized 120,000 in a large-scale punitive expedition. On February 28, 1638 (Kan'ei 15), Hara Castle fell to the bakufu army's total assault, and nearly all of the uprising force including Shirō were killed.

He was around seventeen. His head was exposed in front of Dejima at Nagasaki. As the direct result of the rebellion, the bakufu further tightened the anti-Kirishitan prohibition, and with the 1639 ban on Portuguese ship arrivals, the seclusion system was essentially completed.

“Following the will of Deus, we shall endure the sufferings of this world.”

Amakusa Shirō is a rare case of a teenage leader in Japanese history. At around sixteen, he became commander-in-chief of an uprising force of 37,000, and pinned down the bakufu army of 120,000 for more than three months.

The fall of Hara Castle and Shirō's death directly caused the thorough enforcement of the anti-Kirishitan prohibition and the completion of national seclusion in 1639.

As the direct trigger for Japan's policy of external closure for 230 years thereafter, Shirō's rebellion became one of the watersheds of early modern Japanese history.

The Amakusa Shirō Museum in Kami-Amakusa City, Kumamoto Prefecture, is the central facility transmitting the memory of the rebellion; the Hara Castle site was inscribed as 'Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region' on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2018.

Shirō himself has no certain surviving portrait beyond a few contemporary ones (bakufu-side wanted-poster-like paintings), but was repeatedly depicted as a beautiful youth in later paintings, novels, and drama, and continues to occupy a position as the young symbol of Kirishitan martyrdom in twenty-first-century Japanese culture.