THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN MEXICO AND JAPAN (continued 2)

The embassy was received with honors in Madrid, where the baptism of the ambassador was celebrated. He was given the name of the king, who probably acted as his sponsor, and that of Francis, the founder of Friar Sotelo’s order.

Friar Cavo states that “this embassy did not succeed in establishing commercial relations between Spain and Japan on account of the persecution of Christians going on in the latter country.” It is obvious, however, that no diplomatic negotiations could possibly have been entered into by the King of Spain with ambassadors who were sent by one of the feudal lords and not by the emperor of the country whence they came.

After a very short stay in Madrid, during which, however, the King of Spain appointed Friar Sotelo his court preacher, the embassy went to Rome, where the friars and Hasekura Phillip Francis were received in audience by the Pope on the 3rd of November, 1615. It is recorded that after being presented to his Holiness they read him, probably with a view of obtaining his support, Latin translations of Masumane’s letters, in which the prince cordially invited Franciscan friars to his domain, promised to protect all converts to the Catholic faith, expressed his desire to hold friendship with his Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain, and to enter into direct commercial relations with Mexico.

The Franciscan friar, Gregorio Petrocha, then made an address, and a Monsignor answered for the Pope, expressing his joy at the embassy, his benevolent acceptance of the homage and reverence paid to the Apostolic See by the “King,” Masumane, who, he hoped, would soon follow his pious inclination and be baptized. The embassy was dismissed with presents and a letter for Masumane.

Beristian states that a painting from life of Friar Sotelo and Hasekura is preserved in the Quirinal Palace, in the ante-chamber of the chapel.

Señor Lera’s publication contains the only statement I have been able to find concerning the date of the return of Masumane’s embassy to Japan. He says that after an absence of six years it reached Nagasaki in 1620. This prolonged absence seems to indicate that it would have been dangerous for them to have returned sooner on account of the emperor’s persecution of the Christians, and the proscription of their religion. It is not impossible that some of these converted Japanese remained permanently in Mexico.

Three years after the return of the embassy Iyeyasu died under tragic circumstances, and was succeeded by his grandson, Iyemitsu, who, in 1624, issued an edict ordering away all foreigners and interdicting Christianity.

In the following year Friar Sotelo, with several companions, was burned alive at Bomura, thus realizing, as is quaintly said, “the desire with which he had come to Japan, to win a martyr’s crown.”

In 1636 all commercial relations with New Spain ceased, and in 1638 the Portuguese were expelled from Japan, and all ports were closed to foreign traffic. The Dutch alone were tolerated as traders and settlers, but the latter were virtually imprisoned on the peninsula of Dashima, where they had a factory.

Iyemitsu completed the system inaugurated by his predecessor, and put an end to Japanese trade and intercourse with foreign countries by issuing an edict forbidding his subjects to leave their country, under pain of capital punishment. He also ordered the destruction of all vessels of European pattern belonging to Japan. From that time to 1854, when Commander Perry made a treaty with the shogunate at Uraga, Japan “maintained a most rigid policy of isolation.”

The foregoing history of the events which followed Iyeyasu’s attempt to establish commercial relations with New Spain, based on original documents only and here presented for the first time, explains some of the reasons why, later on, the same emperor decided that intercourse with European nations positively endangered the integrity and future of Japan.

All had been simple at first when the Portuguese, regularly meeting Japanese merchants at the Island of Hirado, traded by barter and exported from Japan on an average of over three million dollars a year in gold. The three Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, St. Francis Xavier, Torres, and Fernandez, who landed in the Province of Satsuma in 1549, met with unexpected success in introducing the Catholic religion. The arrival of certain Spanish Franciscan friars, sent on a mission to Miaco by the governor of Manila, divided the Christian foreigners and converts in Japan into two rival parties, one consisting of the Portuguese Jesuits backed by the merchants of their own country, the other of the Spanish Franciscans supported by the Manila merchants, who bitterly resented the Portuguese monopoly of Japanese trade. The arrival of the Spanish Dominicans caused still further complications; the dissensions among the members and followers of the three orders giving direct provocation to the persecution of Christians by the Japanese government. In order to establish peace, Pope Gregory XIII in 1585 issued a Bull forbidding all religious orders but that of the Jesuits to exercise priestly offices in Japan.

Vivero, the first Spanish official who landed in Japan, made efforts to poison the emperor’s mind against the Portuguese, with a view of securing the monopoly of gold exportation for the Spaniards. Vivero and the viceroy of Mexico also ignored Iyeyasu’s request for the expert Mexican miners, whom he had wished to employ to teach the Japanese the best methods of working their own gold mines.

Viscaino, the first Spanish ambassador, maligned the Dutch, with whom a commercial treaty had just been made, and went so far as to threaten that if the Japanese intended to tolerate the Dutch, the Spanish king would not allow his subjects to have dealings with Japan. On the other hand, the protestant Dutch republicans, and their influential English friend, William Adams, denounced the religion of the Portuguese and Spaniards, and described the latter’s thirst for gold and success in conquering many remote countries which yielded the precious metal.

The revelation that Viscaino’s secret mission was precisely to discover an unknown source of gold, presumably belonging to his dominion, was received by Iyeyasu simultaneously with the reproach of having unsuspectingly granted permission to survey the Japanese coast, which would unquestionably facilitate any future invasion of Japan, whether actually intended or not by the Spaniards. It seems possible that the existence of Viscaino’s charts may have suggested to the emperor and his counsellors the idea of closing all Japanese ports to foreign nations.

The discoveries that certain converts made by Japanese missionaries had pledged their allegiance to a foreign power; that in the emperor’s own household Christians had been guilty of treachery and duplicity, and the memory that missionaries, in open defiance of the emperor’s orders, not only had preached in the streets of Miaco, but had even erected a church, explain, moreover, why the ruling class in Japan took alarm, and concluded that the Christian religion “struck at the root of the political and religious systems of Japan,” and that “Christians formed a dangerous and anti-national class, whose extirpation was essential to the political system initiated by Iyeyasu and perfected by Iyemitsu.”

While it has seemed to me that the foregoing data concerning the earliest relations between Japan and Mexico were interesting from a historical point of view, I have also realized that they could but be of particular value to ethnologists and those who are especially interested in evidences of Asiatic influences in Mexico and Central America. To them I venture to recommend the consideration of the following facts:⁠—

More or less frequent indirect intercourse between Japan and Mexico undoubtedly took place as soon as communication was established between the Philippine Islands and Acapulco.

In 1608 there were fifteen thousand Japanese residing in the Philippines, some of whom were probably employed in the crews of the galleons, eight of which came to Acapulco each year. In 1610, with the ex-governor of the Philippines, Vivero, twenty-three Japanese noblemen and merchants spent five months in Mexico and its capital.

In 1613, one hundred and eighty Japanese spent four and a half months in Mexico. The majority remained when the embassy departed for Europe, seventy-eight returning to Acapulco. The presumption is that they remained there awaiting the return of the ambassadors, which was delayed for six years.

Iyemitsu’s prohibition to Japanese to leave their country, under penalty of death, indicates that a large number of persecuted Christians had been going into voluntary exile. In all probability some of these, and also members of the Japanese colony in the Philippines, came to Mexico and settled there. What is more, for over two hundred years Mexico was the highroad over which passed the merchandise brought from Spain’s Asiatic possessions, and landed at Acapulco by vessels whose crews frequently were partly Asiatic.

It is obvious, therefore, that it is the first duty of ethnologists to assign to the above influx of Japanese into Mexico in historical times any indications of Asiatic influence that they may detect, and for anthropologists to consider the more or less limited mingling of races which doubtless occurred in the 17th century and afterwards.

I will set an example by attributing to the Japanese who visited Mexico in the 17th century the introduction of the raincoat made of grass or palm leaves, which is worn by the Indians inhabiting the Pacific coast of Mexico, and which is said to be identical with that used in Japan from time immemorial.

In this connection it suffices to point out the significant fact that the members of Masumane’s suite returned to Acapulco from the City of Mexico in June, precisely at the beginning of the rainy season. It being absolutely necessary for them to have some protection from the torrential showers they were exposed to during their long journey, it seems more than probable that they deftly manufactured from native grasses or palm leaves such rain-coats as they had been accustomed to make and wear in their native land.

The practical lesson thus taught the observant natives and the models furnished by the rain-coats discarded at the end of the wet season would surely sufficiently account for the introduction and use to the present day of these useful and easily manufactured garments, of which a specimen, bought in the marketplace at Oaxaca, has been sent by the writer to the Museum of the Department of Anthropology of the University of California.

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