The Rise and Fall of Christian Nagasaki, 1560-1640

FAIN: FB-53575-08

Reinier Herman Hesselink
University of Northern Iowa (Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0001)

This is a project requesting support for research in Portuguese archives on the early history of the city of Nagasaki. Nagasaki is the only Japanese city to have been founded, in 1571, by Jesuit missionaries, who aimed at utilizing the trade brought by the Portuguese in order to strengthen and expand their missionary work. At the time, Nagasaki was unique in Japan, because it was the country's only completely Christian city, where every permanent resident belonged to one of its churches. For a short time, Nagasaki also became one of East Asia's most international cities and Japan's only contemporary example of a truly multi-cultural environment, but the history of its formative years between 1560 and 1640 has never been written. My study aims to place Nagasaki in the context of the unification of Japan in the late 16th century, the anti-Christian persecutions by Japan's military leaders that followed, as well as the history of European expansion into Asia.

Associated Products

The Dream of Nagasaki: World Trade and the Clash of Cultures, 1560-1640 (Book)
Title: The Dream of Nagasaki: World Trade and the Clash of Cultures, 1560-1640
Author: Reiner H. Hesselink
Abstract: Nagasaki, on the west coast of the Japanese island of Kyushu, is known in the West for having been the target of an atomic bomb attack on August 9, 1945. Less well known is that the city was founded by Europeans, Jesuit missionaries who arrived in the area in the second half of the 16th century. The Jesuits had come to convert the Japanese. After baptizing a Japanese lord or daimyo of the area, they established Nagasaki in 1571 to provide the Portuguese a safe harbor in his domain. Profits for the daimyo and the Japanese who converted to Christianity soon followed. This book is the first comprehensive history in any language of the rise and fall of Christian Nagasaki (1560-1640). The author provides a narrative of the city's early years from both the European and Japanese perspectives.
Year: 2016
Publisher: Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.
Type: Single author monograph
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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