The island where the West met Japan
The encounter between Japanese and Westerners at Tanegashima would soon lead to a popular Christian rebellion
The Shimabara Rebellion broke out at the end of 1637. (Image: YouTube)
When Francis Xavier arrived in Japan, he wrote many letters to his old university friends, including Father Simon Rodriguez — then adviser to the king of Portugal — with the aim of warning the kings of Portugal and Spain that they had no right to invade Japan and thus transform it into yet another European colony.
A few years earlier Portuguese sailors had visited Japan and heard rumors about significant silver deposits in the country. This news made Japan a coveted prey of colonial powers. The reason that Xavier was advocating preventing the Iberian kingdoms, with their powerful armies, from transforming Japan into a new land of conquest was the finding that the indigenous peoples never obtained any kind of material benefit from the occupation of foreign powers.