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.