The Dutch Trade in Japan

First European Contacts
• Portuguese
– 1543
– Introduced firearms
– 1549-
Missionaries settle

Japanese “Seclusion”
• Tokugawa Shogunate 1603
– Increasing restrictions on Catholic Missionaries
– Persecution of Christianized Japanese
• Sakoku Edict of 1635
– Japanese forbidden to leave
– Catholicism forbidden
– European Trade limited

Dutch Trade
• 1600- Liefde, Will Adams
• Attractive to Japanese
– Opposed to Spanish and Portuguese
– Protestant- helped suppress a revolt by Christian
Samurai
– Willing to accept Japanese restrictions

Trade post on Dejima
• Dutch limited to Isle of
Dejima (outside
Nagasaki) 1641
• Subject to intense inspection
• Annual visit to Edo
• VOC and personal trade

From Japan to Europe
• Porcelain

Lacquer work

The Japanese in the European World
View

From Europe to Japan
• Western Philosophy
• Medicine
• Natural resources

In fiction:

Unanswered Questions
• How the “Middling Sorts” knew about
Japanese Products?
• How “Orientalism” informed images of Japan in the popular imagination?