Little Luxuries: Placing the Japanese-Dutch Trade in its Historical Context
Warner Ferratier
Champaign Central High School
Champaign.IL
NEH Summer Seminar for School Teachers, 2011
The Dutch Republic and Britain
My journey began as a question. While teaching about Japanese isolationism in my
World History course, a sophomore asked me “Why were the Dutch the only Europeans allowed
to trade with Japan?” I had no adequate response. The answer, it turned out was relatively
straightforward, but it left me with a couple of interesting questions. How did the Dutch trade
with Japan fit into the overall picture of Dutch trade and the rise of consumer culture? How did
consumers learn about these goods? What would consumers have learned by viewing or owning
these items? While many of my secondary sources discuss the trade between the British and
Chinese, it seems as though similar processes took place between the Dutch Republic and Japan.
Overall, I learned how to fit the Japanese trade into the larger historical picture, and in part to
explain it.
In an age of big-screen TVs, tablet computers, and music players, our definition of
“foreign luxury” brings to mind expensive mass-produced electronics made in Japan, and cheap,
mass-produced household goods from China. While luxury may still mean comfort and
convenience, many things that we consider necessities once fell into the category of exotic
foreign luxury. In fact, many historians argue that it is trade in luxury goods which spurred the
commercial and industrial revolutions.
One running theme surrounding the subject of luxury, and luxury goods are their relative
merits and demerits to a society. In medieval times, up through the early modern period, luxury
was associated not only with wealth and power, but was also thought to be sinful. While it might
have spurred patronage of the arts and provided livelihood for the many artisans and
craftspeople, it was something to be wary of.
The Protestant Reformation, with its suspicion (and sometimes destruction) of the
ornamentation of the Catholic Church, is often associated with austerity and asceticism.
(Although de Vries points out that Calvin did not mandate nearly as much asceticism as he is
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commonly perceived). If luxury had been frowned upon before, it became nearly anathema in
some communities after the Reformation.
In the Dutch Republic, there was a tension between the desire for luxuries and the
suspicion of luxury as a threat to the values of thrift and industry that built and sustained the
trade empire. This tension can be seen in the many vanitas still-life paintings that were purchased
(or even commissioned) by Dutch art consumers. While the paintings may depict sumptuous
luxury and over-abundance, there is usually a visual reminder of the inevitability of death, and
by extension, the ultimate worthlessness of the expensive items depicted.
The expansion of trade in Northern Europe resulted in increasing wealth for many
families, and as we saw in Wrightson’s “Earthly Necessities,” the entrance into the market of
many producers and consumers who were increasingly urbanized. The switch to a wage
economy that accompanied these changes meant that more people of the “middling” sort had
money that could be spent on commodities that were not, strictly speaking, necessary for
survival. It is surely no accident that trade, both internally and externally, expanded just at the
time that demand for foreign luxury commodities was increasing.
As work became something that was done outside the home, women were increasingly
marginalized in their ability to contribute to the family’s earnings (at least among the “middling”
sorts.) As the “separate spheres” became more entrenched, women, now confined to the domestic
sphere, became the decision makers about how wages were to be spent. They were responsible
for using the wage earnings to provide the basic necessities of life, as well as the purchase of
luxury goods. These luxury goods served not only to make life more comfortable and pleasant
for the family members, but also were a demonstration of status. Women became the arbiters of
fashion, and as such, fueled the demand for luxury goods (such as fine porcelain) that returned
with the ships from the exotic lands at the edges of the trade empires.
Fashion itself became a desirable goal during this period. Luxuries, which were
introduced as prized rarities among the aristocratic or merchant elite, were mimicked by the
middling sorts until the rare became common, necessitating a change in fashion, which required
new commodities. It was at just this historical intersection that the Dutch East India Company
managed to acquire a monopoly on the Japanese trade with Europe, and it was the demand for
exotic luxury goods that made the Japanese trade so successful.
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Western Trade with Japan began with the landing of the first Portuguese ships in 1543.
At the time of the Portuguese arrival, the Japanese were embroiled in a civil war and the addition
of Portuguese military technology in the form of cannon and guns ensured the decisive victory of
the Ashicaga Shogunate. A grateful shogun gave the Portuguese trading rights and direct trade
between Japan and the Europeans was established.
Japanese policy began to change with the advent of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603.
One of the problems (at least from the Japanese point of view) was that trade is a two-way-street.
While the Portuguese presumably had items that were of value to the Japanese, they also brought
Christianity in the form of Jesuit priests, the first of whom settled in Japan around 1559.
Christianity began to spread very rapidly, particularly among a segment of the nobility that was
already more likely to be in conflict with the Tokugawa Shogun. Christianity was considered a
threat to society in that it undermined traditional channels of authority (more specifically the
ascendency of the Tokugawa Shogunate), and in its Catholic form required loyalty and
obedience to the pope, rather than to the Shogun.
From 1588, the Shogun issued a number of edicts, placing increasing limits on the
proselytization of Catholicism, culminating in the Shokoku edict of 1635, which forbade the
practice of Catholicism and created a system for ensuring the purging of Christianity from
Japanese society. Among the effects of the edict were stipulations that Japanese ships could not
leave Japan, nor could un-authorized Europeans enter. This included a strict limitation on
European trade. The Portuguese were completely excluded after 1639, leaving the Dutch with
exclusive trading rights with Japan (albeit with severe limitations)
The Dutch relationship with Japan began in 1600 when an off-course ship, the Liefde,
under the command of Englishman Will Adams, arrived in port. The Dutch made themselves
attractive trading partners to the Japanese because of a confluence of interests. The Dutch were
already rivals with the Portuguese, both because of Portugal’s associations with the Spanish and
because of Portugal’s allegiance to the Catholic Church. When the Christian Samurai (associated
with the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries) staged an uprising against the Tokugawa Shogun, Dutch
armaments ensured the victory of the Tokugawa. This uprising was certainly a major
contributing factor in the issuance of the Shokoku Edict and Portuguese exclusion, and the Dutch
monopoly on the Japanese trade was recognition of Dutch aid in suppressing the uprising.
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Although the Dutch East India Company was given the Japanese monopoly by the
Shogun, part of their attractiveness as trade partners came from their willingness to accept severe
restrictions by the Japanese. They were willing to restrict themselves to the isle of Dejima and to
suppress all expressions of Christianity. Upon entering Japanese waters, all religious
paraphernalia were placed into barrels and stored for the duration of the stay, even going so far
as to lock up European currency, which bore the image of the cross. Clearly profit was more
important than faith, at least to the Dutch East India Company.
The Dutch East India Company was treated as one of the Daimyo vassals of the Shogun.
Just as the Daimyo were required to appear at court every other year, so were the factors of the
East India Company required to make an annual progress to the Shogun’s court in Edo. At the
court, the members of the East India Company were willing to put on a quite a show to maintain
the goodwill of the Shogun. Woodcuts show Dutch men capering about arm-in-arm in courtly
dances in response to a request for demonstrations of European dances.
Clearly, to subject themselves to such limitations (and humiliation!), trade with Japan
must have been quite lucrative. Exhibits of Japanese goods from the late 17th and early 18th
Centuries include Japanese porcelain, silk, and lacquer ware, as well as prints of Japanese
woodcuts and weaponry. Examples of these items can be viewed at the Leiden Ethnographic
museum house (as well as electronically on their website) and at the Siebold House.
Often these goods were created specifically for the European consumer. For example, in
the collection of the Amsterdam Historical Museum is a set of porcelain dinnerware with the
VOC of the Dutch East India Company at the eye-catching center of the blue decoration.
Lacquer work chests might be enameled with images of European ships in ports, which the
Japanese (by virtue of the Shokoku Edict) could never have seen. Presumably these items would
not have been terribly interesting to a Japanese consumer, but the willingness of Japanese
artisans and manufacturers to create such items demonstrates their desire for European
customers.
Official trade with the VOC was supplemented (or perhaps complemented) by private
trade from the individual members of the crew. These men might have bought European or
Indian goods that the Japanese demanded (e.g. iron, mercury) and traded them for Japanese
goods, which they could sell upon their return to Europe. The lure of private profits would surely
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have been one of the stronger inducements to acquire and retain men for the long and risky
voyage.
The story of the Japanese trade does not end with the loading of goods at Dejima, or even
at the unloading on the docks in Amsterdam and then the various trade cities of Europe. From the
trade centers, the goods were handled by merchants, and then sold in shops, ready to supply the
“middling sorts” with conveniences that demonstrated their success and conformity with
fashions. In fact, most luxury goods were bought by shopkeepers (or their wives) who in turn
sold these items to “middling” consumers.
There is a significant amount of evidence of the success of the Japanese trade In the
Dutch Republic. We see items from Japan (and other Asian ports) depicted in still-life paintings
such as Jan van der Heyden’s Still Life with Curiosities.
While the painting demonstrates the world-wide scope of Dutch trade, it is interesting that the
Japanese sword is set off to the side, clearly not the sole focus of the picture; each object in the
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painting might be a rarity, but rarities from Japan are not any more (or less) remarkable than
those from elsewhere.
Further evidence is provided by the development of imitation products in the form of
Delftware, or in Britain, Wedgewood. Japanese items were in enough demand that the imitations
could satisfy the demand, while presumably providing a cheaper alternative to the real thing. It is
clear that Delftware was meant to imitate Asian porcelain because there were often meaningless
Chinese characters on the back: characters which the consumer would have no way of
interpreting as nonsense. The attempt to imitate imported goods often led to the creation of new
technologies of production. In fact, Maxine Berg credits the demand for these exotic goods with
the creation of industries that epitomized the innovations of the industrial revolution.
Material culture, in the form of luxury goods, was the main avenue by which Europeans
learned about Japan, and their knowledge would mostly be formed by impressions gleaned from
these goods. In her book on luxury in the eighteenth century, Maxine Berg specifically discusses
how British ideas about China came mainly from the paintings on lacquer ware and porcelain.
She explains that these ideas created a view of China as exotic, strange, and sensual. It does not
seem like too much of a stretch to speculate that similar impressions would have been formed
about the Japanese. If true, than then purchase of such goods becomes a minor act of rebellion
against the sexually repressive middle class mores of European, an expression of wickedness by
the consumer.
Commerce is an act that occurs at the intersection of supplier willing to sell, and
customer with demand to buy. The Dutch trade with Japan occurred at a time when the very
people who were willing to obtain and sell these exotic luxuries could also become the
consumers who were willing to buy. Further growth in industry created a market willing to spend
surplus income on convenience and comfort. Advertisers informed customers and fed their
“manufactured” need.
From Dejima, to Amsterdam, to London, the physical objects from Japan are themselves
the evidence of trade that was just one part of an increasingly global network. While necessary
luxuries in our own time might mean big-screen TVs, and other electronics, it is fascinating to
consider that these exchanges are merely a later phase of the luxury trade that began between the
Dutch Republic and Japan.
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Bibliography
Print Materials:
Berg, Maxine. Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2005.
Berg, Maxine, and Elizabeth Eger. Eds. Luxury in the Eighteenth Century. Hampshire and New
York: Palgrave, 2003.
Israel, Jonathan. The Dutch Republic, Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1995.
Westermann, Mariet. A Worldly Art: The Dutch Republic 1585-1718.New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1996.
Wrightson, Keith. Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2000.
Web Resources:
Gilbert, Marc Jason. "Paper Trails: Paper Trails: Port Cities in the Classical Era of World
History," Available from http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/3.3/gilbert.html>
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Hellyer, Robert. Review of Chaiklin, Martha, Cultural Commerce and Dutch Commercial
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H-Net Reviews. December, 2008. Available from
http://www.h- net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23420
Internet; accessed 24 July 2011
Michel, Wolfgang. “The Dutch at Dejima (Nagasaki) Japan.” Translated webpage of Nagasaki.
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http://www.corvalliscommunitypages.com/asia_pacific/japan/dejimaall.htm
Internet; accessed 24 July 2011
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Museum Volkenkunde. “Permanent Exhibitions.” Japan and Korea
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Internet; Accessed 28 July 2011.
PBS. “Japan, Memories of a Secret Empire. Available from
http://www.pbs.org/empires/japan/timeline_1500.html
Internet; Accessed 25 July, 2011
Röell, Guus, and Deon Viljoen. Uit verre streken: Luxury goods from trading posts in the former
Dutch East and West Indies, China and Japan 17th – 19th Centuries. Available from
http://deonviljoen.com/uploads/Uit_verre_streken_june_2011.pdf
Internet; accessed 24 July 2011