A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (30 page)

Villagers therefore made sure they presented a reassuringly peaceful and inoffensive front to
daimy
officials, whatever the actual state of turmoil in their village might be. This idea of deferential ‘lip service’ was to be another important legacy for modern Japan. It is another element in the relationship between formal authority and actual power,
¹⁶
and also in the commonly noted continuing Japanese distinction between outward appearance (
omote
or
tatemae
) and inner reality (
ura
or
honne
). If one gave the appearance of ‘toeing the line’ and respecting authority, and if one did not cause any real disturbance, then the chances were that one would be left in peace – and even with a degree of ‘freedom within limits’. The same could be said of Japan today.

Westerners always presented a problem. They were not familiar with Japanese ways, behaved unpredictably and often defiantly, spoke strange languages that were hard to monitor, and had strange ideas about some divine power that transcended emperors and sh
guns alike. Their trade was beneficial, true, and they had some useful technology, but they were simply too much of a threat for the sh
gunate’s peace of mind. In particular, the challenge that their uncompromising God presented to the authority of the sh
gun was a major problem – not so much in theological terms, but in political ones.

Had westerners kept their Christian beliefs to themselves, and not tried to assert the authority of their God – and their God alone – through preaching and moral judgements, they may well have received better treatment. Japan was (and still is) a land of religious tolerance. Nobunaga’s
campaigns against Buddhist institutions were based on political rather than religious grounds, and the same was true of the actions by Hideyoshi and then the Tokugawa against the Christians.

Though the Japanese did not concern themselves overly with the theological distinction, Catholicism was seen as more of a threat than the newly emerged Protestantism.
¹⁷
This may have been because Catholics comprised the great majority of the Christians in Japan – and virtually all the converted Japanese – or because they were more outward and assertive in the expression of their faith than the Protestants. Most likely, however, it was largely because the sh
gunate was aware of the vigorous empire-building being pursued by Catholic nations in the New World. Columbus himself had come from a Catholic nation. Moreover, the Catholic Church even had its own state, the Vatican, with popes who often became involved in politics. This all clearly suggested that the Catholic Church was not merely spiritual.

In any event, Christianity came to symbolise the western presence and threat to sh
gunal power and authority. It became a focal point for sh
gunal action against that threat. This action applied not only to westerners themselves, but also to those Japanese who had been converted to Christianity. Like the punishments of the day, it was harsh, particularly against Japanese Christians.

Persecution intensified through the early 1600s. Many suspected Christians were asked to demonstrate their rejection of Christianity by stepping on a copper tablet that bore an image of a crucifix or similar Christian symbol. Some remained steadfast in their faith even though the tortures used to persuade them to renounce it were horrific, including for example eye-gouging and the torturing of young children in front of their parents.
¹⁸
The executions were similarly horrific, involving methods such as crucifixion, beheading by saw, or throwing into boiling thermal pools.

The culmination of persecution was the Shimabara Massacre of 1638, near Nagasaki, in which as many as 35,000 people – men, women, and children, and most of them Christians – were killed by sh
gunate forces. This was not purely a persecution of Christians, but was at the same time the quelling of an uprising partly caused by discontent over taxation and an unpopular
daimy
.
¹⁹
Nevertheless, the causes became conveniently blurred, and it brought an effective end to the open presence of Christianity in Japan (though ‘hidden Christianity’ was to persist among some, especially in the Nagasaki region). From 1640 all Japanese were obliged to register at Buddhist temples to prove their non-Christianity, a practice which also helped keep a check on the population at large.

Christian missionaries had been expelled in 1614, but western traders had been allowed to continue to visit and even reside in the country. Gradually, however, the sh
gunate came to feel that the disadvantages of foreign trade outweighed the advantages. It was not only a constant worry in terms of national security, but a perceived indirect threat to the Tokugawa through the enriching of certain
daimy
participating in foreign trade. Even at such an early stage, the sh
gunate also had an economically motivated wish to preserve domestic merchants from excessive competition.
²⁰