New Perspectives on the Early Tokugawa Persecution

Abstract

The banning and suppression of native Christians that took place in the early seventeenth century as the Tokugawa political structure was being erected is familiar enough to all students of Japanese history. A number of questions about the proscription remain, however, unanswered. There appears, especially, to be very little corroborative evidence for the view held by Kataoka and others, that the suppression of Christians was, despite some regional variations, applied thoroughly throughout Japan after the issue of the first Tokugawa anti-Christian edict in 1612¹ This chapter endeavours to shed light on the process of qualitative change in the proscription following the first of the Keichō edicts, taking as its material the Christians of the Shimabara and Amakusa areas.