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Paper Trails: Deshima Island: A Stepping Stone between Civilizations

Marc Jason Gilbert
North Georgia College and State University

  
   
 

Isaac Titsingh: Plattegrond der Nederlandse Faktory op et Eiland Desima bij Nagasaki. Copied from a Bunjiemon Toshimaya's woodblockprint. From I. Titsingh: Illustrations of Japan. London 1822. Part I, Plate 4. (private collection) From: http://flcsvr.rc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~michel/serv/eujap/voc/dejima/1822.html .
 
 
    Deshima, known as Dejima in Japanese, was a small artificial island in Nagasaki Bay (approximately 150 feet by 500 feet) on the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu. From 1641 to 1845, Deshima served as the sole conduit of trade between Europe and Japan, and during the period of self-imposed Japanese seclusion (approximately 1639-1854) was Japan's only major link to the European world. Though Dutch merchants were generally confined to the island, it nonetheless served as a conduit of considerable culture exchange in both directions. The exchanges ranged from hydrangeas to knowledge of electricity and paralleled a similar exchange passing between the Japanese and Chinese merchants, who were also permitted to trade at Deshima under similar controlled circumstances. Though it was destroyed during the modernization of Nagasaki harbor in the 20th century, the significance of Deshima has since been recognized. There are now plans to reconstruct the island to attract both European and Asian tourists drawn by its historic role as a meeting place between East and West.
 1
   
The Establishment of the Dutch Trade with Japan  
    Europeans began trading with Japan and engaging Japanese society in 1600, when a Dutch ship, the Liefde, arrived in Usuki Bay on Kyushu with 24 half-starved men, seven of whom later died from the effects of malnutrition. The ship, piloted by an Englishman, Will Adams, had reached Japan during the second year of his mission to seek out and destroy Spanish and Portuguese settlements in Africa and Asia and return with the much prized pepper of Southern Asia. Adams won the confidence of Tokugawa Ieyasu in spite of (or perhaps because of) the attempts of the Catholic Portuguese to denounce their Protestant Dutch commercial rivals as pirates. Of course, this was not far off the mark as the Dutch were engaged in piratical attacks on the Portuguese. However, Tokugawa Iyesu was coming to view the Portuguese as a more serious threat to his own ambitions than any pirate might pose, because they were determined to convert and assert political control over as many Japanese as possible. These activities ultimately led him to ban European missionary activity and offer their converts the choice of recanting their faith or death. In contrast, Adams was granted privileged status. Adams was perceived as a businessman rather than a missionary and as a representative of a Protestant rival of the Catholic nation had no intention of meddling in Japanese internal affairs. He was thus regarded as a valuable asset, a possible European counterweight to the Portuguese. As such, he was not allowed to leave Japan, though as with any other court favorite, he was given a grant of land and revenue from a village for his support. He is still annually honored today in Japan by a celebration on the street in Edo where he lived. There is also a roadway in Tokyo honoring him by the title by which he was known, An-jin (An-jin Cho or Pilot Street).
 		2
 


Will Adams, his Memorial in Hirado and at Gillingham, his birthplace (seen in 1984). From http://www.medway.gov.uk/index/leisure/localhistory/timeline/17900/26373.htm.
 
 
    In 2005, a celebratory festival was held in Adams' home county of Kent, featuring Japanese music, dancing, martial arts and other aspects of Japanese culture.1 Adams' relations with the Tokugawa were immortalized, if also highly fictionalized, by the late James Clavell in his popular novel, Shogun (1975). The novel ultimately served as the basis of a television miniseries and a Broadway play. A more reliable rendition of his experiences is Adam's own account, an excerpt of which is offered below as a student exercise. Whatever the actual relationship that existed between Tokugawa Iyesu and Adams, it laid the foundation for a unique association of the Dutch with the bafuku, or Japanese ruling court, that was to last almost two and a half centuries.  
 


Two views of the bay of Nagasaki and the island of Deshima in 1832 (top) and 1850 (bottom). From http://www.hogaku.it/storia/edo/politica.html and http://flcsvr.rc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~michel/serv/eujap/voc/dejima/1850.html.
 
 
    In 1641 a new phase of this relationship began when the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or V. O. C in Dutch) transferred its business from Hirado south to the island of Dejima in Nagasaki harbor. The island had originally been built in 1636 for Portuguese traders, but the Dutch were able to enjoy the use of its facilities when the Portuguese were finally expelled from Japan for their interference in Japanese affairs. The Dutch had no such intentions. They were happy to fulfill the role as a counter-weight to Catholic political ambitions during a revolt by Christian samurai (the Shimbara Rebellion, 1637-38). The Dutch assisted in the suppression of the revolt by providing ships at the bafuku's request to bombard the rebel positions. Nonetheless, they were closely watched by the Japanese authorities. Their property was often (rightly) searched for signs of smuggling and they were permitted to make only limited visits to the mainland from a complex of offices, warehouses, and other dwellings that made up a European overseas trading station or "factory." These visits included an annual trip of the entire staff (12-15 agents) living within the Dutch factory to offer presents to the Tokugawa Shogunate in their capital city of Edo (modern Tokyo). These visits offered an opportunity for the Japanese to "assure themselves of their loyalty and to weaken them by putting financial burdens on them." They also offered the Dutch the opportunity to impress the Japanese. Among the gifts they presented the court were elephants and camels and a magnificent copper lantern that has survived to this day:

Once a year, the director and his staff visited Edo in order to pay respects to the Shogun. The Dutch appear to have been treated like daimyo (Japanese feudal lords), who were also required to make these visits. At first, these visits were strictly controlled, but later the Dutch had more chance to enjoy the journey and to study Japanese history and culture. The Dutch were also allowed to participate in the kunchi festival of Suwa Shinto Shrine. When a new governor of Nagasaki arrived in the town, he visited Dejima and the Dutch also entertained the bureaucrats—translators and administrators—who supervised trade between the two countries.2

 3
    The visits often included entertainments at which the agents, usually after much drinking, were encouraged by the court to dance and sing in their national idiom. The political subtext of this activity is indicative of the servant-to-patron relationship these visits were designed to cement.  
 



Top: Image of the Procession of the Dutch Factors from Deshima to the Tokugawa court in Edo from http://www.deutsches-museum.de/bib/entdeckt/alt_buch/buch0199.htm. Bottom, an Englishman (note lack of red hair and presence of beard) dances before a samisen player in image suggestive of capering at court by European merchants. Does the dignified samisen player appear non-plussed by this, to her, uncultured behavior?
 
 
    At the change of factory directors that coincided with the arrival of the annual trading fleet of ships from Holland there was also a meeting with Japanese officials. Fresh from Europe, the new director was expected to report not only on the factory's activities, but on recent global affairs. It has been suggested that it was primarily for the latter reason—and the intelligence it provided—that the Japanese permitted the existence of the factory. 4
   
Contemporary Accounts  
    Scholars are fortunate that the correspondence of Isaac Titsingh (1740?-1812) is now available in print (Frank Lequin, ed., The Private Correspondence of Isaac Titsingh, Volume 1 (1785-1811), and Volume 2 (1779-1811) (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 1990, 1992) and on microfilm. This Dutch explorer, diplomat, and administrator went to Japan as the Dutch Envoy in 1778 and served as Director of the Dutch East India Company factory at Deshima Island for three periods between 1779 and 1784 (for a list of all Dutch East India Company's chief mangers in Japan from 1600 to 1860, see http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Japan.htm#Dejima). Titsingh wrote widely on Japan in several languages and was among the first Europeans to collect Japanese artifacts, thus becoming Europe's first Japanologist. He may have also have been the first to introduce the Tale of 47 Ronin to Europe in his work, Illustrations of Japan (London: Ackerman, 1822).3 His over 300 letters offer an intimate account of the customs and events associated with the Directors' annual pilgrimage to Edo (pictured above). According to the publishers of his letters, these observations "range from wedding ceremonies to the conduct of the Edo court, and from the cultivation of Bonsai trees [see under "Cultural Exchange" below] to the suicide of a prominent Japanese scholar of the West."4  His work also provided insight into the activities of the Chinese factory at Deshima:
 		5
 


The Chinese factory at Deshima. Note Chinese dress and banners. From: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/titsingh_chinese.jpg
 
 
    Another blessing is the wide availability of the actual daily registers of the Deshima factory, called Dagregisters, which have been published through 1760.5 The editors and translators of the published version of the first nine years of registers (Cynthia Vialle and Leonard Blussé, The Deshima Dagregusters, Volume XI, 1641-1650, 2001) note the great value of the contents of these registers for students of world history. They contain not only lists of trade items, but also accounts of Japanese efforts to be sure the Dutch remained outside of any alliance of Catholic nations and held themselves aloof from the trouble caused by unauthorized visits of other merchants on Japanese soil. As the editors of this work and some of its reviewers have noted, the translations of these registers must be used with care. For example, an entry discussing a shipment to the royal court suggests that sake was part of shipment. However, an error in translation disguises the fact that the sake was not part of the delivery, but part of the refreshment provided for the shippers en route!6 These difficulties should not discourage the use of the published version of the registers in the classroom. An example of their use in a classroom setting is provided at the conclusion of this essay. 6
   Many Dutch East India Company day registers are available on-line as a result of the efforts of Henny Savenji (Henry Kang Lee). His site permits students of the period to trace the travels of the Marco Polo of Korea, Hendrick Hamel. It also offers a plethora of resources including an index to Daregisters and journals of Dutch shipping in the Indies and individual day-registers (http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/Dutch/bijlagen.htm) that have been translated into English (see the exercise provided below).
 		7
    Neither of these sources surpasses the usefulness of two accounts of the Blomhoff family based on family records as well as Dagreisters. The first of these is Matthi Forrer and Fifi Effert's (trans. and eds.), Court Journey to the Shogun of Japan: From a Private Account by Jan Cock Blomoff (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishers, 2000), which offers an account of Jan Cock Blomhoff's(1779-1853) career as Director at Deshima. During his career, he wrote many letters to his wife Titia in Holland and kept a record of his visit to Edo in 1818. This work is a major source for Tokugawa Japan, enriched by images of the cultural objects he collected while in Japan. 8
 



 
 
    A more personal account of the Dutch-Japanese encounter as viewed by the Blomhoffs is the story of Titia Blomhoff (1786-1821), who along with the wet-nurse for her son, came to Deshima to join her husband, then Director of the factory. Because European women had been previously banned on the island, on her arrival in 1817 she and her wet-nurse became the first Western women to visit Japan. She was expelled after nearly four months, but not before making an impact at least in the form of 500 paintings, etchings, prints, and dolls the author has found were introduced into the nineteenth-century Japanese market. One example of these images appears above right (note the possibly Javanese servant from the Dutch base at Batavia, today Jakarta in Indonesia). It is adapted from a photograph taken by Kathleen Cohen from a wall hanging entitled "Edo Anonymous   Netherlandish Women," dated 1817. It now hangs in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum Stadhouderskade in the Netherlands. (For this and similar images, see http://gallery.sjsu.edu/encounters/orient/orient-Thumb.00003.html). This is so dramatic a story that neither an academic review,7 nor the following publisher's summary can dull a reader's interest in René P. Bersma's study of her life (Titia: The First Western Woman in Japan (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing (imprint of KIT Publishers), 2002):
 		9

Drawn from contemporary documents, private family correspondence and the Deshima logbooks, Titia is neither a history nor a novel or an official biography. Rather, it is a tribute to a woman who achieved an accidental place in history by being the first Western woman to travel to Japan in the 19th century . . . The Japanese government ordered her deportation. Fortunately, Nagasaki's painters, including Kawahara Keiga, immortalized her before she left three and a half months after her arrival and these depictions were to prove most influential in representations of Western women in Japanese art. Separated from her husband, she died in 1821 of physical and mental exhaustion resulting from her experiences.8

10
   Both works help illuminate the practice of court visits that the Tokugawa employed for much the same purposes as King Louis IV employed his palace at Versailles: to help control and weaken the nobility, due to the costs of the visits in terms of travel and local housing, and to gather intelligence on their activities. 11
   
Postcards from the Edge: Nagasaki-e  
 


 
 
    The presence of the Dutch sparked much interest among the Japanese, only a few of whom caught a rare glimpse of the red-haired Gaijin. The desire to know more about the appearance and manners of these barbarians created a market niche for Nagasaki-e, a series of popular woodblock prints depicting the Dutch merchants, their vessels, and the exotic animals that were part of their annual tribute (see the exhibition on Red-Haired Barbarians at http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/japaneseprints/index.html). The Dutch were nearly always portrayed as red-hared, big-nosed and blue eyed. Given the isolation in which the Dutch lived their everyday lives, it is not surprising that Japanese artists portrayed the forks the Dutch used at meals as small garden rakes.
 		12
    Richard Illing suggests that the Nagasaki-e industry, which flourished from 1800 to 1860, was something of a sideline for the artists the Japanese government employed in Nagasaki to copy western images brought to Japan by foreigners.9 That the prints were unsigned further suggests that they were produced locally more as quality souvenirs than as high art. Like the parallel Yokohama-e, which showed "foreigners and their technical achievements" in that enclave, these prints "were not produced with elaborate techniques like mica or embossing as they were targeted at a broad Japanese public more on a coffee table book level."10 13
   
Trade and Cultural Exchange  
 


 
  		 
    One of the chief trade items that passed through Deshima was silk from China. This import was indicative of the "country trade" or the means by which European traders profited not by command of the internal economies of subordinated Asian states, but by serving those economies as transporters of their products. The Dutch also imported goods from Southeast Asia and Europe. Dennis O'Flynn provides a succinct analysis of this trade in the Journal of World History (see an even more succinct abstract of Flynn's essay, which is currently available at no cost from JSTOR at http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/journal_of_world_history/v013/13.2flynn.pdf).11 14

    The country trade gave the Dutch access to Japanese silver and gold and also porcelain, such as Arita, Imari and other fine Japanese ceramics that were in high demand in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe. While "the Japanese artisans catered for their European clients with Dutch motifs. . . [w]hen demand could not be met by imports, the Dutch copied Japanese porcelain in large quantities."12 In fact, the cross-cultural flow was rich and complex. The illustration above is of Chinese export 'Van Frytom' dishes designed, as the name suggests, by Frederick Van Frytom (1632-1702). This pattern, long known as "Deshima Island," actually describes a scene in the north of Holland. Chinese artisans copied this pattern from the Japanese Arita-ware versions of the Dutch Delft artist's work! A pair of these plates, originally traded sometime between 1730-1740, is currently listed for sale at $3,200.

15
    Deshima fostered other more culturally significant forms of exchange. Some Japanese students were exposed to the Dutch language at the enclave, though legally speaking, the learning of a foreign language was legally prohibited until after 1745. Still, considerable knowledge of Japan passed to Europe via Deshima. The Japanese gained some knowledge of Western science via the settlement.13 Bavarian biologist/botanist Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866) served at Deshima as the factory's medical officer from 1823 to 1829 and may have transferred considerable knowledge of Western medicine to the Japanese and of the Japanese to the West. He brought over 500 Japanese books back to Europe. He certainly worked with many Japanese translators and students. His multipart book, Nippon (Leiden, 1832-1858), was instrumental in spreading knowledge of Japan to the West. This work was among the first to explain Japanese Buddhism to the West. It remains of value to scholars of that period and has been the subject of a recent analysis of cross-cultural exchange suitable for students.14
16
    Because he was a trained botanist, Siebold also left an early record of Japanese bonsai to add to that of Titsingh. This practice of miniaturizing trees and shrubs requires minute and repetitive pruning that can be used as a form of Zen meditation, among other cultural functions. Siebold, a student of Japanese Buddhism, greatly admired this practice, as can be seen from the following excerpt from the English translation of his Manners & Customs of the Japanese (1841):

. . . a few words must be said of the Japanese gardeners, although their horticultural skills would entitle them to rank among the artists or artificers of the country rather than the agriculturists.  These gardeners value themselves alike upon the art of dwarfing and that of unnaturally enlarging all vegetable productions.  They exhibit in the miniature gardens of the towns full grown trees of various kinds only three feet high, with heads no more than this in diameter.  These dwarf-trees are reared in flower-pots . . and when they bear luxuriant branches upon a distorted stem, the very acmé of perfection is attained . . .15

  		17
 


Bonsai by Craig Cousins and others from http://www.bonsaiinformation.com/bonsaibeginners.htm.

 
 
    Students of ecological or "plant imperialism" will note that Siebold smuggled tea plants out of Japan and used them to start the tea plantation economy in Dutch Indonesia. He also set up a greenhouse at his estate in Holland (appropriately called "Deshima") where he naturalized Japanese plants, such as the hosta and hydrangea, to European soils and climate. Though Japan attempted to protect its plant catalog, it still considers Seibold a culture hero (as Siborut-san).16 This honor is all the more generous given the circumstances of his departure from Japan:

    At the end of his stay, it became known that Siebold was copying a map of the northern (Ezo) regions of Japan with the connivance of the Imperial librarian and astronomer (who he had befriended on the early 1826 Dutch court journey to the shogun in Edo).  The Government (and some political enemies of the astronomer), suspecting that the intention might be to put the map to some use harmful to Japan, imprisoned all of Siebold's known Japanese students and friends, searched his house repeatedly, confiscated religious objects and other things which he might have intended to export illegally, and informed him that he would not be allowed to leave the country.


 		18

    He had been informed of the impending situation and had spent a night in mid-December 1828 finishing a copy of the important map.  Everything that was essential to his description of Nippon, manuscripts, maps and books, he packed in a large lead-lined chest which was then hidden.  The [Dutch] director . . . was informed, and also personally entrusted with the copy of the Ezo map, to be placed in the archives.  All this was done in the name of science.  It was illegal, but at that time the objectives of the smuggling must have been purely scientific, not political . . . however [the storehouse was] searched and many of his most prized articles were confiscated.  A prolonged investigation into the matter took place. It was late October before Siebold was informed that he was to be permitted to leave Japan, but was to be banished forever.  When he set sail for Batavia at the end of the year, he was given a send-off by some of his less suspected friends and students who had been released from prison.  Some of those who were more suspected did die in prison.  Siebold was forced to leave behind his young mistress and a two-year-old daughter (who lived until 1903), who were forbidden to accompany him.17

19
     William Ten Rhyne (1647-1700), was the first university-trained medical doctor to serve at Deshima. On his arrival in 1673, he is thought to have advised the very ill Japanese emperor, who subsequently recovered. Rhyne went on to introduce the medicine and culture of Japan to the West. He was the first physician to publish a detailed description of the indications for and practices of acupuncture, published as Transisalano-Daventriensis Dissertatio de arthritide: Mantissa schematica: De acupunctura: et Orationes tres, I. De chymiae ac botaniae antiquitate & dignitate: II. De physiognomia: III. De monstris / Singula ipsius authoris notis illustrate (London: R. Chiswell, 1683). 20
     Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716), a well-educated and well-traveled German scientist, arrived in Deshima in 1690, where, like Siebold, he served as medical officer. Kaempfer, "whose only wish was to study the country and its people, despaired at his confinement" there. However, his fluency with languages led to his rapid command of Japanese, which "soon won him the friendship of the Japanese interpreters and officers of the island, who were under solemn oath not to talk with foreigners or discuss the affairs of Japan." According to his account of what proved to be a two-year sojourn in Japan, one of these officers was "a discreet young man, by whose means I was richly supplied with whatever notice I wanted [including Japanese books], concerning the affairs of Japan . . . He was about 24 years of age, well vers'd in the Chinese and Japanese languages, and very desirous of improving himself. Upon my arrival he was appointed to wait on me as my servant, and at the same time to be instructed by me in Physick (medicine) and surgery." Kaempfer also paid him a handsome salary and taught him Dutch. This officer's superiors must have countenanced this "animated and highly fruitful exchange," as they permitted him to accompany Kaempfer on "visiting" trips (1690-2) to Edo.18
21
 

Engelbert Kaempfer (Left, above and below) and Philipp von Siebold (Right, above and below) as seen in Europe and modern Japan) from http://www1.city.nagasaki.nagasaki.jp/dejima/en/glass/contents/main_004.html; http://home.debitel.net/user/RMittelstaedt/Japan/Siebold.htm
 
 
    Students of the place of food in world history should take note that Kaempfer "played a key role in introducing the soybean and soy-based foods to the Western world." His book Amoenitatum Exoticarum, published in Germany in 1712, "contained the first written description by a Westerner of the soybean plant and seeds (accompanied by the first Western illustration of these), plus the most detailed descriptions to date of the process for making miso and shoyu (Japanese-style soy sauce)."19 22
    Figures such as Titsingh, Siebold, Rhyne and Kaempfer were merely a few among the many contributors to a much larger process of cultural exchange known as the Dutch Studies or manner of knowledge (in Japanese, Rangaku or "the study of Dutch," which included medicine, military technology, the natural sciences and language studies). The impact of this school of knowledge at a time when the Japanese were in an anti-Confucian mood and focusing instead on a school of Japanese history and tradition called "National Learning" is discussed in leading world history survey texts.20 However, for an illustration of how Deshima facilitated the encounter between Japanese scholars and Enlightenment science in books written in Dutch and the nature of the initial Japanese response to that knowledge, there is no better example than the transmission of the idea of electricity to Japan cited by William R. Everdell in his review of Scott L. Montgomery's Science in Translation: Movements of Knowledge Through Cultures and Time (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000):

Dutch books imported through Deshima in the 18th century described the new phenomenon of "elektriciteit" which a Japanese scientific translator rendered as "erekiteristato" using the Japanese syllabary, katakana. A fascinated rangaku scholar, Hiraga Gennai (1729-1780), procured a broken Dutch electrostatic generator and began copying it. He renamed erekiteristato "erekiteru," which he spelled using the phonetic values of "kanji," the Chinese characters naturalized into the Japanese writing system centuries before, and he explained it as the manifestation of the fifth element, fire, in the cosmology of Shingon Buddhism. Not long after Hiraga's death, the Japanese explanation of electricity was recast in a way that westerners like Ben Franklin could have understood more easily [as] the word for it was changed to "denki," Chinese for a form of the neo-Confucian cosmic energy, using the Chinese character for "lightning."21

23
   
The Reclamation and Restoration of Dejima Island  
    The resourceful Dutch benefited even from the American Admiral Perry's second trip to coerce Japan into opening its trade to the West. Perry's trip secured the Treaty of Kanagawa (1854), the first of many such treaties that ended Japan's self-imposed isolation from the world beyond China. However, that treaty marked the end of the Dutch monopoly of Western trade and there was no longer any reason for foreign traders to operate from enclaves such as Deshima. Accordingly, the factory was closed in 1860. In time, Nagasaki became better known as the site of a nuclear attack than a historic trade entrepot. Yet, perhaps as a result of the recent prolonged Japanese recession of the 1990s, civic leaders in Nagasaki came to view the location of the former Deshima Island as offering considerable opportunities for economic growth through tourism. For a long while, only ground markers denoted the location of most of the Dutch structures, but several buildings have already been reconstructed from old records and wood-block prints. Museums and other related sites have also opened. March-April of 2006 will mark the opening of the second phase of the planned total reconstruction which was formally begun in 1996.22  
 


 
 

 

 

  
   
Resources and Questions for Further Study  
Article-Based Questions  

What knowledge of Japanese plants, food and other practices was transmitted to the West through Deshima?

What knowledge of Europe was gleaned by the Japanese from contacts at Deshima?

Discuss the views of an advocate of Dutch and/or National Learning.

Explain the global and local religious and political context which led to the Dutch succeeding the Portuguese in Japan.

What aspects of Dutch life at Deshima indicate the inferior position of Europeans in Asia prior to the nineteenth century?

  
   
Document and Map Based Exercises  

    There is a small, but useful, group of documentary sources that can be derived from accounts of the Dutch at Deshima.

Document No. 1: Will Adams Arrives in Japan

    A letter written by Will Adams in 1611 describing part of his voyage to Japan and his reception there is easily accessible. The source of this letter is Eva March Tappan, ed., The World's Story: A History of the World in Story, Song, and Art, Volume I: China, Japan, and the Islands of the Pacific, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), pp. 325-331. The following excerpts were scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, of California State University, Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg and offered online as part of the on-line Modern History Sourcebook project created by Paul Halsall. The study questions which follow have been developed by this writer.

    After reading these excerpts, students may be directed to answer the following questions. In view of his mission as described above, how candid is Adams in his description of his past actions and motives? What was the likely statement he might have made to the Japanese about political conditions in Europe and, assuming he told the truth of conflict between Catholic and Protestant nations, why would the Japanese be satisfied with that account? Research the conflict being played out between these European nations and relate them to Adam's European enemies' speaking against him in court. How did the Japanese court treat Adams and his men? What favors did he perform for his Japanese overlord? How did he adjust to the place he had found himself occupying there and what were its costs?

 
   
Will Adams, My Coming to Japan, 1611  

It was agreed that we should leave the coast of Peru and direct our course for Japan, having understood that cloth was good merchandise there and also how upon that coast of Peru the king's ships were out seeking us, having knowledge of our being there, understanding that we were weak of men, which was certain, for one of our fleet for hunger was forced to seek relief at the enemies' hands in Saint Ago. So we stood away directly for Japan, and passed the equinoctial line together, until we came in twenty-eight degrees to the northward of the line, in which latitude we were about the twenty-third of February, 1600. We had a wondrous storm of wind as ever I was in, with much rain, in which storm we lost our consort, whereof we were very sorry. Nevertheless with hope that in Japan we should meet the one the other, we proceeded on our former intention for Japan, and in the height of thirty degrees sought the northernmost cape of the fore-named island, but found it not by reason that it lay false in all cards and maps and globes; for the cape lies in thirty-five degrees and one half, which is a great difference. In the end, in thirty-two degrees and one half we came in sight of the land, being the nineteenth day of April. So that between the Cape of St. Maria and Japan we were four months and twenty-two days; at which time there were no more than six besides myself that could stand upon his feet.

  

So we in safety let fall our anchor about a league from a place called Bungo. At which time came to us many boats and we suffered them to come aboard, being not able to resist them, which people did us no harm, neither of us understanding the one the other. The king of Bungo showed us great friendship, for he gave us a house and land, where we landed our sick men, and had all refreshing that was needful. We had when we came to anchor in Bungo, sick and whole, four and twenty men, of which number the next day three died. The rest for the most part recovered, saving three, which lay a long time sick, and in the end also died.

  

In the which time of our being here, the emperor hearing of us sent presently five galleys, or frigates, to us to bring me to the court where His Highness was, which was distant from Bungo about eighty English leagues. So that as soon as I came before him, he demanded of me of what country we were. So I answered him in all points, for there was nothing that he demanded not, both concerning war and peace between country and country; so that the particulars here to write would be too tedious. And for that time I was commanded to prison, being well used, with one of our mariners that came with me to serve me.

  

A two days after, the emperor called me again, demanding the reason of our coming so far. I answered: We are a people that sought all friendship with all nations, and to have trade in all countries, bringing such merchandise as our country did afford into strange lands in the way of traffic. He demanded also as concerning the wars between the Spaniards or Portugal and our country and the reasons; the which I gave him to understand of all things, which he was glad to hear, as it seemed to me.

  

In the end I was commanded to prison again, but my lodging was bettered in another place. So that thirty-nine days I was in prison, hearing no more news, neither of our ship nor captain, whether he were recovered of his sickness or not, nor of the rest of the company; in which time I looked every day to die, to be crossed [crucified] as the custom of justice is in Japan, as hanging in our land. In which long time of imprisonment, the Jesuits and the Portuguese gave many evidences against me and the rest to the emperor that we were thieves and robbers of all nations, and, were we suffered to live, it should be against the profit of His Highness and the land; for no nation should come there without robbing; His Highness's justice being executed, the rest of our nation without doubt should fear and not come here any more: thus daily making access to the emperor and procuring friends to hasten my death. But God, that is always merciful at need, showed mercy unto us and would not suffer them to have their wills of us. In the end, the emperor gave them answer that we as yet had not done to him nor to none of his land any harm or damage; therefore against reason and justice to put us to death. If our countries had war the one with the other, that was no cause that he should put us to death; with which they were out of heart that their cruel pretense failed them. For which God be forever-more praised.

 

Now in this time that I was in prison the ship was commanded to be brought so near to the city where the emperor was as she might be (for grounding her); the which was done. Forty-one days being expired, the emperor caused me to be brought before him again, demanding of me many questions more, which were too long to write. In conclusion he asked me whether I were desirous to go to the ship to see my countrymen. I answered very gladly, the which he bade me do. So I departed and was free from imprisonment. And this was the first news that I had that the ship and company were come to the city. So that with a rejoicing heart I took a boat and went to our ship, where I found the captain and the rest recovered of their sickness; and when I came aboard with weeping eyes was received, for it was given them to understand that I was executed long since. Thus, God be praised, all we that were left alive came together again.

  

From the ship all things were taken out, so that the clothes which I took with me on my back I only had. All my instruments and books were taken. Not only I lost what I had in the ship, but from the captain and the company generally what was good or worth the taking was carried away; all which was done unknown to the emperor. So in process of time having knowledge of it, he commanded that they which had taken our goods should restore it to us back again; but it was here and there so taken that we could not get it again, saving 50,000 R in ready money was commanded to be given us and in his presence brought and delivered in the hands of one that was made our governor, who kept them in his hands to distribute them unto us as we had need for the buying of victuals for our men with other particular charges. In the end the money was divided according to every man's place; but this was about two years that we had been in Japan, and when we had a denial that we should not have our ship, but to abide in Japan. So that the part of every one being divided, every one took his way where he thought best. In the end, the emperor gave every man, much as was worth eleven or twelve ducats a year, namely, myself, the captain, and mariners all alike.

  

So in process of four or five years the emperor called me, as divers times he had done before. So one time above the rest he would have me to make him a small ship. I answered that I was no carpenter and had no knowledge thereof. "Well, do your endeavor," said he; "if it be not good, it is no matter." Wherefore at his command I built him a ship of the burden of eighty tons or thereabout; which ship being made in all respects as our manner is, he coming aboard to see it, liked it very well; by which means I came in favor with him, so that I came often in his presence, who from time to time gave me presents, and at length a yearly stipend to live upon, much about seventy ducats by the year with two pounds of rice a day daily. Now being in such grace and favor by reason I learned him some points of geometry and understanding of the art of mathematics with other things, I pleased him so that what I said he would not contrary. At which my former enemies did wonder, and at this time must entreat me to do them a friendship, which to both Spaniards and Portuguese have I done, recompensing them good for evil. So to pass my time to get my living, it hath cost me great labor and trouble at the first; but God hath blessed my labor.

 

In the end of five years I made supplication to the king to go out of this land, desiring to see my poor wife and children according to conscience and nature. With the which request the emperor was not well pleased, and would not let me go any more for my country, but to bide in his land. Yet in process of time, being in great favor with the emperor, I made supplication again, by reason we had news that the Hollanders were in Shian and Patania; which rejoiced us much with hope that God should bring us to our country again by one means or other. So I made supplication again, and boldly spoke myself with him, at which he gave me no answer. I told him if he would permit me to depart, I would be a means that both the English and Hollanders should come and traffic there. But by no means he would let me go. I asked him leave for the captain, the which he presently granted me. So by that means my captain got leave, and in a Japan junk sailed to Pattan; and in a year's space came to Hollanders. In the end, he went from Patane to Ior, where he found a fleet of nine sail, of which fleet Matleef was general, and in this fleet he was made master again, which fleet sailed to Malacca and fought with an armado of Portugal; in which battle he was shot and presently died; so that, as I think, no certain news is known whether I be living or dead. Therefore I do pray and entreat you in the name of Jesus Christ to do so much as to make my being here in Japan known to my poor wife, in a manner a widow and my two children fatherless; which thing only is my greatest grief of heart and conscience. I am a man not unknown in Ratcliffe and Limehouse, by name to my good Master Nicholas Diggines and M. Thomas Best and M. Nicholas Isaac and William Isaac, brothers, with many others; also to M. William Jones and M. Becket. Therefore may this letter come to any of their hands or the copy, I do know that compassion and mercy is so that my friends and kindred shall have news that I do as yet live in this vale of my sorrowful pilgrimage; the which thing again and again I do desire for Jesus Christ his sake.

 
   
Document No. 2: An Image of a "Visiting" Procession  
Thanks to Henny Siveniji, we have a large number of journals, dagregisters, maps, and illustrations of Dutch operations in the East Indies accessible on-line. One of these offers an account of the procession accompanying a Korean mission to the Court at Edo, which can be used to accompany the images and accounts of "visiting" processions discussed and illuminated above and pictured again below (see this document dated September, 1666 at http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/Dutch/dag6614se.htm). Students can be directed to closely examine the image below for elements of European and Japanese customs and dress and the differential in status between the two.  
 

An early 19th Century painting of a Dutch "Visiting" Procession to the Court at Edo. Image from: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/ealac/moerman/v2361/weeks/images/thumbs/procession_dutch.jpg.

 
 
Document No. 3: Life within the World That Trade Created  
A six meter Japanese silk screen mural (called a makimono) produced between 1840-1850 illustrates the interior of the Dutch factory at Deshima. Students can be directed to the use of skin and hair color as defining characteristics of the anonymous painter's subjects. The Dutch are stereotyped here and in other Japanese mediums as all having pure white skin; the darker figure with long hair in the center is likely a Thai servant (the Dutch long had a factory at Ayuthia in Siam), two men of possibly African descent (African slaves were not uncommon in Asia) are pushing a bale of what may be Chinese silk, while two servants are seen engaged in other activities. There are further details students can be asked to identify and explore as signifying this early phase of globalization by trade.  
 

Detail of makimono of the interior of Deshima Island by unknown artist. From the collection of the Rijksmuseum at http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/images/aria/ng/z/ng-1977-4.z. Note street lamps, rain gutters and animals present.

 
 
Document Exercise No. 4: Persecution of Catholics in Japan  
What follows is an account of a very different procession, the arrival in Nagasaki of a group of Roman Catholic missionaries who entered Japan despite the Tokugawa ban on Europeans of that faith. Their arrival and trial is recorded in the day register at Deshima for August 21, 1642. Small notational changes and some less literal translations of the Dutch into English have been added to the text for clarity. For the original in Dutch, see http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/Dutch/daghreg21a42.htm. The original English translation (Copyright Henny Saveniji) can be found at http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/Dutch/daghreg21a42e.htm.  
This document can be used to measure student understanding of the reasons why the Japanese sought to ban contact with most Westerners. Students might usefully explore why the Dutch might be less impressed with the confessions of the arrested Catholics than the Japanese apparently were. They could address why Japanese officials might have been emotionally moved by their bravery, yet, while so moved, why would these same officials still torture the missionaries to death? Why did the Japanese feel such persecution was justified? What steps did they believe their government had taken to make such punishment unnecessary? How does the list of captured Catholics, and one in particular, reflect the breadth of the Western colonial enterprise in early modern Asia? Students might also explore why there might be more than one reason the assimilated former Christian Jaon seemed "touched" in his mind and walked away without comment after his attempt to save his former co-religionists lives failed.  

Daegister, August, 1642

  

21: and 22nd ditto. Dirty, rainy weather, east south east winds. Three Chinese junks arrived with silk cloth from Bivor as well as raw goods. Later that evening, a barge arrived from Satsuma carrying the caught papists [Roman Catholics], who were expected on the 11th of this month, as was made mention of in earlier correspondence. These men, all shaved and dressed in the Japanese way, were brought to the local prison immediately, where the renegade papist Jaon spoke to them.

  

[Here Sivenji notes this "renegade " Jaon was Sawano Chuan (1571–1649), previously a Jesuit. He had come to Japan as Christavao Ferreira, S.J. (Society of Jesus, i.e. a Jesuit) in 1609 and served until 1632 as the head of a monastery. Caught in 1633 in Nagasaki, he was tortured by his persecutors until he abandoned his faith, thus becoming an apostat.e]

  

Jaon addressed the arrested Catholics by order of the Japanese Governor asking if they wanted to become apostate, leave their faith and, like himself, live in the Japanese way. The arrested men answered, "Thou villain, what tiger, pig, serpent or wicked vermin has produced you? For laying these questions in front of us, go to the devil and his hellish deceit, which you serve." Upon hearing this, the renegade was so affected in his mind that he could not say another word, and left without any further conversation with them.

  

The names of the previously mentioned papists are these:

-Anthonio Romeyn,  Italian Jesuit, 62 years old being the principal of a college within Macao [the Portuguese settlement in southern China], where he is an esteemed person, his name and quality since some years hither known by the governor. [Probably Padre Antonio Rubino, an Italian].

--Pranciscus Marcus [Francisco Marquez], Jesuit, 32 years old, whose father was a Portuguese and fathered here in Nangasackij with a Japanese woman.

--Pasquael Corea [Pascoal Correa de Souza, a businessman and servant of the mission], merchant, a Portuguese, 35 years old, having made several journeys with the galliots [galleys] to Nangasackij, being very impoverished by big losses, has connected himself as a servant with previously mentioned Jesuits.

--Jahan de Schave [Joao de Chaves], 30 years old, born on the Canarian Islands [Canary Islands.

--Also an old man from Corea, a Coutchinchiender [someone from Cochin, either Cochin in India or Cochin-China in southern Vietnam/Kampuchea] and an eel catcher serving as servants.

  

The captured Catholics declared that they came together in Manila, hired a junk [Chinese ship] for three thousand Spanish reals, accompanied by some Chinese, serving like countrymen and a Spanish pilot, and put ashore in Sutsuma, where they were hidden, without being discovered, though eventually they were watched. They had with them T. 107 weight of Chinese gold and T. 250 Tael Silver. They spoke these words very frankly and unabashed, despising the death and all the torments to be expected here.

  

The Governor Saboseymondonne and his Councilors, being very surprised about this frankness, examined the men further, asking if they didn't have the full knowledge of the ban of His Majesty of Japan, that no Castilians, Portuguese and those who adhere to their doctrine, much less Roman papists, were permitted in his country and would be caught, and killed with the most painful torments? The governor noted that their Majesty had made such orders know throughout the whole country of Japan. Why then would people from any foreign nation seek to set themselves upon this land? What had moved them to come hence and to raise new revolt?

 

The arrested men replied that they had known of the ban of his Majesty, however taking more in esteem the orders of the great Godt [sic]and his son Jesum Christum and the ruler of heaven, earth and all containing, they had set out on this journey in His Name with the hope of teaching some people inhabiting this country the rightful, genuine knowledge of God Almighty. They had been discovered too soon to accomplish their task, but understood that nothing could be done for them. They were ready and unafraid to suffer everything, whatever pain and indignity the Japanese might be intending to do with their bodies; they were ready to suffer everything in the name of their Savior. This straightforward confession, made without changing posture or face, touched the listeners somewhat. The Governor ordered all to be put in a prison house under strict guard . . . where he directed that they were not to be killed quickly, but tortured daily so as to cause all kinds of torments of the world until they could no longer stand it and die.

  
   
Map Exercise  
Thanks to the work of Gerald Danvers and others there are now new and more productive ways of using maps to examine world historical processes. However any map of Asia can be employed to direct students to the "country trade," the means by which Europeans acted as transporters of the merchandise of Asian trading nations. The Dutch trade with Deshima was a classic example of this trade, which enabled the Dutch, who could not otherwise afford much trade due to the lack of domestic goods that were desirable in Asia, to buy cheap goods elsewhere in Asia and trade them at Deshima for Japanese silver in excess of the cost of the original trade item. The profits in silver could be repatriated to Holland or used to purchase otherwise costly items in Asia where silver, unlike merchandise from Holland, was in demand. The Casteneda collection at the University of Texas provides a host of free maps tracing this trade. See, for example, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd/asia_mediaeval_commerce.jpg.  
 

From: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd/asia_mediaeval_commerce.jpg. Maps at this original site is easily enlarged for very detailed view of cities and other locations.

 
 
Lesson Plans and Other Classroom Approaches  

Students can replicate the procession of the Dutch factory to the Tokugawa Court using Matthi Forrer and Fifi Effert's The Court Journey of the Shogun of Japan: From a Private Account by Jan Cock Blomhoff  (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishers, 2000). Their study can be enriched by taking a visit of their own to Edo via a spectacular virtual tour provided at http://www.us-japan.org/edomatsu/.

The images of the Dutch participation in Japan's "visiting system" to the Court of the Tokugawa can also be viewed and used as a basis for a discussion of "Journey as Narrative" at http://www.fulltable.com/vts/j/jn/jn.htm. For further comparison studies, see A Bibliography of Travel Literature in Asia prepared by Bryn Mawr College at http://www.brynmawr.edu/library/speccoll/guides/travel/asia.html.

A bibliography on Tokugawa Japan features study guides, topical questions, projects and other student activities related to this period. See http://www.nvcc.edu/home/jebraden/Tokugawa/tkgstudyguide.htm.

Students can be assigned a reading of René Bersma's Titia: The First Western Woman in Japan (2002) as a book review assignment or as the source of an essay exam question.

Using the works of the Blomhoff's or the day registers, students can examine these sojourners' perceptions of Japanese society. This can be accomplished individually or in study groups.

Teachers may find Henry Smith (ed.), Learning from Shogun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy (Santa Barbara: University of California, Santa Barbara, distributed by the Japan Society of New York, 1980) a useful tool. This book is available online for personal and instructional use at http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ehds2/learning/Learning_from_shogun_txt.pdf. It includes articles about James Clavell's novel Shogun by Elgin Heinz, William Lafleur, Susan Matisoff, Chieko Mulhern, Sandra Piercy, David Plath, Henry Smith, and Ron Toby.

The literature on the impact of Japanese woodblock prints on Western art can be used alongside lesson plans on Impressionist paintings (see, for example, that at http://www.impressionism.org/teachimpress/browse/lesson7.htm). For material usefully drawn from that literature, see Charlotte van Rappard-Boon, Willem van Gulik, Keiko van Bremen-Ito, "Catalogue of the Van Gogh Museum's Collection of Japanese Prints (Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 1991) and major sites on cultural exchange fostered by woodblock prints at http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/japaneseprints/ and Ukioy-earts at http://www.cjn.or.jp/ukiyo-e/index.html.

A Lesson Plan on the Coming of Admiral Matthew Perry to Japan can be found at: http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/teach/ends/opening.htm.

Lesson plans that address the Dutch in Japan can be found at:

http://www.indiana.edu/~japan/lessons.html

http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/japan_images_people/index.html

http://www.askasia.org/teachers/lessons/plan.php?no=97

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/03/news/tulips.php

http://www.cstone.net/~bcp/5/5JGeo.htm

 
Students can be assigned to analyze the content of an exhibit currently sponsored by The Netherlands Economic History Archive entitled "Red-Haired Barbarians: The Dutch and other foreigners in Nagasaki and Yokohama, 1800 ­ 1865."  This exhibit examines 40 woodblock prints (Nagasaki-e and Yokohama-e,) sold to Japanese who were curious about the Dutch community on Deshima Island. This digital presentation is self-described as highlighting "the amazement with which the Japanese looked at Westerners. The Dutch are depicted as pale, ugly, red-haired barbarians with large noses. The ships the Dutch used and the exotic animals they brought caused much astonishment and admiration."  In 1858, Americans and other Europeans were granted the same rights as the Dutch. The Dutch settlement in Yokohama is also the subject of the popular illustrations on view as part of a virtual version of this exhibition at http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/japaneseprints/index.html or http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/japaneseprints/.  
   
Bibliography  

Bersma. René P. Titia: The First Western Woman in Japan. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing (imprint of KIT Publishers) 2002.

Blussé, Leonard, Remmelink, Willem and Smits, Ivo (eds.). Bridging the Divide: 400 Years The Netherlands-Japan. Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2000.

Bodart-Bailey, Beatrice M.;Vialle, Cynthia ;Blusse, Leonard, trans., eds, The Deshima Dagregusters, Volume XI, 1641-1650. Leiden: Intercontinenta No. 23, Universiteit Leiden, 2001.

Boxer, C. R. A True Description of the Mighty Kingdoms of Japan and Siam. London, The Argonaut Press, 1935.

Flynn, Dennis Owen. Cycles of Silver: Global Economic Unity through the Mid-Eighteenth Century in the Journal of World History, Volume 13, Number 2 (Fall 2002): 391-427.

Forrer, Matthi and Effert, Fifi (eds.and trans.). Court Journey to the Shogun of Japan: From a Private Account by Jan Cock Blomoff. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishers, 2000.

Haberland, Detlef. Translated by Peter Hogg. Engelbert Kaempfer–a Biography. London: The British Library 1996.

Hyma, A. The Dutch in the Far East (1942, repr. 1953); study by B. Gardner (1972).

Kaempfer, Engelbert. The history of Japan, giving an account of the ancient and present state and government of that empire; of its temples, palaces, castles and other buildings; of its metals, minerals, trees, plants, animals, birds and fishes; of the chronology and succession of the emperors, ecclesiastical and secular; of the original descent, religions, customs, and manufactures of the natives, and of their trade and commerce with the Dutch and Chinese. Together with a description of the kingdom of Siam. Written in High-Dutch by Engelbertus Kaempfer ... and translated from his original manuscript, never before printed, by J. G. Scheuchzer ... With the life of the author, and an introduction. London: Printed for the translator, 1727. A copy is at Bryn Mawr College Library at DS808 .K127 1727 v. 1-2.

Milburn, William. Oriental Commerce Containing a Geographical Description of the Principal Places in The East Indies, China, and Japan with their Produce, Manufactures, and Trade, including the Coasting or Country Trade from Port to Port also The Rise and Progress of the Trade of the Various European Nations with the Eastern World Particularly that of the English East India Company From the Discovery of the Passage Round the Cape of Good Hope to the Present Period with An Account of the Company's Establishments, Revenues, Debts, Assets, & c. at Home and Abroad Deduced from Authentic Documents, and Founded upon Practical Experience Obtained in the Course of Seven Voyages to India and China. London: Black, Parry and Co., 1813 rpt. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1999.

Nederlandsche Oost-Indische Compagnie, The Deshima Dagregisters: Their Original Tables of Contents. Leiden: Leiden Centre for the History of European Expansion, 1986-. Volumes 1-2 (published in 1988 and 1989) were edited by Toni Vermeulen; Volume 3 (1989) was jointly edited by Toni Vermeulen and Paul van der Velde; Volumes 4-7 (1989-1993) were edited by Paul van der Velde; Volume 8 (1994) was edited by Paul van der Velde and Cynthia Vialle; Volume 9 (1996) was edited by Cynthia Vialle and Leonard Blussé; Volume 10 (1997) was edited by Cynthia Vialle; Volume 11 (2001) was edited by Cynthia Vialle and Leonard Blussé. Series contents: Dagregisters Volume 1 (1680-1690), Volume 2 (1690-1700), Volume 3 (1700-1710), Volume 4 (1710-1720), Volume 5 (1720-1730), Volume 6 (1730-1740), Volume 7 (1740-1760), Volume 8 (1760-1780), Volume 9 (1780-1790), Volume 10 (1790-1800), Volume 11 (1641-1650).

Siebold, Dr. Philipp Franz von. Manners and Customs of the Japanese [in the Nineteenth Century from the accounts of Dutch residents in Japan and from the German work of]. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1841; Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Company; 1973, 1977.

Totman, Conrad. Tokugawa Ieyasu Shogun. Kyoto: Heian International Inc., 1988.

van der Velde, Paul and Bachofner, Rudolf. The Deshima Diaries Marginalia, 1700-1740. Tokyo: Japan-Netherlands Institute, 1992.

van Gulik, Willem. A Distant Court Journey, Dutch Traders visit the Shogun of Japan. Amsterdam: Amsterdam: Stichting Koninklijk Paleis 2000.

_____The Dutch in Nagaskai: 19th Century Japanese Prints. Amsterdam: 1998.

_____In the wake of the Liefde. Cultural relations between the Netherlands and Japan, since 1600. Rotterdam: Museum voor Volkenkunde / De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1986.

Vialle, Cynthia and Leonard van der Velde, Paul and Bachofner, Rudolf. The Deshima Diaries Marginalia, 1700-1740. Tokyo: Japan-Netherlands Institute, 1992.

  
   
Internet Resources:  

A Bibliography of travel literature in Asia prepared by Bryn Mawr College: http://www.brynmawr.edu/library/speccoll/guides/travel/asia.html.

A World of Difference: The VOC and Japan's Economic Policy, 1640-1715: http//: www.iias.nl/iiasn/22/theme/22T7.html.

Christianity in Nagasaki: http://www.tca-japan.com/en/htmle/pagej04-6.html.

Chronology of Dutch Colonial History: http://www.colonialvoyage.com/NLpoAsFarEast.html.

Commerce and Culture: A Reader on Japan edited by Alex Redetich: http://www.indiana.edu/~easc/resources/commerce_culture/index.htm.

Dejima Comes Back to Life at http://www1.city.nagasaki.nagasaki.jp/dejima/en/history/index.html.

Deshima at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Rotunda/2209/Deshima.html.

Deshima Re-Emerges at http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/earns/deshima.html.

Dutch accounting in Japan 1609­1850: isolation or observation? http://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acbsfi/v11y2001i3p369-382.html.

The Dutch and other Foreigners in Nagasaki and Yokohama, 1800-1865, 40 Japanese Prints from the National Economic History Archive at http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/japaneseprints/index.html.

Dutch in Japan: http://batavia.rug.ac.be/b@tavia.htm?http://batavia.rug.ac.be/Japan/Desjima.htm. http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=bergen&book=japan&story=dutch.

The Dutch-Japanese Relationship: http://www.holland-expo2005.com/1036/Dutch-Japanese.Relations.html.

Dutch Japanese Relations (Netherlanden Consulaat): http://www.oranda-cg.or.jp/english/index.html.

The DutchTtrade with Japan: http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/webviews/ead/ead_scopecnt.webview?eadid=NL-HaNA_1.04.21&id=1082461644453.110.

Dutch and Japanese in Taiwan: http://www.cbs.org.tw/English/TDF/EP1-INT.asp.

The Dutch in Nagasaki: http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/nagasaki/6.html.

The Dutch in Nagasaki: http://www.artelino.com/articles/dutch_nagasaki.asp.

Inventory of Pictures of Deshima at http://flcsvr.rc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~michel/serv/eujap/voc/dejima/.

East Meets West: Original Records of Traders, Travellers, Missionaries and Diplomats to 1852 Original Records of Western Traders, Travellers, Missionaries and Diplomats to 1852 Part 3: Papers of John Scattergood (1681-1723), Isaac Titsingh (1740?-1812), Heinrich Julius Klaproth (1783-1835) and other early materials from the British Library, London, at http://www.adam-matthew-publications.co.uk/collections_az/EastWest-3/description.aspx.

Englebert Kaempfer, a bibliography at http://www.fl.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~michel/se*rv/ek/lit1946_1999.html.

Englebert Kaempfer, a biographical essay in William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi. "The History of Soy Pioneers Around the World", Unpublished Manuscript at http://www.fengshuitours.com/MOSkaempfer/kaempferpg1.asp.

Japan-Netherlands Relations at http://www.iias.nl/iiasn/22/theme/22T7.html.

Philipp Seibold at http://www.users.qwest.net/~rjbphx/1800Refs/Siebold.html.

Reconstructions of VOC establishments at http://www.tanap.net/obp/help/.

Shogun, the novel, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogun_(novel).

The Oldest Share (Dutch East India Company): http://www.oldest-share.com/.

Will Adams at http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0802443.html

  
Biographical Note: Marc Jason Gilbert is Professor of History at North Georgia College and State University, and is a University System of Georgia Regents Distinguished Professor of Teaching and Learning. He is also co-director of the University System of Georgia's programs in India and Vietnam. He has published several books about Vietnam, and is co-author with Peter Stearns, Michael Adas and Stuart Schwartz of the third revised edition of the world history survey text, World Civilizations: The Global Experience (2000). 24
   

1 See news reports at http://www.medway.gov.uk/index/leisure/localhistory/timeline/17900/26373.htm.

2 See http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/nagasaki/6.html.

3 For the manner of the introduction of the "Tale of 47 Ronin," see http://www.columbia.edu/~hds2/chushinguranew/retelling/47_ronin.htm.

4 See "East Meets West: Original Records of Traders, Travelers, Missionaries and Diplomats to 1852 Original Records of Western Traders, Travelers, Missionaries and Diplomats to 1852 Part 3: Papers of John Scattergood (1681-1723), Isaac Titsingh (1740?-1812), Heinrich Julius Klaproth (1783-1835) and other early materials from the British Library, London," at http://www.adam-matthew-publications.co.uk/Collections_az/EastWest-3/description.aspx.

5 Nederlandsche Oost-Indische Compagnie, The Deshima Dagregisters: Their Original Tables of Contents. Leiden : Leiden Centre for the History of European Expansion, 1986- Volumes 1-2 (published in 1988 and 1989) were edited by Toni Vermeulen; Volume 3 (1989) was jointly edited by Toni Vermeulen and Paul van der Velde; Volumes 4-7 (1989-1993) were edited by Paul van der Veld; Volume 8 (1994) was edited by Paul van der Velde and Cynthia Viallé; Volume 9 (1996) was edited by Cynthia Viallé; Volume 10 (1997) was edited by Cynthia Viallé and Leonard Blussé; Volume 11 (2001) was edited by Bodart-Bailey, Beatrice M.,Cynthia Viallé and Leonard Blussé. Series contents: Dagregisters Volume 1 (1680-1690), Volume 2 (1690-1700), Volume 3 (1700-1710), Volume 4 (1710-1720), Volume 5 (1720-1730), Volume 6 (1730-1740), Volume 7 (1740-1760), Volume 8 (1760-1780), Volume 9 (1780-1790), Volume 10 (1790-1800), Volume 11 (1641-1650).

6 See https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/1811/611/1/V10N2Bailey.pdf.

7 Harold Bolitho, review of Titia: The First Western Woman in Japan By René P. Bersma, (Amsterdam: the Netherlands: Hotei Publishing (imprint of KIT Publishers). 2002) in Pacific Affairs, vol. 76, no. 4(Winter,2003/2004: .

8 See http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9074822533/104-8736248-1524769?v=glance&n=283155.

9 Richard Illing, The Art of Japanese Prints, Gallery Books, 1980: 155.

11 Flynn, Dennis Owen, "Cycles of Silver: Global Economic Unity through the Mid-Eighteenth Century," Journal of World History, Vol. 13, No.2, (Fall 2002): 391-427.

12 See http://www.running-battle.com/porcelain.html.

13 See http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/nagasaki/6.html.

14 Fumihiko Sueki, "Civilizations: How We see Others, How Others see Us," Proceedings of the International Symposium Paris, 13 and 14 December 2001 at http://www.unesco.org/dialogue/en/Regard1sueki.htm.

15 From "Philipp Seibold, "Dwarf Trees" at http://www.users.qwest.net/~rjbphx/1800Refs/Siebold.html.

16 See http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/ref/philipp_franz_von_siebold.

17 From "Philipp Seibold, "Dwarf Trees" at http://www.users.qwest.net/~rjbphx/1800Refs/Siebold.html.

18 William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, "The History of Soy Pioneers Around the World," Unpublished Manuscript at http://www.fengshuitours.com/MOSkaempfer/kaempferpg1.asp.

19 Ibid.

20 See, for example, Peter Stearns, et. al, World Civilizations: The Global Experience (new York: Longman, 4th ed., 2004): 653.

21 For this review, see http://www.maa.org/reviews/scitrans.html.

22 See the Nagasaki City webpage at http://www1.city.nagasaki.nagasaki.jp/dejima/en/index.html.

  

 
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