Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies ISSN: 0874-8438
[email protected] Universidade Nova de Lisboa Portugal Ribeiro, Madalena The Japanese Diaspora in the Seventeenth Century. According to Jesuit Sources Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies, núm. 3, december, 2001, pp. 53 - 83 Universidade Nova de Lisboa Lisboa, Portugal Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=36100305 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative BPJS, 2001, 3, 53 - 83 THE JAPANESE DIASPORA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY According to Jesuit Sources Madalena Ribeiro CHAM, New University of Lisbon Fundação Oriente scholarship holder Based on the analysis of a small fraction of the vast Jesuit documentation we attempted to trace some of the Japanese communities - both Christian and non-Christian - who lived in South East and East Asia, in the second half of the seventeenth century. It is known that the sakoku policy spurned many thousands of Japanese, dispersed in the abovementioned regions, who were left completely to their own resources. Without any hope of repatriation, from 1630/40 onwards, these Japanese then had to find their own means of subsistence. 1. Japanese expansion in East Asia The arrival of the Portuguese in Japan, in 1543, would herald a new epoch of openness with regard to Japan’s relations with the outside world. The route linking Japan with South China was the first of the many commercial routes which were to develop.