400
These Japanese rulers came about in the early seventeenth century and were supreme military commanders who hailed from a Japanese clan. With the end of Japan’s civil wars, successive rulers came to view Europeans as a threat to the country’s newly established unity rather than an opportunity. They therefore expelled Christian missionaries and violently suppressed the practice of Christianity. This policy included the execution, often under torture, of some sixty-two missionaries and thousands of Japanese converts. Authorities also forbade Japanese from traveling abroad and banned most European traders altogether, permitting only the Dutch, who appeared less interested in spreading Christianity, to trade at a single site. Thus, for two centuries (1650–1850), Japanese authorities largely closed their country off from the emerging world of European commerce, although they maintained their trading ties to China and Korea.
What is What is Japan’s Closure from Europe Under the Tokugawa Shogun?