How did Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu treat Christians?
After Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s death, Tokugawa Ieyasu assumed hegemony over Japan in 1600. Like Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he disliked Christian activities in Japan but gave priority to trade with Portugal and Spain. He secured Portuguese trade in 1600. He negotiated with Manila to establish trade with the Philippines. The trade promotion made his policies toward Catholicism inconsistent. The Tokugawa shogunate finally decided to ban Catholicism in 1612. This marked the end of open Christianity in Japan. The immediate cause of the prohibition was a case of fraud involving Ieyasu’s Catholic vavasor but there were also other reasons behind it. The shogunate was concerned about possible invasion by Iberian colonial powers as they did in the New World and the Philippines. Domestically, the ban was closely related to measures against the Toyotomi clan. On the other hand some Jesuits cited “reasons of state” as the key factor; they realized superiority of state politics over religion in Japan.
