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A Fake Embassy, the Lord of Taiwan and Tokugawa Japan

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 30; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10371391003639161

1469-9338

Adam Clulow,

Japanese History and Culture

Abstract In 1624, the Dutch East India Company established a colony on Taiwan. When Dutch authorities moved to tax and restrict Japanese traders, who had been sailing to the island for a number of years, they encountered immediate resistance spearheaded by Suetsugu Heizō, a Nagasaki official and merchant heavily invested in the Taiwan route. As part of his struggle against the Dutch, Heizō attempted to drag the Japanese state into the conflict by engineering a fake embassy formed of 16 aboriginal men recruited from a village in Taiwan and transported to the center of Tokugawa power in Edo. This paper explores the embassy and uses it to consider why powerful Asian states like Tokugawa Japan displayed so little interest in overseas expansion, creating a vacuum of power that European overseas enterprises rushed enthusiastically to fill. Acknowledgements This research was assisted by a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies. The author would like to thank the staff at the Historiographical Institute, University of Tokyo for their continuing support and Stephen Turnbull for his helpful comments. Notes 1This translation comes from Caron and Schouten, A True Description, 98–99. The original Dutch version can be found in Cort verhael, VOC 1077. 2Takekoshi, Japanese Rule in Formosa, vii. 3For recent work that argues for the centrality of Asia long after the first age of European expansion, see Frank, Reorient: Global Economy. 4Andrade, ‘The Rise and Fall of Dutch Taiwan’, 432. Andrade notes that although the rulers of Asian states displayed little interest in overseas expeditions, they were perfectly willing to authorize expansion via land. 5Andrade, ‘The Rise and Fall of Dutch Taiwan’, 434. 6The island of Taiwan had many names in this period. It appears in Japanese sources as Takasago, in Dutch accounts as Formosa or Ilha Formosa, and in Spanish materials as Isle Hermosa. To further confuse matters, the VOC established its fort at Tayouan, now the city of Anping, on the southwestern corner of the island. This paper focuses on the struggle for Tayouan, that is, for one small part of Taiwan rather than the island as a whole. 7Sacks, ‘Discourses of Western Planting’, 411. For a full-length study of Hakluyt, see Mancall, Hakluyt's Promise. 8Hakluyt, A particuler discourse. All quotes in this section are taken from this edition. 9Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement, 200–222. 10The Discourse did not prompt Elizabeth to throw the full resources of her government into colonization, but it was successful in securing both approval and limited state support for Raleigh's endeavors. The queen knighted Raleigh, invested in the expedition, encouraged his recruiting efforts, and provided munitions and a vessel. Hakluyt, A particuler discourse, xxx. 11For a perceptive examination of the relationship between state revenue and attitudes toward maritime trade see Pearson, ‘Merchants and States’. 12The absence of taxes on maritime trade thoroughly perplexed the Dutch, who were in Japan precisely because of a state interest in long-distance commerce. It should also be noted that maritime domains like Satsuma or Hirado did have mechanisms in place to exploit foreign trade. 13According to one estimate, almost 400,000 former samurai became rōnin in the first half of the seventeenth century. Vaporis, Breaking Barriers, 103. 14Nagazumi, ‘Hirado ni dentatsu’. For a study of the Japanese mercenaries employed by the VOC, see Clulow, ‘Unjust, Cruel and Barbarous Proceedings’. 15Scholars writing about the Tokugawa state have coined a number of terms to describe it. Mark Ravina calls it a ‘compound state’, a term that emphasizes the independence of the domains. Ravina, Land and Lordship. 16Toby, State and Diplomacy, 76. 17Ibid., 203. 18Ibid., 103. In this period, the bakufu dispatched dozens of diplomatic letters to states and organizations in Asia and Europe. Fujii, ‘Jūnana seiki no Nihon’. 19Toby, State and Diplomacy, 57. While the desire to secure diplomatic recognition from the Ryukyu kingdom was central, the campaign offered a variety of other benefits to the bakufu, including keeping the powerful domain of Satsuma occupied and opening up an unofficial trading route to China. 20Toby, State and Diplomacy, 72. 21In 1593, Hideyoshi ordered a letter to be sent to Taiwan requiring its ruler to submit tribute or face the consequences. The letter was carried to Taiwan but in the absence of an appropriate ruler to receive it was never delivered. See Stephen Turnbull's paper in this collection. 22Tokyo daigaku shiryō hensanjo, Dai Nihon Shiryō, Series 12, Vol. 6: 132–135. In keeping with Ieyasu's interest in trade, Arima was also instructed to investigate the island's economic potential and to see if it could serve as a meeting point for Japanese and Chinese merchants. 23Campbell, Formosa under the Dutch, 9. 24The best description of the progress of Arima's expedition comes from a Jesuit letter. Tokyo daigaku shiryō hensanjo, Dai Nihon shiryō, Series 12, Vol. 6: 132–135. 25Cocks, The Diary of Richard Cocks, Vol. 1, 223, 321 26Tonio Andrade has provided a superb account of the development of the Taiwan colony; Andrade, How Taiwan Became Chinese. 27The second merchant involved in this trade was Hirano Tōjirō, a magistrate from Kyoto. Nagazumi, ‘The Japanese Go-shuinjo’, 30. 28See the article on Suetsugu Heizō by Iwao Seiichi in Kokushi daijiten. 29Iwao, Shuinsen bōekishi no kenkyū. 30Heizō himself had been baptized as a Christian but converted back to Buddhism in 1620 in order to secure his own position. Elison, Deus Destroyed, 162–163. 31Schouten, ‘Memorabel verhael’, 83. 32Ibid., 84. This sum was equal to the annual tax income of a large domain in Tokugawa Japan. 33Nagazumi, ‘The Japanese Go-shuinjo’, 32; Nagazumi, ‘Japan en de Nederlanden’, 30. Although there is no direct evidence, we can assume that Heizō must have offered something, either a bribe or a stake in the trade, to these officials in return for their help. The Dutch certainly believed that they were little more than Heizō's puppets. 34Journaal gehouden door Coenraedt Cramer. 35We cannot be absolutely certain that Heizō planned the embassy and that it was not a hurried improvisation devised by Hamada. However, the evidence seems to suggest that it was the product of considerable planning. 36Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen, Vol. 7.2: 1156. 37The conflict over Taiwan has generated a number of articles, although none focus only on the embassy from Sinkan. Blussé, ‘Bull in a China Shop’; Nagazumi, ‘The Japanese Go-shuinjo’; Nagazumi, ‘Japan en de Nederlanden’; Kōda, ‘Taiwan ni okeru’. 38The Japanese sources, while frustratingly meager, remain useful in filling out parts of the story. The most important materials, particularly Ikoku Nikki, will be discussed later. 39Schouten, ‘Memorabel verhael’, 87. 40Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen, Vol. 7.2: 1191. 41Ibid., Vol. 7.2: 1156; Sūden, Ikoku nikki shō, 195. 42Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen, Vol. 5, 69. 43Ibid., Vol. 7.2: 1156, 1164. 44Cornelis van Neijenroode to Pieter Nuyts, 28 August 1627, VOC 1094. 45Sūden, Ikoku nikki shō, 195 46Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, Vol. 4.2: 54. 47Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen, Vol. 5, 107. 484 October 1627, Daghregister Pieter Nuijts ende Pieter Muijser, VOC 1095. 49By sovereignty (souverainiteyt), the VOC meant an area of exclusive control where its authority was absolute. Judged by the standards of later colonial empires, these areas, which included Ambon, the Banda islands, Batavia and Tayouan, were tiny. Typically, the Dutch claimed sovereignty over territory by arguing that local authorities, or sometimes simply local people, had conferred these rights on them via treaty, contract or ceremony. 50Schouten, ‘Memorabel verhael’, 79. 51The VOC had just emerged from a bitter war with the English East India Company for sovereignty over the spice-producing Banda islands. In this struggle, which formed the backdrop to the conflict over Tayouan, agreements with local inhabitants became crucial weapons in asserting control. Loth, ‘Armed Incidents and Unpaid Bills’. 52The history of this agreement is as follows. In 1622, after a failed attack on Macao, the VOC established a base on the Penghu islands near Taiwan. In response, a Chinese fleet assembled to eject the Dutch from what was seen as Ming territory. In subsequent negotiations, the possibility of moving the VOC fort from the Penghu islands to Taiwan, which lay outside Ming boundaries, was raised as an appropriate compromise. Unable to defend against an attack, the VOC commander, Martinus Sonck, agreed to this but demanded a written agreement from the governor of Fujian clearly laying out VOC rights to Taiwan. Despite his best efforts, Sonck was unable to obtain a contract or indeed any proof that this was a state agreement rather than a convenient compromise offered by a local Chinese commander. Blussé, ‘The Dutch Occupation’. 53Howell, Geographies of Identity, 5. Howell talks about the ‘hierarchy of sovereignty from Shogunate to intermediary domain to periphery’. 54Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen, Vol. 7.2: 1173. 5522 November 1627, Daghregister Pieter Nuijts ende Pieter Muijser, VOC 1095. 56The last VOC ambassador had arrived in 1612. Between 1612 and 1627, the Company sent informal delegations to meet with the shogun. 57Coolhaas, ‘Een lastig heerschap’. 584–5 October 1627, Daghregister Pieter Nuijts ende Pieter Muijser, VOC 1095. The first VOC ambassadors to arrive in Japan claimed to represent the ‘king of Holland’, a powerful European monarch that the Company had invented to serve as a royal figurehead in negotiations with Asian states. The ‘king of Holland’ was in fact the Republic's Stadholder, Prince Maurits. Nuyts was the first ambassador to come directly from the Governor-General in Batavia without letters from the Stadholder. In the end, the bakufu refused to accept that Nuyts was a legitimate ambassador and sent him away without an audience. 59Sūden, Ikoku nikki shō, 195. Sūden, a Zen monk belonging to the Rinzai sect, was a diplomatic and political adviser to the first three Tokugawa shoguns. Dutch sources make it clear that the group fell ill before they arrived in Edo. 60Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen, Vol. 4, 1224–1233. 61The villagers from Sinkan returned aboard one of Heizō's junks in 1628. Nuyts, who had recently assumed the position of governor in Taiwan, took revenge for the humiliation of the embassy by arresting the vessel and imprisoning the villagers. When Tokugawa authorities heard about Nuyts' actions, which were perceived as a violation of the bakufu-issued trading pass that Heizō's captain carried, they shut down trade with the VOC for the next four years until 1632. 62Nuyts to Jan Pietersz. Coen, 23 March 1628, VOC 1094. 63Ibid. 64Historiographical Institute, Diaries kept by the Heads of the Dutch Factory in Japan, Vol. 1, 107.