page_title: Tanaka Shōsuke
section_title: First Japanese to the Americas (1610)
hierarchical_section_title: Tanaka Shōsuke / First Japanese to the Americas (1610)
context_page_description: Tanaka Shōsuke was an important Japanese technician and trader in metals from Kyoto during the beginning of the 17th century.
  According to Japanese archives he was a representative of the great Osaka merchant Gotō Shōsaburō. He is the first recorded Japanese to have travelled to the Americas in 1610. Returning to Japan in 1611, he again went to North America in 1613, with the embassy of Hasekura Tsunenaga. In total, he accomplished two roundtrips between Japan and North America and helped establish trade and diplomatic relations between Japan and the Spanish Empire.
context_section_description: In August 1610 Tanaka Shōsuke was ordered by the retired shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu to accompany Rodrigo de Vivero y Aberrucia back to New Spain (Nueva España), together with 22 other Japanese representatives, on board the San Buena Ventura, a 120-ton ship built in Japan under the supervision of William Adams a few years earlier. Also among them was Father Muños, a Franciscan Father, sent by Tokugawa Ieyasu as a representative to negotiate the establishment of trade between Japan and Nueva España.
  Following their arrival in New Spain in November 1610, Luis de Velasco, the viceroy of New Spain received the 23 Japanese and expressed his great satisfaction at the treatment the Spanish sailors had received in Japan. He decided to send an embassy to Japan in the person of the famous explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno. The viceroy confiscated the San Buena Ventura however, fearful that the Japanese would manage to master the art of trans-oceanic navigation.
  Spanish sources indicate that Tanaka Shōsuke studied silver mining techniques in New Spain before returning to Japan, obtaining knowledge which would have been very useful to Japan as it relied on silver (and copper) for the payment of her imports (see also Red seal ships). Tanaka Shosuke is also reported as having brought back mulberry wood from the New World, which he offered to Tokugawa Ieyasu, who used it to build a bath in his Palace.
  A contemporary journal, written by the historian Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, a noble Aztec born in Amecameca (ancient Chalco province) in 1579, whose Spanish name was  Domingo Francisco de San Anton Muñon, gives some account of the visit of Tanaka. He explains that Tanaka, retailer and merchant, was considered and treated as an ambassador for the commercial exchanges between Japan and New Spain. 
  "Today, Thursday in the afternoon, the 16th of the month of December of the year 1610, at 6 o'clock, was when perhaps as many as nineteen people from Japan, China, arrived and entered here in the city of Mexico. A noble, their lord, the ambassador, from the court of the great ruler the emperor of Japan, who brought them, came to make peace with the Christians so that they would never make war but always be at peace and esteem each other, so that Spanish merchants will be able to enter Japan and none of the people there will be able to impede them. And likewise the people of Japan will be able to come enter New Spain to do business, to come here to sell goods that are made there, and no one here will be able to impede them, for thus the lord Viceroy don Luis de Velasco, Marqués of Salinas, whom they came to see, informed them" Chimalpahin diary, "Annals of his time" 16 December 1610, p171.
  He also says that they were allowed to walk with their sword at the side, something not usually permitted to traders, and that they were in formal Japanese attire:
  "And they came gotten up as they are gotten up up there; they wear something like an ornamented jacket, doublet, or long blouse, which they tie at their middle, their waist; there they place a katana of metal, which counts as their swords. ... They seem bold, not gentle and meek people, going about like eagles" Chimalpahin diary, "Annals of his time" 16 December 1610, p171.
  Several of the Japanese (at least three according to Chimalpahin's account) chose to be baptized in New Spain, starting with the head of the delegation, who took the Christian name of Don Alonso: 
  "They were baptized in true splendour. It was done in the presence of all the different ecclesiastics who dwell in Mexico, who all appeared here. The first baptized was a noble and lord of Japan whose name upon baptism became don Alonso; don Hernando Altamirano, then captain of the guard, became his godfather." Chimalpahin diary, "Annals of his Time" 23 January 1611, p175.
  Tanaka Shōsuke was also baptized, and took the Christian name of "Don Francisco de Velasco Josuke".
  According to the account, three Japanese from the mission of Tanaka chose to remain in New Spain. He relates the departure of the group:
  "Today, Monday, the 7th of the month of M
caption: San Buena Ventura was built on the model of Liefde (depicted here), the ship on which William Adams originally reached Japan.
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