page_title: Nanban trade
section_title: Portuguese trade in the 16th century
hierarchical_section_title: Nanban trade / Portuguese trade in the 16th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Nanban trade. The screen shows foreigners arriving at a shore of Japan. Kano Uchizen "Nanbanjin Inauguration" (right), Kobe City Museum Collection. 日本語: 狩野内膳作『南蛮人渡来図』（右隻）神戸市立博物館所蔵
context_page_description: The Nanban trade or Nanban trade period, was a period in the history of Japan from the arrival of Europeans in 1543 to the first Sakoku Seclusion Edicts of isolationism in 1614.
  The Nanban trade began with Portuguese explorers, missionaries, and merchants in the Sengoku period and established long-distance overseas trade routes with Japan. The resulting cultural exchange included the introduction of refined sugar, hand-held firearms, galleon-style shipbuilding, and Christianity to Japan. The Nanban trade declined in the early Edo period with the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate which feared the influence of Christianity in Japan, particularly the Roman Catholicism of the Portuguese. The Tokugawa issued a series of Sakoku policies that increasingly isolated Japan from the outside world and limited European trade to Dutch traders on the island of Dejima.
  Communities are campaigning for the influential Nanban route's inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
context_section_description: Ever since 1514 that the Portuguese had traded with China from Malacca, and the year after the first Portuguese landfall in Japan, trade commenced between Malacca, China, and Japan. The Chinese Emperor had decreed an embargo against Japan as a result of piratical wokou raids against China - consequently, Chinese goods were in scarce supply in Japan and so, the Portuguese found a lucrative opportunity to act as middlemen between the two realms.
  Trade with Japan was initially open to any, but in 1550, the Portuguese Crown monopolized the rights to trade with Japan. Henceforth, once a year a fidalgo was awarded the rights for a single trade venture to Japan with considerable privileges, such as the title of captain-major of the voyage to Japan, with authority over any Portuguese subjects in China or Japan while he was in port, and the right to sell his post, should he lack the necessary funds to undertake the enterprise. He could charter a royal vessel or purchase his own, at about 40,000 xerafins. His ship would set sail from Goa, called at Malacca and China before proceeding to Japan and back.
  In 1554, captain-major Leonel de Sousa negotiated with Chinese authorities the re-legalization of Portuguese trade in China, which was followed by the foundation of Macau in 1557 to support this trade.
  The state of civil-war in Japan was also highly beneficial to the Portuguese, as each competing lord sought to attract trade to their domains by offering better conditions. In 1571, the fishing village of Nagasaki became the definitive anchorage of the Portuguese and in 1580, its lord, Omura Sumitada, the first Japanese lord to convert to Christianity, leased it to the Jesuits "in perpetuity". The city subsequently evolved from an unimportant fishing village to a prosperous and cosmopolitan community, the entirety of which was Christian. In time, the city would be graced with a painting school, a hospital, a charitable institution (the Misericórdia) and a Jesuit college.
caption: Nanban ships arriving for trade in Japan. 16th-century six-fold byōbu (lacquer and gilded screen), by Kanō Naizen
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