page_title: Hasekura Tsunenaga
hierarchical_section_title: Hasekura Tsunenaga
context_page_description: Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga was a kirishitan Japanese samurai and retainer of Date Masamune, the daimyō of Sendai of Japanese imperial descent with ancestral ties to Emperor Kanmu.
  In the years 1613 through 1620, Hasekura headed a diplomatic mission to Pope Paul V. Crossing the Pacific aboard the San Juan Bautista, a ship built for the purpose by Masamune, Hasekura transited New Spain and visited Spain and various other ports-of-call in Europe on the way. This historic mission is called the Keichō Embassy, and follows the Tenshō embassy of 1582. On the return trip, Hasekura and his companions re-traced their route across New Spain in 1619, sailing from Acapulco for Manila, and then sailing north to Japan in 1620. He is conventionally considered the first Japanese ambassador in the Americas and in Spain.
  Although Hasekura's embassy was cordially received in Spain and the Vatican, it happened at a time when Japan was moving toward the suppression of Christianity. European monarchs such as the King of Spain thus refused the trade agreements Hasekura had been seeking.
context_section_description: Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga (or Philip Francis Faxicura, baptized as Francisco Felipe Faxicura, in Spain, also spelled Faxecura Rocuyemon in period European sources, reflecting the contemporary pronunciation of Japanese; Japanese: 支倉六右衛門常長; 1571–1622) was a kirishitan Japanese samurai and retainer of Date Masamune, the daimyō of Sendai of Japanese imperial descent with ancestral ties to Emperor Kanmu.
  In the years 1613 through 1620, Hasekura headed a diplomatic mission to Pope Paul V. Crossing the Pacific aboard the San Juan Bautista, a ship built for the purpose by Masamune, Hasekura transited New Spain (arriving in Acapulco and departing from Veracruz) and visited Spain and various other ports-of-call in Europe on the way.  This historic mission is called the Keichō Embassy (慶長使節), and follows the Tenshō embassy (天正使節) of 1582.  On the return trip, Hasekura and his companions re-traced their route across New Spain in 1619, sailing from Acapulco for Manila, and then sailing north to Japan in 1620.  He is conventionally considered the first Japanese ambassador in the Americas and in Spain.
  Although Hasekura's embassy was cordially received in Spain and the Vatican, it happened at a time when Japan was moving toward the suppression of Christianity. European monarchs such as the King of Spain thus refused the trade agreements Hasekura had been seeking. Hasekura returned to Japan in 1620 and died of illness a year later, his embassy seemingly ending with few results in an increasingly isolationist Japan.
  Japan's next embassy to Europe would not occur until more than 200 years later, following two centuries of isolation, with the "First Japanese Embassy to Europe" in 1862.
caption: Hasekura's portrait during his mission in Rome in 1615 by Claude Deruet
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