Christ's Samurai: The True Story of the Shimabara Rebellion

Christ's Samurai by Jonathan Clement

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On August 9, 1945, the largely Protestant nation of the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on the most Christian city of Japan, Nagasaki. For targeting purposes, the bombing crew used St. Mary's Urakami Cathedral, the largest Christian church in East Asia.

Three hundred years earlier, another Protestant nation, this time the Dutch, used their ultimate weapon, a ship with cannons, to bombard the Catholic rebels of the Shimabara Rebellion, which minimally aided the Shogun to end the rebellion and exterminate the visible Christian presence in Japan.

To be a Japanese Christian has been to be at the mercy of local and international power.

This is a detailed, thoroughly researched and investigated book. At times, I was wondering how the material support for this book had managed to be preserved over the centuries. I also enjoyed the author's travelogue details that began each chapter. I found in myself, the strangest yearning to take a trip to Japan and see these sights and to visit the sites he describes.

The Shimabara Rebellion (1637-1638) was a local conflagration but large and significant even so. The background of the rebellions lay in the prior century when Portuguese and Spanish traders had reached Japan. At that time, Japan was going through its civil wars and the advent of foreigners who could supply advanced technology was welcomed. Catholic missionaries made substantial headway with the population around the Nagasaki area converting hundreds of thousands of the Japanese locals, sometimes deeply and sometimes shallowly.

With the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1600, the fortunes of Christianity took a turn. War technology was no desired in unified Japan and the Shogun had heard from various sources that Christians were a “fifth column” used to turn native lands into puppets of Spanish rulers. The Shoguns, accordingly, issued edicts compelling Christians to return to Buddhism. It was at this time that the ritual of stepping on Christian objects, mentioned in Endo's “Silence,” began.

In the 1630s, in the Nagasaki region, the oppression of Christians was combined with the oppression of farmers, who had been required to pay higher taxes during a period of agricultural decline. The result was the last rebellion in Japan until the end of the Shogunate in 1866.

Catholicism had been driven underground but not exterminated. An alliance was formed between ronin who had been on the losing side in 1600, farmers, and Catholics. Leadership was taken by Amakusa Shiro, aka Jerome Amakusa, who was young and an ardent Catholic. The rebellion acquired the tropes of a Catholic rebellion in its language and imagery.

After some initial successes, the rebellion was crushed as it seems was the inevitable outcome. Approximately 40,000 Catholic peasants were slaughtered. The Amakusa/Shimabara area was depleted of population to the extent that immigration was encouraged from other areas of Japan.

This was the beginning of real persecution of Christians who were driven totally underground as Kakure Kurishitan with their own rites and memories of the gospels. Christianity itself was equated with devil worship and evil rites. In my review of books on the “Hidden Christians,” I have mused if a reason for the harshness shown by Japanese to Christian POWs had something to do with this history (along with, of course, the Samurai ethos.)

In any event, this is a readable book with more than sufficient detail about the nuts and bolts of the rebellion to satisfy those with an interest in that subject.