Shimabara Rebellion
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The , also known as the or , was an uprising that occurred in the Shimabara Domain of the
Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...
in
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
from 17 December 1637 to 15 April 1638.
Matsukura Katsuie ( Matsukura Shigetsugu or Shigeharu) was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. The son of Matsukura Shigemasa, Katsuie continued his father's policies of extraordinarily high taxation and persecution of Christians, which eventually led ...
, the ''
daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...
'' of the Shimabara Domain, enforced unpopular policies set by his father Matsukura Shigemasa that drastically raised taxes to construct the new Shimabara Castle and violently prohibited
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
. In December 1637, an alliance of local ''
rōnin In feudal Japan to early modern Japan (1185–1868), a ''rōnin'' ( ; , , 'drifter' or 'wandering man', ) was a samurai who had no lord or master and in some cases, had also severed all links with his family or clan. A samurai became a ''rō ...
'' and mostly Catholic peasants led by Amakusa Shirō rebelled against the Tokugawa shogunate due to discontent over Katsuie's policies. The Tokugawa shogunate sent a force of over 125,000 troops supported by the Dutch to suppress the rebels, which defeated the rebels after a lengthy
siege A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...
against their stronghold at Hara Castle in Minamishimabara. Following the successful suppression of the rebellion, Shirō and an estimated 37,000 rebels and sympathizers were beheaded, and the Portuguese traders suspected of helping them were expelled from Japan. Katsuie was investigated for misruling, and was eventually beheaded in Edo, the only ''daimyō'' executed during the Edo period. The Shimabara Domain was given to Kōriki Tadafusa. Japan's policies of national seclusion and persecution of Christianity were tightened until the ''
Bakumatsu were the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate Meiji Restoration, ended. Between 1853 and 1867, under foreign diplomatic and military pressure, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a Feudali ...
'' in the 1850s. Shimabara Rebellion is often portrayed as a Christian rebellion against violent suppression by Matsukura Katsuie. However the main academic understanding is that the rebellion was mainly by peasants against Matsukura's misgovernance, with Christians later joining the rebellion. The Shimabara Rebellion was the largest civil conflict in Japan during the
Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...
, and was one of only a handful of instances of serious unrest during the relatively peaceful period of the Tokugawa shogunate's rule.


Leadup and outbreak

In the mid-1630s, the peasants of the Shimabara Peninsula and Amakusa, dissatisfied with overtaxation and suffering from the effects of famine, revolted against their lords. This was specifically in territory ruled by two lords:
Matsukura Katsuie ( Matsukura Shigetsugu or Shigeharu) was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. The son of Matsukura Shigemasa, Katsuie continued his father's policies of extraordinarily high taxation and persecution of Christians, which eventually led ...
of the Shimabara Domain, and Terasawa Katataka of the Karatsu Domain.Murray, ''Japan'', pp. 258–259. Those affected also included fishermen, craftsmen and merchants. As the rebellion spread, it was joined by ''
rōnin In feudal Japan to early modern Japan (1185–1868), a ''rōnin'' ( ; , , 'drifter' or 'wandering man', ) was a samurai who had no lord or master and in some cases, had also severed all links with his family or clan. A samurai became a ''rō ...
'' (masterless
samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...
) who had once served extinct local clans such as the Amakusa and Shiki, as well as former Arima clan and Konishi retainers. The image of a fully "peasant" uprising is also not entirely accurate. Shimabara had formerly been the domain of the Arima clan, which had been Christian; as a result, many local people were also Christian. The Arima were moved out in 1614 and replaced by the anti-Christian Matsukura. The new lord, Matsukura Shigemasa, hoped to advance in the shogunate hierarchy by sponsoring expensive construction projects, including the building and expansion of
Edo Castle is a flatland castle that was built in 1457 by Ōta Dōkan in Edo, Toshima District, Musashi Province. In modern times it is part of the Tokyo Imperial Palace in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is therefore also known as . Tokugawa Ieyasu established th ...
, and contributed funding for a planned shogunate invasion of
Luzon Luzon ( , ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political ce ...
in the
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, today a part of the
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. Matsukura also built a new castle for his own clan in Shimabara.Naramoto (1994), ''Nihon no Kassen'', p. 394. He placed a greatly disproportionate tax burden on the people of his new domain to pay for these policies, and further angered them by strictly persecuting Christianity. The policies were continued by Shigemasa's heir, Katsuie. The inhabitants of the Amakusa Islands, which had been part of the fief of Konishi Yukinaga, suffered the same sort of persecution at the hands of the Terasawa family, which, like the Matsukura, had been granted the territory. Another growing problem was the presence of numerous unemployed ''samurai'', including former retainers of Katō Tadahiro and Sassa Narimasa, both of whom had once ruled parts of Higo Province.


Rebellion


Start

The discontented ''
rōnin In feudal Japan to early modern Japan (1185–1868), a ''rōnin'' ( ; , , 'drifter' or 'wandering man', ) was a samurai who had no lord or master and in some cases, had also severed all links with his family or clan. A samurai became a ''rō ...
'' of the region, joined by impoverished peasants, began to meet in secret on Yushima (also called "meeting island") and plot an uprising, which broke out on 17 December 1637,Morton, ''Japan: Its History and Culture'', p. 260. when the local ''
daikan ''Daikan'' (代官) was an official in ancient Japan that acted on behalf of a ruling monarch or a lord at the post they had been appointed to. Since the Middle Ages, ''daikan'' were in charge of their territory and territorial tax collection. In ...
'' (
magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judi ...
) Hayashi Hyōzaemon was assassinated. At the same time, others rebelled in the Amakusa Islands. The rebels quickly increased their ranks by forcing all in the areas they took to join in the uprising. A charismatic 16-year-old youth, Amakusa Shirō, soon emerged as the rebellion's leader. The rebels laid siege to the Terasawa clan's Tomioka and Hondo castles, but just before the castles were about to fall, armies from the neighboring domains in
Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa and the other Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regio ...
arrived, forcing them to retreat. The rebels then crossed the
Ariake Sea The is a body of salt water surrounded by Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, and Kumamoto Prefectures, all of which lie on the island of Kyūshū in Japan. It is the largest bay in Kyūshū. Its deepest point is only about 50 meters (165 ft) deep, and ext ...
and briefly besieged Matsukura Katsuie's Shimabara Castle but were again repelled. At this point they gathered near the ruins of Hara Castle, which had been the home of the Arima clan before their move to the Nobeoka Domain and was subsequently demolished. They built up palisades using the wood from the boats they had crossed the water with, and were greatly aided in their preparations by the weapons, ammunition, and provisions they had plundered from the Matsukura clan's storehouses.


Siege at Hara Castle

The allied armies of the local domains, under the command of the Tokugawa shogunate (during shogun
Tokugawa Iemitsu was the third ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa dynasty. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada with Oeyo, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Lady Kasuga was his wet nurse, who acted as his political adviser and was at the ...
's reign) with Itakura Shigemasa as commander-in-chief, then began their siege of Hara Castle. The legendary swordsman
Miyamoto Musashi , was a Japanese swordsman, strategist, artist, and writer who became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 62 duels. Miyamoto is considered a ''Kensei (honorary title), kensei'' (swo ...
was present during the battle; he served as a military advisor and aide to Hosokawa Tadatoshi. Musashi was knocked off his horse by a stone thrown by a peasant rebel in one of the few verifiable records of him taking part in a campaign. The shogunate troops requested aid from the Dutch, who provided gunpowder and cannons.Murray, p. 262. Nicolaes Couckebacker,
Opperhoofd is a Dutch word (plural ) that literally translates to "upper-head", meaning "supreme headman". The Danish cognate , which is a calque derived from a Danish pronunciation of the Dutch or Low German word, is also treated here. The standard Ge ...
of the Dutch
factory (trading post) Factory was the common name during the medieval and early modern eras for an entrepôt – which was essentially an early form of free-trade zone or transshipment point. At a factory, local inhabitants could interact with foreign merchants, of ...
on Hirado oversaw the transfer of military stores, and when the shogunate forces requested naval support, he personally accompanied the vessel ''de Ryp'' to a position offshore, near Hara Castle. The cannons sent previously were mounted in a battery, and an all-out bombardment of the fortress commenced, both from the battery and the ''de Ryp''s cannons, but without great result. The ship withdrew at the request of the Japanese, following contemptuous messages sent by the rebels to the besieging troops:
Are there no longer courageous soldiers in the realm to do combat with us, and weren't they ashamed to have called in the assistance of foreigners against our small contingent?
File:Shimabara Rebellion Battle Folding Screen by Saito Shuho.jpg, Shimabara Rebellion Battle Folding Screen by Saito Shuho


Final push and fall

Itakura Shigemasa was killed in a failed advance. More shogunate troops under Matsudaira Nobutsuna, Itakura's replacement, soon arrived. However, the rebels at Hara Castle, who were led by well-trained former samurai, resisted the siege for months and caused the shogunate heavy losses. Both sides had a hard time fighting in winter conditions. On February 3, 1638, the rebels achieved a major victory when a surprise attack killed 2,000 warriors from the Hizen Domain. However, with their position surrounded and no means of establishing supply lines, their food and ammunition quickly ran out. On 4 April 1638, over 27,000 rebels, facing about 125,000 shogunate soldiers mounted a desperate assault, but were soon forced to withdraw. From the survivors (including Yamada Emosaku, who was believed to have willingly betrayed the rebels), the shogunate forces learned of the rebels' poor condition and how they would likely be unable to withstand another direct attack. On 12 April 1638, troops under the command of the Kuroda clan of Hizen stormed the fortress and captured the outer defenses.Murray, p. 264 The remaining rebels continued to hold out and caused heavy casualties until they were routed three days later, on 15 April 1638.


Forces present at Shimabara

The Shimabara rebellion was the first massive military effort since the
Siege of Osaka A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...
where the shogunate had to supervise an allied army made up of troops from various domains. The first overall commander, Itakura Shigemasa, had 800 men under his direct command; his replacement, Matsudaira Nobutsuna, had 1,500. Vice-commander Toda Ujikane had 2,500 of his own troops and 2,500 samurai of the Shimabara Domain were also present. The bulk of the shogunate's army was drawn from Shimabara's neighboring domains. The largest component, numbering over 35,000 men, came from the Saga Domain, and was under the command of Nabeshima Katsushige. Second in numbers were the forces of the Kumamoto and Fukuoka domains; 23,500 men under Hosokawa Tadatoshi and 18,000 men under Kuroda Tadayuki, respectively. From the Kurume Domain came 8,300 men under Arima Toyouji; from the Yanagawa Domain 5,500 men under Tachibana Muneshige; from the Karatsu Domain, 7,570 under Terasawa Katataka; from Nobeoka, 3,300 under Arima Naozumi; from
Kokura is an ancient Jōkamachi, castle town and the center of modern Kitakyushu, Japan. Kokura is also the name of the Kokura Station, penultimate station on the southbound San'yō Shinkansen line, which is owned by JR West. Ferries connect Kokura ...
, 6,000 under Ogasawara Tadazane and his senior retainer Takada Matabei; from Nakatsu, 2,500 under Ogasawara Nagatsugu; from Bungo-Takada, 1,500 under Matsudaira Shigenao, and from
Kagoshima , is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 583,966 in 285,992 households, and a population density of 1100 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Etymology While the ...
, 1,000 under Yamada Arinaga, a senior retainer of the Shimazu clan. The only non-Kyushu forces, apart from the commanders' personal troops, were 5,600 men from the Fukuyama Domain, under the command of Mizuno Katsunari,Naramoto (1994), p. 401. Katsutoshi, and Katsusada. A small number of troops from various other locations amounted to 800 additional men. In total, the shogunate's army is known to have comprised over 125,800 men. The strength of the rebel forces is not precisely known, but combatants are estimated to have numbered over 14,000, while noncombatants who sheltered in the castle during the siege were over 13,000. One source estimates the total size of the rebel force as somewhere between 27,000 and 37,000, at best a quarter fraction of the size of the force sent by the shogunate.


Aftermath

After the castle fell, the shogunate forces executed an estimated 37,000 rebels and sympathizers as punishment. Amakusa Shirō's severed head was taken to Nagasaki for public display, and the entire complex at Hara Castle was burned to the ground and buried, together with the bodies of all the dead. Because the shogunate suspected that European
Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
had been involved in spreading the rebellion, Portuguese traders were driven out of the country. The policy of national seclusion was made stricter by 1639. An existing ban on the Christian religion was then enforced stringently, and Christianity in Japan survived only by
going underground "Going Underground" is a single by English rock band the Jam, written by lead guitarist Paul Weller and released in March 1980. It debuted at number one in the UK Singles Chart, spending three weeks at the top. "Going Underground" was the fir ...
. Another part of the shogunate's actions after the rebellion was to excuse the clans which had aided its efforts militarily from the building contributions which it routinely required from various domains. However, Matsukura Katsuie's domain was given to another lord, Kōriki Tadafusa, and Matsukura began to be pressured by the shogunate to commit honourable ritual suicide (
seppuku , also known as , is a form of Japanese ritualistic suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honor, but was also practiced by other Japanese people during the Shōwa era (particularly officers near ...
). However, after the body of a peasant was found in his residence, proving his misrule and brutality, Matsukura was beheaded in Edo. Terasawa Katataka's lands were also confiscated, and he committed seppuku as well, ending his family line. On the Shimabara peninsula, most towns experienced a severe to total loss of men as a result of the rebellion. In order to maintain the rice fields and other crops, immigrants were brought from other areas across Japan to resettle the land. All inhabitants were registered with local temples, whose priests were required to vouch for their members' religious affiliation. Following the rebellion, Buddhism was strongly promoted in the area. Certain customs were introduced which remain unique to the area today. Towns on the Shimabara peninsula also continue to have a varied mix of dialects due to the mass immigration from other parts of Japan. With the exception of periodic, localized peasant uprisings, the Shimabara Rebellion was the last large-scale armed clash in Japan until the
Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a coalition seeking to seize political power in the name of the Impe ...
.


Memorials

190px, Tomioka Kirishitan Memorial The , also known as the in the town of Reihoku, Kumamoto was erected in 1647 by Suzuki Shigenari, the first magistrate of the Amakusa islands following the rebellion. Located on a slight elevation at the sea edge, at the northwestern tip of Shimoshima Island, it is a natural
andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomina ...
monolith 1.92 meters high by 82 centimeters wide and 41 centimeters thick. A ''kuyōtō'' with a Buddhist inscription, it is a form of
stupa In Buddhism, a stupa (, ) is a domed hemispherical structure containing several types of sacred relics, including images, statues, metals, and '' śarīra''—the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns. It is used as a place of pilgrimage and m ...
built for the purpose of memorial service so that the deceased can rest in peace. The site marks the spot where rebels assembled prior to marching on nearby Tomioka Castle, and is claimed to be the mass grave of the surviving rebels who were executed by the Tokugawa Shogunate following the end of the rebellion. It was designated a National Historic Site in 1937.


Notes


See also

*
Dejima or Deshima, in the 17th century also called , was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan, that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1858). For 220 years, it was the central con ...
* Haibutsu kishaku * Kakure Kirishitan * History of the Catholic Church in Japan * Gondarine period


References


English

* Bellah, Robert N. (1957). ''Tokugawa Religion''. (New York: The Free Press). * Bolitho, Harold. (1974). ''Treasures Among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa Japan.'' New Haven: Yale University Press.
OCLC 185685588
* Borton, Hugh (1955). ''Japan's Modern Century''. (New York: The Ronald Press Company). * DeBary, William T., et al. (2001). ''Sources of Japanese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600''. New York: Columbia University Press. * Doeff, Hendrik (2003). ''Recollections of Japan''. Translated and Annotated by Annick M. Doeff. (Victoria, B.C.: Trafford). * Harbottle, Thomas Benfield (1904). ''Dictionary of Battles from the Earliest Date to the Present Time.'' (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Ltd.) * Harris, Victor (1974). Introduction to ''A Book of Five Rings''. (New York: The Overlook Press). * Mason, R.H.P. (1997). ''A History of Japan''. North Clarendon: Tuttle Publishing. * Morton, William S. (2005). ''Japan: Its History and Culture''. (New York: McGraw-Hill Professional). * Murray, David (1905). ''Japan''. (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons). * Perrin, Noel (1979). ''Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543–1879''. (Boston: David R. Godine, Publisher)


Japanese

* * Naramoto Tatsuya (1994). ''Nihon no kassen: monoshiri jiten''. (Tokyo: Shufu to Seikatsusha). * Naramoto Tatsuya (2001). ''Nihon meijōshū''. (Tokyo: Gakken).


Further reading

* Clements, Jonathan (2016). ''Christ's Samurai: The True Story of the Shimabara Rebellion''. (London: Robinson). * Morris, Ivan (1975). ''The nobility of failure: tragic heroes in the history of Japan''. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston). * Sukeno Kentarō (1967). ''Shimabara no Ran''. (Tokyo: Azuma Shuppan). * Toda Toshio (1988). ''Amakusa, Shimabara no ran: Hosokawa-han shiryō ni yoru''. (Tokyo: Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha).


External links


The Christian Century in Japan, by Charles Boxer


{{Japanese coups Conflicts in 1637 Conflicts in 1638 1637 in Christianity 1638 in Christianity 17th-century rebellions Rebellions in Japan History of Christianity in Japan 1638 in Japan 1637 in Japan Last stands Catholic rebellions Ikki 17th-century military history of Japan