十Christian Japan
Place

Christian Towns of Kyushu

The ports and castle towns of Kyushu outside the Nagasaki and Arima areas where the first mission put down roots: Kagoshima, Hirado, Bungo, Hakata, Kuchinotsu, Ōmura, Higo, Kokura and Imamura.

10 pages

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  1. 1Hirado: port, persecution and exileHirado, an island port in north-west Kyūshū, welcomed Portuguese ships and Jesuit missionaries from 1550; its…
  2. 2Bungo: The Ōtomo Domain and Its ChristiansBungo, the domain of the Ōtomo, was the Jesuits' base from 1556 to 1562 and home to one of Japan's largest…
  3. 3Hakata: Christians in the Merchant City of ChikuzenHakata, the rich merchant port of Chikuzen, received Jesuits from 1557, welcomed the Twenty-six Martyrs on…
  4. 4Xavier in KagoshimaOn the feast of the Assumption in 1549, a ship that had been blown off its course put in at Kagoshima, the…

Short history

On September 29, 1549, the lord of Satsuma, Shimazu Takahisa, received Francis Xavier at Kagoshima and gave him leave to preach1, and about a hundred people were baptized there1. Portuguese merchants were living in Bungo before any missionary arrived2. Portuguese ships came to Hirado almost every year from 1550, and in 1553 the port became their preferred call345. A Jesuit letter of 1557 called Hakata "a great city of many rich merchants"6. At Kuchinotsu, the port of the Arima lords, Fr Gaspar Vilela founded a church in 15637. Ōmura was a principality and town in Hizen whose lords ruled from a castle town of the same name89.

In Higo the faith grew under Konishi Yukinaga10. In 1599 more than 25,000 people were baptized around Yatsushiro in a first harvest1112, and the town later became the first place of martyrdom of the Tokugawa era13. When Katō Kiyomasa demanded that Christians give up the faith, more than thirty leading householders of Kumamoto left the province with their servants and gave up large stipends14. In 1604 Hosokawa Tadaoki's new castle town of Kokura already had 7,000 hearths, and four hundred adults were baptized there that year15. Long after the ban, in 1867, Urakami catechists looking for Christian communities still unknown reached Imamura in Chikugo1617.

01

Ports

4 pages
PlaceHakata: Christians in the Merchant City of ChikuzenHakata, the rich merchant port of Chikuzen, received Jesuits from 1557, welcomed the Twenty-six Martyrs…PlaceKuchinotsu: Arima's Christian PortKuchinotsu, the Arima lords' port west of Arima, was an early Jesuit base where Portuguese ships called…PlaceHirado: port, persecution and exileHirado, an island port in north-west Kyūshū, welcomed Portuguese ships and Jesuit missionaries from…PlaceXavier in KagoshimaOn the feast of the Assumption in 1549, a ship that had been blown off its course put in at Kagoshima…
02

Domains and castle towns

3 pages
PlaceKokura: Hosokawa Tadaoki's Castle Town and Its MartyrsKokura, the castle town of Hosokawa Tadaoki in Buzen, had one of the most flourishing churches in Japan…PlaceŌmura: The First-Born of the FaithŌmura, a small domain in Hizen beside Nagasaki, became the first wholly Christian state in Japan under…PlaceBungo: The Ōtomo Domain and Its ChristiansBungo, the domain of the Ōtomo, was the Jesuits' base from 1556 to 1562 and home to one of Japan's…
03

Higo

2 pages
EventThe Kumamoto Martyrs: the Castle Town of HigoKumamoto, the seat of the lords of Higo, saw Christians die for the faith from the samurai John Minami…EventThe Yatsushiro Martyrs: Higo, 1603 to 1609Between 1603 and 1609 the Christians of Yatsushiro in Higo gave eleven martyrs to the Church, from…
04

Hidden Christians of Chikugo

1 page
PlaceImamura, Chikugo: A Hidden Christian VillageImamura, a village in Chikugo thirty leagues from Nagasaki, kept its Christian faith in secret for…
Sources

Footnotes

  1. 1 Georg Schurhammer SJ, St. Francis Xavier, the Apostle of India and Japan, trans. F. J. Eble (St. Louis: Herder, 1928), chapter "Kagoshima,". (from sites/kagoshima-xavier, note 2)
  2. 2 Ruiz-de-Medina v1, p. 5; p. 120 (from articles/bungo, note 1)
  3. 3 Sousa 2019, p. 62 (from articles/hirado, note 19)
  4. 4 Hesselink 2016, PDF p. 16 (from articles/hirado, note 20)
  5. 5 Tronu thesis, p. 49 (from articles/hirado, note 6)
  6. 6 Ruiz-de-Medina v1, p. 707 (from articles/hakata, note 1)
  7. 7 Tronu thesis, p. 53 (from articles/kuchinotsu, note 13)
  8. 8 Anesaki 1930, p. 94 (from articles/omura, note 1)
  9. 9 Charlevoix 1828 v1, p. 162 (from articles/omura, note 2)
  10. 10 Profillet v2, p. 451 (from articles/yatsushiro-martyrs, note 11)
  11. 11 Bartoli D (Libro 2), p. 337 (from articles/yatsushiro-martyrs, note 14)
  12. 12 Bartoli D (Libro 2), p. 339 (from articles/yatsushiro-martyrs, note 15)
  13. 13 CBCJ 2007 (Kibe 187), pp. 9-11 (from articles/yatsushiro-martyrs, note 1)
  14. 14 Pagès 1869 Histoire de la religion chrétienne au Japon, tome II (Annexes), p. 51 (from articles/kumamoto-martyrs, note 10)
  15. 15 Solier tome 2, p. 330 (from articles/kokura, note 12)
  16. 16 Marnas 1897 vol. 1, p. 596 (from articles/imamura-chikugo, note 4)
  17. 17 Marnas 1896 Religion de Jésus, tome I, pp. 596-599 (from articles/imamura-chikugo, note 1)

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