Banished for the faith
In 1614, after the edict against Christianity, about seventy noble Christians of Kyoto (京都) and Osaka (大坂) were banished to Tsugaru (津軽), at the far northern end of Japan.The court's sentence gave the steadfast Christians of the capital a hard choice: give up the faith, or go with their whole families into exile.The sentence called their destination the most wretched land in Japan.Most of those sent were of noble rank, and some went of their own free will rather than renounce their faith.
The group from Kyoto numbered forty-seven.The Osaka Christians who joined them had already been tortured in sacks and held for a month in prison.Among the exiles was Ghiouzza, once the leading officer of the former regent Ukita Hideie (宇喜多秀家), who went with his two sons.
In April 1614 the exiles set out from the capital.They came dressed in their best clothes, as if going to a feast, on horseback, with small children carried four to a basket on one horse.The two captains in charge, seeing men of such rank and military fame, wanted iron collars and chains for them.The viceroy refused: these men, he said, were going so willingly that sticks could not drive them back.At the roll call one boy was missing, hidden by his relatives.A youth named Pierre Chongoro, who had only come to say goodbye, answered in his place, leapt on a horse and left with the exiles.
The road north
The exiles travelled north in the spring of 1614, overland to the port of Tsuruga (敦賀) and then by sea, and reached their place of exile in June.Christians escorted them openly as far as Ōtsu (大津) in Ōmi (近江), and others came from every side to visit them at Tsuruga.At the port they waited more than twenty days for a ship.At first they were locked overnight in a mean ground-floor room and slept on bare earth.
A Christian who visited them on April 30, 1614 wrote that all of them, men and women, had shaved their heads.They prayed together three times a day for an hour and shared out the tasks of service among themselves.A boy of not yet thirteen, raised in luxury, gladly served as a servant and kitchen boy.One officer of the escort admitted that he had feared them as veteran warriors, but found them eager to suffer, and said he would become a Christian in better times.
One of the two Jesuits left in Kyoto wished to go with them, but he would have been recognised, so an experienced catechist was sent instead.On May 8, 1614 the exiles sailed from Tsuruga along the coast of Echigo (越後).They reached Tsugaru on June 17.
Hunger in a wild land
The day after they arrived, the lord of the province ordered the exiles, in the name of Daifusama (Ieyasu), to clear waste land.This lord was Tsugaru Nobuhira (津軽信枚), Etchū-no-kami.They were to clear thickets and forest by hand, break the ground, sow, reap and husk rice, and provide their own huts, clothing and food in a harsh winter climate.The exiles replied that they were novices at farming but would obey in everything if they were allowed to keep God's law.They signed a written undertaking, which was sent to Ieyasu.
A terrible famine struck the region just as they arrived.In a letter of 1615 the exiles wrote that "not one grain of rice has sprouted in Tsugaru; we live only on tree leaves and roots" (translated).Even the lords of the province ate leaves and roots.They asked that a priest be sent to them.
The Jesuits in Kyoto sent a boat-load of rice worth 300 scudi, mostly alms from the faithful, a charity that even pagans praised.Alms came even from Macao, where the exiles' name and holiness were known.Bishop Cerqueira shared his means with the poor as far as this furthest end of Japan.
A colony of prayer
The exiles, many of them nobles and former pupils of the Jesuits, worked the land by day without rest, women and children as well as men.Yet they fasted and spent part of each night in prayer, reading and penance.Once soldiers, they "changed their lances into ploughshares" (translated), and at night they held talks on the Passion.
They lived near Takaoka (高岡), the lord's seat, later called Hirosaki (弘前).The exiles of Kyoto had one village, those of Osaka a common house, and those of the Hokkoku (北国) two other villages.In time more exiles were added, and the community grew to well over a hundred.Jean Kioucan of the Hokkoku came with three of his sons and died in exile in 1620.
A priest who visited them divided the exiles into confraternities and gave them prefects.In the absence of priests, they were led by Antonio Riouki, once steward of the Misericordia confraternity in Kyoto.A Jesuit who visited in 1626 said that the former steward's weekly exhortations surpassed his own theology.
Priests in disguise
The exiles had no priest of their own, so Jesuits hidden in the north visited them in turn.Three priests cared for them: Girolamo de Angelis, Diogo de Carvalho, and the Japanese priest Diogo Yūki, all three later martyred.They came over steep, snowbound mountains, or by sea through a strait where many drowned.The first to arrive, in about 1615, was de Angelis, who brought alms for the noble exiles.He wrote that he was ashamed of himself and edified by their resignation.
The only road into the province crossed a bridge guarded so that only merchants with sealed passes could pass.In 1619 a Jesuit coming from Dewa (出羽) wrote to the Christians in merchants' language, because letters were opened at the border, and sealed his letters with a seal known only to Christians.Disguised as a merchant named Vacasa Canyemon, he stayed eighteen days at Takaoka, lodging with a noble Christian named Antoine.In their own letters the exiles used a code, calling the priest the doctor, the things needed for the Eucharist his medicine, and hearing confessions taking the pulse.
Carvalho visited the exiles three times.In 1620 the priest sailed to Ezo (蝦夷) disguised as a gold miner, then came back in the same clothes to Tsugaru, where the exiles were waiting for the sacraments.The visits went on as long as there were priests in Japan, and in 1632 missionaries were still consoling the exiles who remained alive.
The martyrs of 1617
On August 4, 1617, six Christians were burned alive at Takaoka, the first to die for the faith in Tsugaru.Among them was Mathias Shoan, a physician from Kyoto who had been raised in the Jesuit seminary and was a model for the other exiles.It was said that he had visions of Christ and had foretold that he would die on a Friday.He converted Leo Dotai and his wife Maria, while another exile, Leo Shinsuke, converted his pupil, the swordsmith Michael Nihyoe.The lord of the province jailed all five and asked the court at Edo (江戸) what to do.
The sentence that came back was severe: the two preachers, Mathias and Leo, were to be burned alive without remission; the three they had baptized could give up the faith and go free, or die by slow fire.Anna, the physician's wife, then asked to die with her husband, saying that she had shared in converting Maria.
The six were led out "on the fourth of August, on a Friday, as Mattia had long before foretold" (translated).They were paraded on poor horses through the streets, escorted by the other exiles.They were tied to six wooden posts, with the fire set far off to roast them slowly.They burned from two to four in the afternoon without showing pain, and their deaths raised Christianity in the esteem of the pagans.
Thomas, Ignatius and the later years
Persecution reached Tsugaru again, and in July 1624 the lord imprisoned fourteen of the exiled confessors.One of their visitors, who brought them alms, was Thomas Sukezaemon, a man from Yamato (大和) who had come north to seek his fortune.The example of the exiles had converted him, and one of them had baptized him.In prison with the confessors was a page of the prince, who first mocked them, then was baptized on the day he was taken out to be beheaded.At the execution ground the page forgot the Saviour's name; Thomas stepped out of the crowd and prompted him, and the youth called on Jesus and died.
This act led to his own arrest.He gave his reliquary to the exile who had taught him the faith.The executioners piled wood to his chest and snow from his chest to his head, to make the burning last longer.The crowd, which had shouted for him to give up, began instead to call on Jesus and Mary, and he died on December 27, 1625.
Fourteen days later, on January 10, 1626, Ignatius Mozaemon was burned at the same place.He had come to Tsugaru to trade, was converted at Takaoka, and brought his wife to the faith.His father-in-law denounced him.So that he could not look up to heaven, the executioners bent his face toward the ground.Christians took away his body, his chains and the stake.
According to local tradition, seventy-three Christians were burned alive in Tsugaru in 1638.Much later a Catholic missionary seeking their story was given a Christian manuscript, probably kept hidden by a family descended from the exiles.
What is uncertain
Where the sources disagree
- How many were first exiled. most facts give 71 (Bartoli, Profillet, Anesaki, Teather, Morris);Charlevoix and Marnas give 73 lords;Delplace gives 47 from Kyoto and 29 from Osaka, while Bartoli and Solier give 47 and 24.Later totals in Bartoli range from more than a hundred to nearly 200.
- The date of the sentence and departure. Anesaki's chronology lists the exile under January 17, 1614 (Keichō 18, 12th month, 8th day);Bartoli puts the muster on April 13 and Solier the handing over to soldiers on April 23.
- The year of the six martyrs of Takaoka. Profillet's entries for Shoan, Anna and Shinsuke and Bartoli give August 4, 1617;Delplace's martyrology and Profillet's entries for Maria and Michael give 1616, and Profillet's entry for Dotai gives 1616, which is a source error;Anesaki lists the group under both 1616 and August 4, 1618 and marks the two as duplicates.
- Name forms of the martyrs vary. Shoan, Choan or Chean; Shinsuke, Josuke, Jusuke, Gensuchi or Shimeuke.
- The catechist who went with the exiles is called Chusai by Anesaki, Kiusai by Delplace and Tchiouaai in Pagès.
- Delplace calls Tsugaru Nobuhira a Christian daimyo; the other facts show the lord of Tsugaru jailing Christians and referring them to Edo.
- Charlevoix places the letter of April 30, 1614 at Suruga, Bartoli at Tsuruga.
- Charlevoix says that in 1624 many of the exiles were burned alive and the rest died of want; the other facts record fourteen imprisoned in July 1624 and burnings in 1625 and 1626.
- Ignatius Mozaemon was from Harima according to Profillet, Bartoli and Anesaki, but from Arima according to Delplace.
- Where Tsugaru lay. Profillet and Pagès place it in Dewa, Bartoli's sentence in the kingdom of Akita, and another list in Ōshū.
- Caddell says some exiles worked as slaves in mines; the other facts speak only of farm work.
- The 1638 burning of seventy-three rests on local legend and one Japanese document.