A Hakata merchant family
Suetsugu Heizō was a Christian merchant from Hakata who gave up his faith, replaced Murayama Tōan as daikan of Nagasaki in 1618, and became one of the harshest persecutors of the city's Christians.He was the second son of the Christian merchant Kōzen Cosme, and was baptized João.His father put up the money to extend the town along the land tongue toward Mount Tateyama, and a street there was named after him.Heizō moved to Nagasaki in the 1590s, lived in Kanaya-machi, the street of the iron dealers, and rose to be one of its street heads (otona).In 1604 he received one of the first red-seal licences, for a trading voyage to Annam.
The case against Tōan
From about 1617 Heizō brought a lawsuit against the daikan Murayama Tōan before the shogun's council, beginning with a claim for a debt from his father's time.He offered the government 5,000 ryō a year for the post of daikan, against the 3,000 the old daikan paid.He then accused Tōan and his children of being Christians who kept Jesuits and friars, and so brought religion into the case.Heizō seems to have been one of the first of Nagasaki's leading townsmen to give up the faith, probably during this lawsuit.It was said that he renounced it to assure the judges of his loyalty, since they warned that he would be crucified if a single priest were found hiding in his district.In 1618 he won the case and took the post of daikan, together with the Murayama family's property.
Daikan and persecutor
As daikan, Heizō worked closely with the governor, Hasegawa Gonroku, in the search for hidden priests.On March 14, 1619, he led the arrest of the Dominican Alonso de Mena.He built his house on the site of the Dominican church of Santo Domingo, with the church's own timber, right over the place where the Blessed Sacrament had been kept.He taught that religious were bound in conscience to leave Japan, and he informed on Tōan's son Andrés Tokuan, which led to the capture of the Dominican Francisco de Morales.At a hearing at Hirado in 1621 he asked the Jesuit Charles Spinola whether a priest could deny being one without sin.When the priest later urged him privately to think of his soul, he turned pale and walked away without a word.Lucía de Freitas once rebuked him in public for trying to turn a Christian from the faith, and when he threatened her she handed him a sword and told him to strike.In 1623 he ordered all Spaniards to leave Nagasaki, and in 1624 a renegade governor, taken to be Heizō, offered rewards for denouncing hidden priests and banned Christian spiritual books.
The persecution of 1626
In 1626 Heizō, now lieutenant-governor under the new governor Mizuno Kawachi, renewed the hunt for priests in Nagasaki with large rewards and heavy penalties.He arrested the Jesuit Baltasar de Torres, who had been his teacher and confessor as a boy, kept him for about ten days in his own house and sent him food from his own table.He summoned the Christians one by one and wrote down those who gave way and those who held firm in two separate books.To each he said: "A Yes of mine saves you, a No of mine kills you" (translated).Many refused his summons, saying they would come when he called them to have their heads cut off for the faith.His spy was Ventura, a Bengal-born slave who had renounced the faith to win his freedom and who knew the priests by sight under their disguises.He attended the burning of the Jesuits on June 20, 1626, and at the execution of their hosts on July 12 he had the firewood soaked in the sea so that it would burn slowly.
Last years and family
In 1626 Heizō was passed over for the post of governor, chiefly, one account says, because his mother and brothers were still Christians.His mother, then eighty, refused his demand that she give up the faith.He died in 1630, and missionary writers recorded that he died out of his mind, which they saw as a punishment from God.His son, Heizō II Shigesada, became a well-known investor in the trade between Macao and Nagasaki.As daikan in 1638 the son advised sending the Dutch ships to Hara.In 1676 the family lost the post of daikan and all its property.
What is uncertain
Where the sources disagree
- His birth year. 1573 according to Hesselink, but Morris, following Boxer, gives his dates as 1546 to 1630.
- When he gave up the faith. the Nagasaki meika ryakufu gives December 7, 1616 and Etchū summer 1616, which Hesselink thinks too early, preferring summer 1617 to summer 1618; Bartoli reports only that "it was said" he renounced it to reassure the judges, and some called him half-Christian.
- The price of the post. Ávila Girón says he bid 2,000 taels a year more than Tōan, while Hesselink gives 5,000 ryō against 3,000; Ávila Girón adds that Tōan's rivals put up close to 2,000 ryō when Heizō could not pay.
- His title. the sources call him daikan, deputy governor, lieutenant-governor and "second governor"; Pagès has him arriving at Nagasaki as lieutenant-governor in April 1626.
- Three generations bore the same name, and Morris warns that Takekoshi confuses Heizō with relatives of that name.
- Solier does not name the renegade governor of 1624; the identification with Heizō is the fact reader's.
- Pagès and Profillet present his death "out of his mind" as divine punishment of a persecutor.
- Murdoch says it was "Heizo's son" who lost the post of daikan in 1676.