Dejima

Dejima began as a wall against Christianity. In 1634, as part of its policy of banning the faith, the shogunate ordered twenty-five Nagasaki merchants to build a small fan-shaped island out from the shore, so that the Portuguese traders could be kept apart from the Japanese; it was finished in 1636 (Disputed).¹²In 1636 the Portuguese were required to move there.²

After the Shimabara uprising the shogunate banned Portuguese ships altogether in 1639, and the island stood almost empty. In 1641 the Dutch East India Company's trading post was moved there from Hirado, so that the trade could be kept under the eye of the Nagasaki magistrate.¹²From then until the confinement ended in 1855 to 1856 the Dutch were not allowed to live anywhere else, and as a rule they could not leave the island except for set occasions such as the trading chief's journey to Edo.¹It was the only place of trade with the West through the years of the closed country.³The nine to twelve Dutchmen living there called it a "national prison".⁴

The island was small, about 13,117 square metres, ringed by a high board fence, joined to the town by a single bridge.¹At the bridge stood a notice board forbidding ordinary Japanese to enter.¹Only officials, interpreters and townsmen on official business could cross.⁴

For the Christian story, Dejima matters as a sign of what the closed country was for. The one door left open to Europe was kept open for a trading company, not for priests. A few kilometers away, in Urakami, the hidden Christians went on praying in secret until 1865.⁵

After Japan opened, Dejima became part of the foreign settlement; in the Meiji years the water around it was filled in, and today it is part of the city.¹It is a National Historic Site, and an Anglican church built there after the opening has been restored as part of the Dejima museum.¹