Japanese in Manila in 1618

Last Sunday I participated in a congress at the Instituto Cervantes in Tokyo to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Keicho mission headed by Hasekura Tsunenaga that travelled from Japan in 1613 to Mexico, Spain and the Vatican in a vain attempt to establish direct commercial relations. The Philippines’ role in this story merits but a footnote or two in the current literature simply because Hasekura made a two-year transit in Manila (1618-1620) on the return trip to Japan.

In a sense I had come full circle, returning to the Instituto where, in 2009, I participated in marking the 400th anniversary of the shipwreck of a galleon in Onjuku on its way to Acapulco from Manila. One of the passengers rescued from the wreck by Japanese fishermen was Rodrigo de Vivero, governor and captain general of the Philippines who was en route to Mexico prior to assuming a new post in Panama. That event is now considered the beginning of Japan-Mexico relations. Indirectly, though, that same event also relates to Spain and the Philippines.

Textbook Philippine history does not record the names of Hasekura and De Vivero even if Manila was the point of origin for De Vivero in 1609, and the last stop for Hasekura before he returned to Japan in 1620. I did not learn these names in my college Asian and Philippine history classes either. Current publications on Philippines-Japan relations are silent on the Hasekura mission because most of the academic literature are mostly focused on: the Japanese adventure in the Philippines during World War II, postwar trade relations, and, more recently, the social effects of overseas Filipino workers in Japan and intermarriages between Japanese and Filipinos.

Early Philippines-Japan relations is a neglected field in Philippine history primarily because ours is a people separated from their past because of language. Few Filipino academics can read books and documents on the Hasekura mission. Worse, the National Library and National Archives of the Philippines were cultural casualties of the Battle for Manila in 1945. Historians interested in this period and topic will need at least a reading competence in Spanish as a prerequisite to excavating primary sources from the archives and libraries in Spain and Mexico.

Researching on Hasekura and De Vivero, I learned that relations between the Philippines and Japan form a long and complex story that stretches way beyond the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1946. Historical records suggest that Japanese were in the Philippines even before the islands were claimed by Spain in 1565. I also learned more about the role of typhoons in history because my students in Tokyo once told me in jest that Japan imports typhoons from the Philippines annually. Typhoons challenged the Manila galleons that passed the coast of Japan on their way to Mexico. Japan was the last bit of land the sailors saw as they crossed the open sea; they did not sight land until California.

Manila and Acapulco were once important trading ports, so different from what they have become today. Acapulco is now one of the world’s favorite resort cities, drawing in people on vacation rather than silk, spices and goods from China and Japan for onward shipment to Europe. Manila, on the other hand, does not anymore receive shipments of silver from America for onward shipment to China. Gone are the days when the port of Manila received Spanish soldiers, missionaries, government officials, traders and other types of people from Mexico; instead, the Philippines now exports seafarers and all forms of skilled labor to the world at large. In the 16th century Spanish missionaries spread the Gospel and converted Filipinos to Catholicism; in the 21st century Filipino priests, nuns, and lay people are paying it forward by reevangelizing Europe where church attendance is at an all-time low.

The now forgotten Manila galleon marks the beginning of what we know as globalization today.

My research on Hasekura led me to the Sendai City Museum, two hours by train from Tokyo, in search of a letter that Hasekura wrote his son from Manila in 1619. I was not disappointed because the museum currently has an exhibition on the Hasekura mission, narrating this almost forgotten story through documents, pictures, and artifacts.

Hasekura’s letter was short, personal, and addressed to his eldest son, the 17-year-old Hasekura Kanzaburo (or Tzuyenori Hasekura). The father referred to Manila as “Ruson,” the name of the principal island of the Philippines by which the country was known to the Japanese in those times. He informed his son that he and three others of the embassy were fine, while three others (namely: Kiohaji, Ichizuke and Daisuke) had jumped ship and remained in Mexico. He said he was busy shopping for items he would take back as gifts for his lord, but did not enumerate or describe these items. He said he was preparing for his return home and expected to sail for Japan in a galleon in June of the coming year.

As a dutiful father, Hasekura concluded the letter by exhorting his son to take care of his mother and grandmother, and to faithfully serve their lord, Date Masumane. (To be concluded on Friday)

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