Japan in Philippine history

Hasekura Tsunenaga was a Japanese samurai who was received in Mexico, Spain, the Vatican, and the Philippines as a Spanish ambassador in a romantic seven-year journey. He was given an audience by King Philip III in Madrid, was baptized at the Real Monasterio de Descalzas Reales where the Duke Lerma stood as ninong, then was received by Pope Paul V and granted honorary citizenship by the City of Rome.

Hasekura’s last stop was Manila, where he wrote a cheerful letter to his son in 1619 saying he was shopping and preparing to sail home. The original letter is displayed in the Sendai City Museum together with an Indonesian kris and a dagger from Sri Lanka that Hasekura acquired in the Philippines. I was disappointed that no Philippine artifacts were extant. Not in the exhibition are archival documents on the Hasekura mission from the Archivo General de Indias in Sevilla written during Hasekura’s stay in Manila: an inventory of presents sent to the Shogun by the Governor-General of the Philippines, reports from the Bishop of Cebu and the Archbishop of Manila regarding the rivalry between the Jesuits and the other religious orders doing missionary work in Japan, and reports on the continued persecution of Christians in Japan.

The letter of Hasekura from “Ruson” (Luzon) did not express the truth of his condition. Travel funds were short; the Viceroy of New Spain Diego Fernandez de Cordoba wrote Philip III in January 1615 advising the dismissal of the Hasekura embassy because of the expense of their hospitality. By June 1617 the Council of the Indies refused to spend more for the embassy that had worn out its welcome in Spain. Hasekura and the embassy were the target of disapproving glances in Manila when news was received regarding the renewed persecution of Christians in Japan and the execution of 51 Christians who were burned alive by the banks of the Kamo river in Kyoto. In the light of all these Hasekura was disillusioned and demoralized in Manila, but he refrained from worrying his family regarding their uncertain future. As a Christian, he was unsure how he would fare in a land where the situation had changed since the time he left seven years earlier.

In 1567, two years after Miguel Lopez de Legazpi claimed the islands for the crown of Spain, he informed Philip II about Japanese vessels and Japanese traders they encountered in Cebu. In 1570 Legazpi sent Martin de Goiti to explore Manila, and he ran into 20 Japanese living there. It was a surprise to realize that Japanese were already in Manila even before the city was established as the capital of the Philippines in June 1571, to become the “distinguished and ever loyal city.”

In 1582, a Spanish squadron was dispatched by Governor-General Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa to drive away Japanese “pirates” led by a certain Tay Fusa (or Taifuzu) who had built a fort in Cagayan in northern Luzon and used it as a base for raiding nearby coastal towns. One of the items brought up with Iyeyasu by the Spaniards years later was to seek his assistance in curbing Japanese pirates operating in the Philippines.

There was also a Japanese settlement in Agoo, Pangasinan, where there was a brisk trade in deerskin which was shipped to Japan from that port by Chinese or Japanese traders. Deerskin export was banned in 1598 because the Spaniards in Manila thought the Japanese would kill all the deer in the Philippines. Other curious items taken from the Philippines and sold in Japan were jars that were highly prized for storing tea. These were known as “Luzon Jars” or “Ruson no-tsubo,” and described by Antonio de Morga in his “Sucesos de la Islas Filipinas” (Events of the Philippine Islands) that was first published in Mexico in 1609.

Estimates vary depending on the sources, but by the end of the 16th century there were over 1,000 Japanese living in the Philippines—a fact surprisingly overlooked because Japanese and Chinese far outnumbered Spaniards in Intramuros. Many Japanese were Christian; some settled in the Philippines to escape persecution in Japan. Their occupations varied: Most were traders, some were craftsmen, others made a living as bodyguards, and even mercenaries!

Japanese were armed in the defense of the colony from a Dutch invasion. They were armed to suppress Chinese and Filipino revolts against Spanish rule. Sometimes the Japanese settlers revolted, as in 1609, or assisted the natives in revolt. A certain Juan Gayo, captain of the Japanese ship, was implicated in an unsuccessful Tagalog revolt in 1587 known as the “Tondo Conspiracy,” which the Spanish historian W.E. Retana pointed out as the “first separatist conspiracy by Filipinos against Spanish rule.”

As the Chinese and Japanese communities grew, the Spanish authorities kept them at bay by establishing ghettos outside the walls of Manila, or Intramuros. In the late 16th century the Chinese were contained in a quarter known as the Parian de los Sangleyes, and the Japanese were quartered in a Parian de los Japones in a suburb called Dilao. The Christianization of the Chinese was entrusted to the Dominicans, and of the Japanese to the Franciscans.

I heard about the Parian in school, but not the Japanese in Dilao. History has many surprises for those that give her a second look.

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