Post by Otagiri Tatsuzou on May 3, 2005 17:49:46 GMT -5
Retainer of Date Masamune also known as Hasekura Rokuemon. Hed led an embassy to Mexico and Europe (1613 - 20) and was the first Japanese envoy to visit the American continent. In July 1611 an embassy under Sebastion Viscaino brought back from New Spain (mexico) the Japanese merchants who had traveled there with Rodrigo Vivero Y Velasco the previous year. This inspired Date Masamune, the daimyo of Sendai (now Miyage prefecture), to send an embassy to seek trade with mexico and southern Europe. Date named Hasekura, a veteran of the invasions of Korea 1n 1592 and 1597, as his representative.
In October 1613 Hasekura, at the head of 180 Japanese set out for Acapulco in a galleon built by Japanese shipwrights under Spanish supervision. He had audiences with the Mexican viceroy in 1614 and with the Spanish monarch Philip III and Pope Paul V in 1615. While in Spain he was baptized a Christian. In Febuary 1614, however, Tokugawa Ieyasu had issued a edict expelling Christian priests from Japan, and this resulted in a hardening of the Spanish attitude toward trade with Japan; thus Hasekura's mission failed. After two years in the Philipines Hasekura returned to Japan in September 1620.
.....To learn more of this great adventure read Shusaku Endo's historical novel " Samurai "
www.baobab.or.jp/~stranger/mypage/hasekura.htm
www.artsales.com/ARTistory/Xavier/Hasekura.html
www.geocities.jp/general_sasaki/bashoh_ninja_eng.html
(scroll down)
