Tokugawa: Japan closes its borders
The Tokugawa shoguns end a century of wars, expel Christianity and close the country to the world for two and a half centuries.
In 1603 Tokugawa Ieyasu, having beaten his rivals, receives the title of shogun and sets his government in Edo—today's Tokyo. The century of civil wars is over; the lords are held in check by being made to live every other year in the capital. By 1639 the shoguns expel the Christian missionaries and forbid the Japanese to leave the country: of foreigners only the Dutch and Chinese remain, on one islet in Nagasaki. For two and a half centuries the country lives shut in and at peace: cities, printing, theatre and schools grow, and by the mid-nineteenth century there are more literate people here than in many countries of Europe. In 1853 American ships force the ports open, and fifteen years later the shoguns' rule falls.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the shogunate's edicts closing the country, 1633–1639 — the expulsion of the missionaries and the ban on leaving the country
Scholarship
- studies of the history of Japan — the years 1603 and 1868 and the country's life behind closed borders
Basis: documents and evidence.