Nagasaki, "Mon Amour!" - KAZUKO NISHIMURA

In 1571, Lord Sumitada, a converted Catholic, donated some of his Nagasaki lands to the Jesuits, where they built a church and a college. From then on, Nagasaki, hitherto, a modest fishing harbour, was always included in the Portuguese charts, as a ‘must go’ place to do business. And Nagasaki never stopped… It became the stage of numerous important historical events, the only gate of Japan to the outside world during the country’s self-imposed seclusion, the home of Christianity in Asia, a victim of the atomic bombing during the WWII, and lots more that shaped Nagasaki into what it is today – a vibrant place, rich in cultural legacy, where variety and inclusion are the orders of the day.

The Portuguese traders of the time were always associated to the dichotomy of Catholicism and firearms. Inevitably, both were introduced to Japan, bringing a massive change into the lives of ordinary people and to the way battles of the civil wars, in full swing during the Medieval era, were fought.

The Roman Catholicism was the first Christian denomination introduced in Japan. It flourished briefly after its evangelisation started in Kagoshima, by Francisco Xavier in 1549 and a considerable number of people in the Island of Kyushu, where Nagasaki is located, were converted. The construction of the Port of Nagasaki in 1571, played an important role to this expansion. Soon, missions of Jesuits from Portugal and Spain flocked into the country.

The tolerance to Jesuit Missionaries was regarded by the Japanese warlords; mainly Oda Nobunaga, the pseudo-Shogun who swayed the country at the time Christianity entered Japan; as a deal for the Portuguese traders to bring into the country more firearms. Christianity benefited immensely from this agreement. Nagasaki became known as Asia’s ‘little Rome’, in its heyday, as many as twenty Catholic missionaries were living in Japan and 300,000 converts, including daimyō and samurai were given Christian names and baptised with the encouragement to adopt Western culture.

In 1582, Nobunaga died and his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi did not show the same animosity towards Christianity. In 1596, the Spanish ship San Felipe was wrecked off the coast of Shikoku. Hideyoshi was warned by its pilot the Spanish Franciscans were the vanguard of an Iberian invasion of Japan. Plus, the leader had been informed by his retainers the Portuguese were enslaving Japanese people. Disgruntled Hideyoshi immediately wrote to the Jesuit Vice-Provincial Gaspar Coelho to demand the Portuguese to stop purchasing and enslaving Japanese people and return them to the country.

In retaliation, Hideyoshi ordered the crucifixion of twenty-six Catholics in Nagasaki, who later became known as the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan. Yet, the Portuguese traders were not ostracised, and so Nagasaki continued to thrive. In 1639, the Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third generation of the Tokugawa strongmen, who usurped the power in 1600, after the death of Hideyoshi, decreed the “sakoku”. It meant the country closed its borders to any foreign trade and person, Christianity was banned, and nobody could enter or leave the country, being death, the penalty for the infringement.

For its strategic location, Nagasaki played an important role during the 229 years Japan remained in self-reclusion. Off its harbour, an artificial island called Dejima had been built, where the Japanese kept unwanted foreigners. Once the Portuguese, Spanish and all missionaries were gone, the island served as the residence to the Dutch, one of the two only countries (the other one was China), with whom trade was allowed. Nagasaki became the only window for the Japanese to the outside world.

With the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan opened its doors once again to foreign trade and diplomatic relations. With Christianity legalised, Nagasaki regained its earlier role as a center for Roman Catholicism in Japan. During the Meiji period, Nagasaki became a center of heavy industry, thanks to the Scottish industrialist Thomas Blake Glover, who made Nagasaki his home, the headquarters of his business and played an important role in the modernization of Japan and establishment of the Mitsubishi conglomerates.

All the activities taking place in Nagasaki were of utmost importance for the project of modernisation of Japan, undertaken by the Meiji Government. Yet, the connections with the Japanese war effort made Nagasaki a major target for strategic bombing by the Allies during WWII. On the day of the nuclear strike (August 9, 1945), the primary target for the bomb was Kokura, with the secondary target being Nagasaki, but the clouds blocked the visual for Kokura, so Nagasaki became the victim. In less than a second after the detonation, the north of the city was destroyed and 35,000 people were instantly killed.

An aerial view of Nagasaki City Nightscape. Today's Nagasaki Prefecture has an estimated population of 1.3 million people. It has developed a solid foundation for manufacturing industries, including group companies of Mitsubishi, Sony, and Canon. Nagasaki also attracts a cluster of several companies, including call centers and back office functions. Furthermore, many food-related companies developed business in the prefecture, taking advantage of its rich agricultural and marine resources.

Nagasaki, “Mon Amour!”

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