Paper short abstract:

This paper examines self-organized smuggling networks in Nagasaki, and the ways they attempted to circumvent the official trade regulations and the position of the state-supported monopoly merchants.

Paper long abstract:

The early modern bakufu-controlled city of Nagasaki was appointed by the Tokugawa shogunate as one of the 'gates' through which official regulated trade was conducted with the outside world, in this case with the Dutch East India Company, and Chinese private merchants. In Nagasaki, foreign trade became increasingly institutionalized over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the Tokugawa bakufu implemented many trade systems in Nagasaki aimed at securing the influx of Chinese luxury and bulk goods, and at the same time cope with the country's financial difficulties due to the large outflow of bullion and the exhaustion of the Japanese silver and gold mines. As such, state-supported monopoly merchants controlled foreign trade in Nagasaki, under the supervision of state officials. Much research has these official trade regulations and their practical applications as a focus point. Using the Nagasaki criminal records, this paper instead focuses on smuggling as a way to circumvent these regulations. Furthermore, as a case study, this paper analyzes the smuggling networks featuring in two of the seventeenth century's famous smuggling cases. These networks show a wide variety of participants with colorful backgrounds and the methods with which they tried to engage in foreign trade, challenging the position of the state-supported monopoly merchants.