Paper short abstract:

In the early seventeenth century the Tokugawa regime implemented trade regulations unfavorable to the Portuguese who traded in Nagasaki, due to its consolidation of power. The controversy between Murayama Tōan and Suetsugu Heizō, both prominent officials, shows their support for the previous regime.

Paper long abstract:

The controversy between Maruyama Antonio Tōan, the Nagasaki deputy and Suetsugu Heizō Joan, the Nagasaki magistrate and his deputy in the early seventeenth century, brought to the fore the resistance to the Tokugawa trading policies that the regime had swiftly implemented since the early seventeenth century. Maruyama Antonio accused Suetsugu Heizō Joan of sponsoring Toyotomi Hideyori against the Tokugawa regime and his accusation is reappraised here within the context of the Tokugawa trading regulations and the factionalism existing among the various catholic orders in relations to trading harbors and territorial partitions in Kyushu. Both Maruyama and Suetsugu had vested interests in the Portuguese and Spanish trade, both were Christians and prominent people in the mercantile world of Nagasaki. Although it is not known what is the cause that brought Maruyama Tōan to accuse Suetsugu Heizō, besides personal grudges, this paper shed lights on the possibility that in fact economic reasons such as the benefits from trade were at the core of such conflict. In a larger context the conflict arose from the trade politics of the Tokugawa versus the Portuguese and Spanish, which included the banishment of the Christian fathers from Japan and the consequent restrictions on Portuguese and Spanish traders.