Aftermath PhD student Jaime Gonzalez has published a new article: “La intromisión de los jesuitas en la política japonesa: el caso de la rebelión de Amakusa (1589-1590)” [Jesuit Interventions in Japanese Politics: The Case of the Amakusa Rebellion (1589-1590)], Estudios de Asia y África, Vol. 58 Núm. 1 (2023), pp.34-64. The article may be viewed online here.
Abstract: This article studies the rebellion that took place in the Amakusa Islands as a paradigmatic example of how members of the Society of Jesus interfered in Japan’s internal political affairs at the end of the Momoyama period. The territorial decentralization prevailing in Japan at that time favored contact among the multiple feudal lords (daimyo), who assigned political and military power, and the missionaries, who sought the daimyos’ vital patronage and protection for their evangelical work. To assure these relations, the Jesuits sometimes intervened in internal issues of secular government, either materially by supplying weapons or resources to a daimyo or, more personally, by acting directly as counsellors or intermediaries in armed conflicts such as the Amakusa rebellion.
