Shimabara Rebellion

Ruins of the Hara fortress

The Shimabara Rebellion (島原の乱, Shimabara no ran^?) was an uprising of Japanese peasants, most of them Christians, during the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1637–1638.

The rebellion

Rebellion broke out on December 17, 1637, when peasants rose against their daimyo Matsukura Shigeharu. Most rebels were Japanese converted to Christianity, but a primary reason for the revolt was the very heavy tax burden; many rebels took the mantle of Christianity later.

The rebellion included up to 23,000 peasants and ronin, including many women, from the Shimabara Peninsula and the nearby Amakusa Islands, under the leadership of Amakusa Shiro (also named Masuda Tokisada) who used the Christian name Jerome. Both areas had been under the rule of the previous Christian daimyo Konishi Yukinaga.

Terazawa Katataka, governor of Nagasaki, dispatched an army of 3,000 samurai to Amakusa but rebels defeated them on December 27, 1637, with 2,800 casualties. Survivors retreated to Nagasaki and the governor asked the shogunate for reinforcements. However, in battle on January 3, 1638, shogunate warriors defeated the rebels who lost about 1,000. They retreated to Shimabara.

On the Shimabara peninsula, rebels first besieged Shimabara Castle and later took over Hara Castle, which had been abandoned some decades earlier.

Statues of Jizo beheaded by rebelling Christians.

Katataka had already left for Shimabara on January 2 with 500 samurai and gathered 800 more from Omura. They made camp half a mile from Shimabara Castle. They commenced artillery fire from cannons commandeered from Japanese and Chinese vessels.

They then requested aid from a Dutch merchant vessel to bombard the Hara fort from the sea. Koekebakker, head of the Dutch trading station on Hirado provided the services on the one ship he had in harbour: the Rijp. He put about 20 batteries on shore, manned by about 100 men, and also fired his cannons from the Rijp. These guns fired about 425 rounds in the space of 15 days, without great result, and two Dutch lookouts were shot by the rebels. The ship withdrew at the request of the Japanese, following contemptuous messages sent by the rebels to the besieging troops:

"Are there no longer courageous soldiers in the realm to do combat with us, and weren't they ashamed to have called in the assistance of foreigners against our small contingent?" ^[1]

Shogunate troops arrived but rebels at Hara Castle resisted the siege for months and caused the shogunate heavy losses. Both sides had a hard time fighting in winter conditions. On February 3, 1638, a rebel raid killed 2,000 warriors from Hizen including their daimyo. However, they slowly ran out of food, ammunition and other provisions.

On March 10, shogunate forces began to gather in Shimabara and by April there were 37,000 rebels facing 127,000 shogunate soldiers. Desperate rebels mounted an assault against them on April 4 and were forced to withdraw. Captured survivors revealed the fortress was out of food and gunpowder.

On April 12, 1638, Hizen warriors stormed the fortress and captured the outer defenses. Rebels held out and caused heavy casualties until they were routed on April 15. The Shogunate had lost about 10,000 soldiers, and all 37,000 rebels were killed, including 20,000 women and children.

Aftermath

The shogunate forces beheaded an estimated 37,000 rebels and sympathizers. Amakusa Shiro's head was taken to Nagasaki and the entire complex at Hara Castle was burned to the ground and buried together with the bodies of all the dead.

The shogunate suspected that Western Catholics had been involved in spreading the rebellion and Portuguese traders were driven out of the country. An already existing ban on the Christian religion was then enforced stringently, and Christianity in Japan survived only by going underground.

On the Shimabara peninsula, most towns experienced a severe to total loss of population as a result of the rebellion. In order to maintain the rice fields and other crops, immigrants were brought from other areas across Japan to resettle the land. All inhabitants were registered with local temples, whose priests were required to vouch for their members' religious affiliation. Following the rebellion, Buddhism was strongly promoted in the area. Certain customs were introduced which remain unique to the area today. Towns on the Shimabara peninsula also continue to have a varied mix of dialects due to the mass immigration from other parts of Japan.

From the end of the rebellion until the 1860s, no major battles took place in Japan. During the next ten generations of the Edo period, most samurai never fought in combat.

Notes

1. ^ Hendrik Doeff "Recollections of Japan", p26

See also

• Taiping rebellion

External links

• Amakusa Shiro Museum

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