1614

The year 1614 stands as the watershed moment when the Tokugawa Shogunate, under the first Tokugawa shogun Ieyasu, issued the Edict of Expulsion against Christianity, transforming sporadic local repression into a state-driven campaign of eradication. The edict declared that "the Kirishitan band have come to Japan…longing to disseminate an evil law, to overthrow true doctrine, so that they may change the government of the country, and obtain possession of the land. This is the germ of a great disaster, and must be crushed." This official condemnation set the legal and ideological framework for the persecution that would define the next decades, making every Christian a potential criminal and every priest a target of the state.

The Edict and Its Immediate Consequences

The 1614 decree came at a time when Christianity had reached its numerical peak in Japan, with an estimated 300,000 converts out of a total population of about twenty million, supported by colleges, seminaries, hospitals, and a growing local clergy. The edict ordered the expulsion of all missionaries from Japan. Reports from the missionaries describe how on October 6 and 7 of that same year, seventy priests, both Japanese and foreign, were herded together at Kibachi in Kyushu and forced to board five junks bound for Macao and Manila. The sea was grey and stormy as the ships, drenched by rain, made their way out of the harbor and disappeared beyond the horizon. Yet thirty-seven priests refused to abandon their flock and secretly remained hiding in Japan, including Christovao Ferreira, who would continue his underground apostolate for nearly two more decades before his own capture and apostasy.

The Systematization of Persecution

After 1614, the hunt for Christians and priests became increasingly ruthless under Ieyasu's successors, particularly the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu. The methods of execution evolved from public burnings—which sometimes became religious spectacles that strengthened Christian resolve—to torture designed to induce apostasy before death. The most effective of these was the "ana-tsurushi" or hanging in the pit, where the victim was suspended upside down over a pit of filth, with a small incision behind the ear to allow blood to drip slowly, prolonging agony for days. The authorities also developed a system of rewards for informants: three hundred pieces of silver for reporting a priest, two hundred for a brother, and one hundred for a lay Christian. This financial incentive created a constant temptation for destitute peasants and fostered an atmosphere of mutual suspicion that undermined the trust necessary for underground Christian communities to function.

The Swamp of Japan

The year 1614 thus marks not merely a political decree but the beginning of a cultural confrontation that the novel's central figure, Inoue, would later articulate as the victory of "this swamp of Japan" over Christianity. The swamp metaphor—repeated by both the apostate Ferreira and Inoue himself—captures the idea that Japan's cultural and religious soil was fundamentally inhospitable to the transplanted tree of Western Christianity. Ferreira would argue that even during the period of apparent success before 1614, the Japanese had already twisted and changed the Christian God into something of their own making, confusing "Deus" with "Dainichi" (the Great Sun) and creating a syncretic faith that was no longer truly Christian. The edict of 1614 thus formalized a rejection that had deeper cultural roots, and the persecution it unleashed was designed not merely to kill Christians but to ensure that the faith could never take root again.

Long-Term Legacy

The consequences of 1614 extended far beyond the immediate expulsion. The Shimabara Rebellion of 1637-1638, caused by merciless taxation but later taking on Christian overtones, convinced the Bakufu that Christianity was inherently subversive and led to the complete sealing off of Japan from the outside world (sakoku). The prohibition of fences between houses, the annual fumie ceremony requiring all citizens to trample on Christian images, and the elaborate spy system all had their origins in the logic of the 1614 edict. Yet Christianity's roots had gone too deep to be eradicated entirely. Thousands of crypto-Christians kept their faith through secret organizations, handing down baptism and catechism through generations, preserving fragments of Portuguese and Latin prayers, and retaining devotion to Santa Maria. When Japan was reopened in 1865, these hidden Christians emerged from their centuries of hiding, asking for the statue of Santa Maria and speaking about Christmas and Lent—testimony that the faith outlawed in 1614 had survived, transformed but unbroken, in the "swamp" that was supposed to have swallowed it forever.