Unzen

Unzen is a mountain in the Shimabara Peninsula of Kyushu, Japan, whose volcanic hot springs were transformed by the Tokugawa Shogunate into a site of prolonged torture for Christians during the 17th-century persecution. The method, known as the Unzen boiling water torture, was designed not to kill quickly but to break the will of the victims through repeated, agonizing immersion in scalding sulfur water, making it one of the most infamous instruments of the anti-Christian campaign.

Location and Nature

Unzen is a volcanic mountain whose seething lake of boiling water casts spray high into the air, a sight that the cold weather made appear terrible and that could make a strong man faint. The magistrate of Nagasaki, Takenaka Uneme, chose this location specifically to torture Christians into apostasy, ordering that victims be brought to the mountain and subjected to the boiling water until they renounced their faith, but on no account were they to be put to death. The road to the mountain was lined with guards, and without formal permission from the officials no one was permitted to pass that way.

The Torture Method

The torture at Unzen was carried out by tearing off the prisoners' clothes, binding them hand and foot to posts, and then scooping up the boiling water in perforated ladles that prolonged the suffering by allowing the water to drain slowly over the naked bodies. The victims were taken apart from the surrounding people, brought to the edge of the seething lake, and shown the boiling water before being urged to abandon the teaching of Christ. The cold weather made the steam arising from the bubbling lake look terrible indeed, and the very sight of it would make a strong man faint, were it not for the grace of God.

Victims and Their Endurance

Among those subjected to the Unzen torture were five priests—Bartholomew Gutierrez, Francisco de Jesus, Vicente de San Antonio of the Order of Saint Augustine, Antonio Ishida of the Society of Jesus, and Gabriel de Santa Magdalena of the Franciscan Order—along with Beatrice da Costa and her daughter Maria. The priests Antonio and Francisco, as well as Beatrice, were each tortured six times in the boiling water; Father Vicente was tortured four times; Fathers Palmeiro and Gabriel were tortured twice. Yet in all this not one of them so much as breathed a groan or a sigh. The young Maria, overcome with the excess of her suffering, fell to the ground in agony and was sent back to Nagasaki, though she denied that she had wished to apostatize and even pleaded to be tortured with her mother and the rest. The other six remained on the mountain for thirty-three days. Beatrice da Costa, in addition to the boiling water torture, was subjected to the further ignominy of being obliged to stand for hours upon a small rock, exposed to the jeering and insults of the crowd, but even when the frenzy of her persecutors reached its zenith, she did not flinch.

Outcome and Significance

Takenaka Uneme eventually realized that he would never win, as his followers told him that all the springs in Unzen would run dry before men of such power could be persuaded to change their minds. He decided to bring the victims back to Nagasaki, confining Beatrice to a house of ill fame and lodging the priests in the local prison. The whole struggle had the effect of spreading Christian doctrine among the multitude and strengthening the faith of the Christians, turning out contrary to the intentions of the tyrant. The Unzen torture became a symbol of the extreme cruelty of the persecution and the extraordinary endurance of the Christian martyrs, and it was later referenced by the interpreter who questioned Rodrigues, who had heard of the missionaries who were immersed again and again in the boiling sulfur water at Unzen.