Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company (VOC) is a pivotal commercial and political entity in Shusaku Endo's Silence, whose presence in Japan fundamentally alters the balance of power for the Christian mission. As Protestant rivals to the Catholic Portuguese, the Dutch provide the Tokugawa Shogunate with both a strategic alternative for trade and a source of intelligence that deepens the regime's suspicion of Catholicism, ultimately contributing to the isolation of Japan and the persecution's escalation. Their role is not merely that of neutral merchants; they are active participants in the narrative of persecution, their ships and crews scrutinized for Catholic sympathies, and their testimony used to justify the regime's harsh policies.
Arrival and Strategic Influence
The arrival of the English and the Dutch in Japan marked a turning point for the Christian mission. The Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, initially tolerant of the Portuguese Jesuits for the sake of the silk trade with Macao, found a new confidant in the Englishman Will Adams. Adams lost no time in assuring the Shogun that many European monarchs distrusted the Catholic priests and had expelled them from their kingdoms. Ieyasu, deeply interested in the religious conflicts rending Europe, questioned the English and Dutch about them repeatedly. This new source of information and alliance provided the Shogunate with a powerful political and commercial alternative to the Portuguese, weakening the missionaries' previously privileged position at court and making the eventual expulsion of the missionaries a more viable policy.
Role in the Persecution and Isolation of Japan
The Dutch presence was instrumental in the final, brutal isolation of Japan. The Shimabara Rebellion, which the Tokugawa Bakufu believed could only have been possible with outside help, convinced the regime to cut all ties with Portugal and seal off the country. The Dutch, as the remaining European trading partners confined to the artificial island of Dejima, became the sole Western window into Japan. Their reports and testimonies were taken as authoritative by the Japanese authorities. For instance, Dutch sailors returning to Macao from Nagasaki were the source of the initial, vague reports that Christovao Ferreira had been taken and tortured in the pit. Furthermore, the Dutch were used as a benchmark for loyalty; the regime warned the Dutch East India Company that, since they called themselves subjects of Japan, they would deserve the same punishment as the Japanese if they were found to be harboring Catholic priests.
The Company as a Site of Suspicion and Surveillance
The Dutch East India Company itself became a target of the regime's anti-Christian vigilance. The apostate priests Christovao Ferreira and Sebastian Rodrigues, now living under Japanese names, testified to the Supreme Authorities in Edo that there were many Roman Catholics among the Dutch and in Holland. They further claimed that a decision had been made in Macao to send priests to Japan disguised as Dutch employees or sailors. This testimony triggered a formal investigation by the Governor, who commanded the Dutch Chief to investigate whether any Roman Catholic was among his officers and crew. The Governor warned that if a Catholic priest were to come to Japan on a Dutch vessel in the future, the Chief would find himself in serious trouble. This led to intense scrutiny of Dutch ships, with officials searching every chest and corner, and the Dutch clerks themselves being compelled to read aloud the laws and regulations against Catholicism to their crews. The diary of Jonassen, a clerk at the Dutch firm in Dejima, records these events with palpable anxiety, noting that the Company would only get into trouble because of the apostate priests.
The Company's Perspective and Legacy
From the Dutch perspective, the Catholic missionaries were a source of constant political danger. The Dutch residents in Japan, who were eyewitnesses to the torture of captured priests, were moved to compassion by their awful state, noting that the priests, though they had apostatized, declared they did not do so freely but were forced by insufferable torments. Despite this sympathy, the Company's primary concern was its own commercial and political survival. The clerk Jonassen, in his private diary, expressed a wish for death upon the apostate Chuan (Ferreira) for writing things about the Dutch that would cause trouble for the Firm. The Dutch East India Company, therefore, functions in the novel as a complex entity: a rival that helped seal the fate of the Catholic mission, a source of intelligence for the persecutors, a site of suspicion itself, and a reluctant witness to the suffering of its religious rivals, all while navigating the treacherous politics of a closed country.
