David Rivera Mosquera
This letter authored by the archbishop of Manila, Fray Domingo de Salazar, is a 1587 petition to the Spanish government to allow Franciscan and Dominican friars to enter Japan, despite a papal prohibition banning nonmembers of the Society of Jesus of ministering there. The original document is located in the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid. 1 The letter is divided into three parts: first, a detailed description of Japan, its customs, political situation and religious practices; second, a traditional Japanese map detailing all the provinces of Japan and the presence of Christians and priests by province; and third, a formal petition by Japanese visitors to Manila, to receive religious men from the orders of Santo Domingo and San Francisco, accompanied by the eager confirmation of Salazar.
In general terms, the letter describes the arrival of a somewhat improvised Japanese embassy to Manila. The travelers do not come from the capital of Kyoto, but from the regional court of the local feudal lord of Firando (now Hirado) in Southern Japan. The letter presents the arrival of the visitors as a fortuitous and happy event, and a remarkable opportunity to obtain information about a normally secluded Japan and especially about its religious state. The visitors, Japanese Christians, are probably part of the circle of Santiago de Vera, who made several political and economic dealings with the local feudal lord of Firando and even claimed he had accepted to be a vasal of the king of Spain2. The repetition of the surname Vera in some of the Japanese names and signatures in Salazar’s letter gives strong evidence to the link between the travelers and Vera, as well as the repetition of the rhetoric surrounding the need for mendicant priests in Japan3.
Furthermore, read in parallel with Vera’s political dealings, the rhetoric of the letter appears as strongly political, even when it presents itself through the filter of religious language and ideological talking points. It clearly points to the Spaniards’ ambitions to enter Japan and establish a reliable trade route between Manila and southern Japan, as well as their interest in growing their influence in Japan through religious conversion. Although apparently mild in its criticism of the handling of the Society of Jesus of their exclusive missionary field in Japan, at several moments it is clear that the letter is implying that the information provided by the Society is not reliable and that only now, through the fortunate arrival of the Japanese informants it is possible to have reliable information. The thoroughness of the information recollected and the numerous questions to the travelers directly point to this perception, as well as the inclusion of a Japanese-style map [one of the two extant copies present in Europe] 4 and the description of religious populations and Portuguese strongholds in several Japanese provinces.
This very specific anthropological, political, cultural, economic, and religious information precedes the petition proper, almost like a necessary introduction. The practicalities and advantages of entering Japan precede the religious message that in theory justify the letter: the petition of the Japanese to receive more religious men (preferably from the order of Santo Domingo). The petition occupies a comparably shorter tract of the letter (exactly a third), but it effectively articulates what has been described in the previous two sections around an overarching religious message. It is a Christian obligation, we are being told, to send religious men to Japan and convert all the infidels that inhabit there. Furthermore, Japan is subtly described as part of the Indies of the West and thus under the religious and temporal responsibility of king Philip II, (as king of Spain, not af Portugal).
What makes this document quite remarkable, then, is how it signals the intricacies of political and religious goals at the end of the XVI century in the Pacific. The interests of the Dominicans, of the Catholic Church, of the empire of Philip II and of local Japanese feudal lords converge and create a multilayered and complex discourse in which, through the platitudes of religious messaging, there seems to be the shadow of constant political calculation. Both kinds of messages, nevertheless, complement each other fairly well.
1 AHN, Diversos-Colecciones,26,N.9.
2 See, “Carta de Vera sobre la pobreza de la gente de guerra, etc” June 26, 1586. FILIPINAS, 6, R, 6, N.61
3 Vera uses this same rhetoric in the letter above.
4 It is important to note that the letter points out that the map has no latitude, and in consequence has no practical use for navigation. This detail signals and interest in practical knowledge that goes hand in hand with religious projects.