Skip to main content

The first VOC cemetery in Japan

Written by Leon Bok on .

According to reports, the first Dutchman put into the port of Hirado in 1597. His name was Hector Kars and he was born in Zeeland.[1] His ship was probably boarded by the Portuguese and he took service with them, thus ending up in Hirado. Private entrepreneurs in the Netherlands had been dispatching their ships to bring back spices from the East from as early as 1594. The trade in spices was lucrative, particularly because the Spaniards, with whom the Dutch were then at war, no longer supplied them. The competition was cut-throat and, in 1598, the States General proposed greater cooperation. In the meantime, ships were still being sent out, such as a flotilla comprising five ships that set sail from Rotterdam, in the direction of Asia, on 27 June 1598. The five ships were the flagship Hoop (Hope), the Vice-Admiral's ship Liefde (Love) and the ships Trouw (Faith), Geloof (Belief) and Blijde Boodschap (Gospel or Glad Tidings).

The expedition departed on the initiative of the Rotterdam merchant and shipowner Pieter van der Haegen and the banker Johan van der Veken. The route was kept secret because the fleet was not to go via the Cape of Good Hope but to sail via South America, and the Strait of Magellan, an as yet unknown and hazardous route, to the Moluccas, for trade. The idea was also to 'conduct trade' on the way and the crew were not to fight shy of using violence. In the event, however, only two ships, the Liefde and the Hoop, reached Chile in a good enough state to be able to sail further. During the crossing in the direction of Japan, the ship Hoop went down in a storm, leaving only the Liefde behind. The Liefde was ultimately to reach Japan on 19 April 1600. The consequences, rather than the intended destination, were to be of great significance.

The seafarers who had lived through the voyage were given a friendly welcome by the Japanese, despite the fact that a civil war was currently raging in Japan. The Dutch were, furthermore, rapidly deployed to the advantage of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was later to become Shogun. In 1605, the former captain of the Liefde Jacob Quackernaeck was allowed to leave along with the merchant Melchior van Santvoort. They sailed to Patani, then an important trading post on the current border between Thailand and Malaysia. They had with them a document from the Shogun to promote trade between the Netherlands and Japan and news of this trading pass was sent to the Netherlands via Patani. The VOC had, in the meantime, been set up in the Netherlands in 1602. After receiving the news, it sent the ships the Rode Leeuw met Pijlen (Red lion with arrows) and the Griffioen (Griffin) from Batavia (currently Jakarta) to Japan, under the leadership of Jacques Groenewegen. They weighed anchor in Japan, in Hirado to be precise, in 1609. Hirado was then already a major mercantile port for China and Korea. At the time, the Portuguese traded chiefly via the port of Nagasaki and had a significant role in the Christianisation of the Japanese in the region.

Two merchants who accompanied the two ships as VOC representatives, Nicolaas Puyck and Abraham van den Broeck, visited the Shogun in Edo, now Tokyo, together with Melchior van Santvoort (who had by now established himself in Japan). They had with them a letter from Prince Maurits requesting the opening up of Japanese ports to Dutch ships and the initiation of trade relations between the Netherlands and Japan. This was, in fact, the first official visit to a Japanese Shogun by a Dutch trade envoy in history and many more were to follow.[2] The Shogun consented, and, on 24 August 1609, Jacques Groenewegen received the official trading pass for the Dutch. A factory or trading post was immediately opened on Hirado, with Jacques Specx as the first senior merchant or chief factor. In the first instance, ships came via Patani and, subsequently, via Batavia.

The need for a cemetery

The voyage from Batavia to Japan generally took about six weeks and often, in that short time, many of those on board the ships in question died as a result of a shortage of good food and clean drinking water. During the voyage to Japan, the dead were buried at sea, but people also died on the ships that frequently lay in the harbour for months at a time. The first record of a cemetery is in an entry in the journal of the Englishman Richard Cocks (1566-1624). Cocks was the head of the English trading post that was also located on Hirado from 1613 to 1623. In his journal, he reports that an Englishman who died on board the Clove was buried in the Dutch Cemetery. That must have been in 1613 because that is the year that the English arrived in Hirado. According to the journal, the English themselves had a cemetery constructed in 1620. The two cemeteries were probably located not far from the Dutch trading post, on the hill behind it. The fact that we know neither the exact location of the cemetery nor the number of dead buried there, has to do with the absence of the journals normally kept by the chief factor.

The factory with behind it the hill where the cemetery must have been.The factory with behind it the hill where the cemetery must have been. (Photo Leon Bok, 2016)

Information about the period between 1609 and 1633 has primarily been garnered from letters, reports from third parties and other journals. This is how we know that a number of Dutch people were almost certainly buried here. In 1621, a certain Jan Pietersen was stabbed to death by the Englishman John Roan. Although Cocks does not actually report this event in his journal[3], Pietersen will have been buried in the Dutch Cemetery. In 1623, two members of the trading post were buried here: Willem Cornelis Huijghen and chief factor Leonardt Camps. The latter's successor Van Nijenrode subsequently had Jochem van der Ass buried. Van der Ass, Pieter Nuijts's secretary[4], died in August 1627 due to a high fever. In 1628, Van Nijenroode wrote about the funeral of merchant Isaacq Boogaert who died of dysentery in Miyako. Boogaert had just visited the Shogun's court and his corpse was preserved and placed in a coffin so that it would withstand the trip back. Later, in 1632, one of Nuijts´s sons Laurens and the merchant Pieter Muijser were also buried here. They were victims of an unsuccessful attempt to propitiate the Emperor and Van Nijenroode asked his permission to give them a Christian burial, which was granted. A month after their burial, Van Nijenroode himself died. It is likely that he was not buried in the cemetery but that he was cremated according to Japanese tradition instead.[5]

In 1638, the English and Dutch Cemeteries were destroyed as a result of the increasing persecution of Christians. Outward symbols of Christianity were broken and traces eradicated. Not long after the destruction of the cemetery, two members of the trading post died. Graves were dug for them on what was known as the 'companies' island'. According to the descriptions, this small island, called Yokoshima, lay just outside the bay off Hirado. 

Increasing persecution

In fact, the construction of a new brick warehouse in 1638 sounded the end of the trading post in Hirado. In those years, Christians were being increasingly persecuted in Japan, particularly after a revolt against the Shogunate took place. It also seemed as though the Portuguese would be forbidden from coming to Japan any longer. In 1640, 61 Portuguese were beheaded as an example of the Japanese intentions. At the end of 1640, it became apparent that the VOC's coat of arms built into the warehouse, along with the year of construction, was reason for the Japanese to have the new buildings demolished. Not long afterwards, the Dutch were told that they were also deemed Christians and that they had to move their trading activities to Nagasaki. In March 1641, the living quarters also had to be demolished. In mid-1641, there was little left of the Hirado trading post and the first ship to Japan that year took its cargo to Nagasaki. The man-made Japanese island of Dejima, on which the Portuguese had previously been located, was assigned to the Dutch.

Nowadays, there is no trace left of the cemeteries either at Hirado or on the island of Yokoshima. After the demolition of the brick and other warehouses, barracks and the remaining buildings, the site was barely used, if at all, for a long time. However, the wall that shielded the trading post in Hirado from the rest of the town remained intact, as did a few wells that were used by the Dutch all those years ago. More recently, the foundations of the chief factor's lodge were found again at the top of the hill above the warehouse and the warehouse itself has been rebuilt in more or less its original state. There were no really clear drawings available and contemporary building requirements had to be met, so the warehouse is not a completely faithful reproduction of the original. After the Second World War, hotels were built higher up the hill and part of the site where the first cemetery was located may have been destroyed as a result. However, the municipality of Hirado hopes that the location of the two Dutch cemeteries, at the trading post and on the island of Yokoshima, will eventually be found. Excavations are carried out regularly and were scheduled for 2017, as well. During these activities, a skeleton was found that had been buried in a Western manner and was therefore very probably a foreigner and possibly a European from the 17th century. The results of DNA tests should clarify this.

 

References
  • Mulder, W.Z.; Hollanders in Hirado. 1597-1641, Haarlem 1980
  • Thompson, Edward Maunde, Sir; Diary of Richard Cocks, cape-merchant in the English factory in Japan, 1615-1622, met correspondentie, gepubliceerd 1883.
  • Blussé, Leonard en Cynthia Viallé; The Deshima dagregisters, Volume XI, 1641-1650, Leiden 2001
  • Miyanaga, Takashi; Brief notes concerning Dutch Gravestones in Japan. – the names of Dutchmen buried in the graveyards of Japanese temples and in foreign cemeteries in Japan (A.D. 1621 – 1982), Tokyo 1988.
  • Paul, H.; Nederlanders in Japan 1600-1854. De VOC op Desjima, Weesp 1984
  • Valentyn, Francois; Beschryvinge van den Handel en Vaart der Nederlanderen op Japan, Negende boek, Dordrecht/Amsterdam 1726.
  • Ijzerman, J.W.; Dirk Gerritsz Pomp alias Dirck Gerritsz China de eerste Nederlander die China en Japan bezocht (1544-1604) zijn reis en verblijf in Zuid-Amerika, Den Haag, 1915
  • Massarella, D. en I.K. Tyler; The Japonian Charters. The English and Dutch Shuinjο̄. In: ‘Monumenta Nipponica’ Vol. 45, No. 2 (Summer, 1990), pp. 189-205

 

Notes 

[1] Mulder, p. 19. However, Valentyn claims that Jan Huigen van Linschoten from Haarlem was the first Dutchman in Japan, in the service of the Portuguese, in 1584.

[2] Mulder, p. 96-97, Valentyn, p. 26.

[3] Thompson, p. 174.

[4] In his capacity as Raad van Indië (Council of the Indies) and Governor of Formosa, Nuyts visited the Shogun to solve problems concerning Formosa with the Japanese. Despite advice to take a modest stance, he arrived with a delegation of more than 200 people. His attitude ultimately resulted in the VOC in Japan no longer being allowed to hinder Japanese trade with Formosa. Nuyts did not keep his word and was removed from office and handed over to the Shogun in 1630. When he was released in 1636, he returned to the Netherlands. https://www.vocsite.nl/geschiedenis/handelsposten/japan_nuyts.html [consulted on 25.07.2017].

[5] Mulder draws this conclusion from the fact that Van Nijenroode had expressed his doubts about the Christian faith and his Japanese family may have cremated him according to their own traditions.

  • Last updated on .