FROM 1641 UNTIL 1858, Japan pursued a policy of seclusion from world affairs. This started with a series of edicts from the Shogun, the military ruler of Japan, forbidding Japanese to travel abroad or to conduct trade with foreign countries without official licenses. These laws also banned foreigners from entering Japan. After 1641, only the Dutch East-India Company (VOC), in Japan since 1609, was allowed to stay and to trade. This exceptional position of the Dutch lasted until 1858 when Japan concluded a number of treaties with western powers that opened the country for international trade. The treaties called for the opening of a number of Japanese ports and cities. Until 1898, when the treaties were revised, foreign trade in Japan was conducted in these Treaty Ports. In this paper we will investigate why Japan gave up its isolation and what role the Dutch played in the opening of these ports. Furthermore, we will look at how trade developed between 1859 and 1868. How many westerners came to Japan? From which countries did they came? How did they respond to the contact with the Japanese and vice versa?

THE DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY IN JAPAN

In April 1600 a Dutch sailing vessel called De Lieide (‘The Love’) stranded on the shores of the island Kyushu. Its journey began in 1598 when it left the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands together with four other ships. The expedition was organized by two exiled Flemish merchants: Pieter van der Haagen and Johan van der Veeken. The Dutch received a trading passport in 1609 from Shogun Tokugawa leyasu (1542-1616) and they settled in Hirado. This direct trade with Japanese merchants was largely free of interference from the government. In Japan other European traders were active, but by 1639 these had left (the English in 1623) or were forced to leave (the Spaniards in 1624 and the Portuguese in 1639). In 1641, leyasu ordered the Dutch to tear down their trading post at Hirado and to move to Nagasaki. Here they could live on a fan shaped man-made island, called Deshima. It was possible to walk around the island with its two small streets and a dozen sheds and houses in about five minutes.