AOE: Lesson - Effects of Exploration: Japan
Effects of Exploration: Japan
Japan's Feudal Age
From the 12th to 19th century, the Japanese political sphere was defined by an enduring dislike for foreigners. During the Medieval period in Japan, shoguns or daimyo—military dictators or feudal lords—stripped the Japanese emperor of power. These military dictators created the samurai class of fighting men who ruled the social elite. It was their job to keep foreign powers from conquering Japan, but by the 1300s CE, there really weren't any external political pressures on Japan. China was influential culturally but not militarily and the Mongols never figured out how to defeat a nation that could not be reached by horse.
And so, the samurai turned on each other to support their personal feudal lord's rise to Shogun. Naturally, all of this internal fighting led to a bleak period, much like a "Dark Age" in Japan, that spanned the 15th Century.
Image detail (above, right): a picture of men dressed in traditional samurai armor. Photograph by Kusakabe Kimbei.
European Contact and the Rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate
In the mid-1500s, European traders and missionaries arrived on the islands of Japan bringing Christianity and firearms. The civil wars between the daimyo intensified even as Jesuit missionaries streamed into the historically isolated islands of Japan. As the 16th Century ended two leaders rose up to unify the nation.
Odu Nobunaga and his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, took control of much of the divided nation over a period of thirty years. However, it was Tokugawa Ieyasu that ultimately completed Japan's unification under his shogunate established in 1603. These three shoguns preceded a time that marked over 250 years of peace in Japan, which, compared with much of Japan's history, was a remarkable feat.
Now there was a common enemy: foreigners. They expelled the Christians, set in place strict trade restrictions, and reduced the Samurai to bureaucrats instead of warriors.
Image details (above, left): this painting, completed in the 17th century by Kanou Tannyuu, is in a traditional Japanese style, showing Tokugawa Ieyasu seated.
The End of the Tokugawa Shogunate
After Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Shogun fell into corruption. By the 1800s, both the Samurai and peasants were frustrated by their lack of power and wealth. When US Commodore Mathew Perry arrived in Japan and the Shoguns opened trade negotiations with foreign countries, it felt like a betrayal to the rest of the Japanese people. They overthrew the Shoguns.
Practice Activity
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