Nanban trade

Nanban trade (南蛮貿易, Nanban bōeki; "Southern barbarian trade") is the European trade in Japan between the arrival of Europeans in 1543 to the first Sakoku Seclusion Edicts of isolationism in 1614.

The Nanban trade as a form of European contact began with Portuguese explorers, missionaries, and merchants in the Sengoku period and established long-distance overseas trade routes with Japan. The resulting technological and cultural exchange included the introduction of matchlock firearms, cannons, galleon-style shipbuilding, and Christianity to Japan, among other cultural aspects. The Nanban trade declined in the early Edo period with the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate which feared the influence of Christianity in Japan, particularly the Roman Catholicism of the Portuguese. The Tokugawa issued a series of Sakoku policies that increasingly isolated mainland Japan from the outside world and limited European trade to Dutch traders on the artificial island of Dejima, under total scrutiny.

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