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As trade with the outside world expanded, Japan underwent rapid political change. In the forty years between 1560 and 1600, the warring domains were unified. This process was begun by Oda Nobunaga. One major barrier that Nobunaga had to overcome to achieve unification was to overcome the powerful Buddhist religious establishment. For this reason, and because of the economic benefits that accrued from association with the Portuguese, Nobunaga was on cordial terms with the both the traders and missionaries. After Nobunaga was assassinated in 1582, his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi initially continued these policies, but for reasons not entirely clear, in 1587, he prohibited Christianity. Because no attempts were made at enforcement, the Jesuits merely continued their activities in secret. However, despite the papal bull, the Spanish Franciscans arrived in 1593, and despite the ban, openly went about their missionary work. This came to a head in 1596 with the San Felipe Incident. Supposedly the captain of this shipwrecked Spanish ship, angered by having his cargo confiscated, told Hideyoshi the missionaries were there to prepare for Spanish invasion. Hideyoshi, then decided to enforce the ban and in 1597, twenty-six people, (six Franciscans, three Jesuits and seventeen converts) were crucified. Churches were destroyed and other attempts were made to eradicate Christianity.
When Hideyoshi died in 1598, and Tokugawa Ieyasu took control of a now unified Japan, he halted the persecution of Christianity in order to secure foreign trade. He merely prohibited daimyo from being baptized. However, in early 1614, supposedly incited by Buddhist priests and the English and Dutch, the prohibitions against Christianity were enforced. After that, enforcement became increasing regular and severe. Capture of priests and documents they held convinced shogunal authorities that Spain would not halt missionary activities so that in 1624, all Spanish were banished from Japan. A mission sent from the king to renegotiate trading privileges in 1640 was beheaded. Also in 1624, the English, unable to make their factory profitable, left of their own accord.
By the 1630s the political climate had swung toward isolationism. This was reinforced by a series of five edicts issued by the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu. Known as the sakoku, or closed country, edicts became successively more restrictive. They banned Christianity, prohibited Japanese from entering or leaving the country upon penalty of death, ordered all children of foreigners out of the country, limited Japanese ship size to prevent ocean voyages, and forced the Portuguese to move onto a small, fan-shaped artificial island called Dejima. Finally in 1639, the Portuguese were expelled altogether. In 1641 the Dutch were compelled to move from Hirado onto Dejima.
As a result the Dutch became the only Westerners allowed to trade in Japan for the next 220 years. For most of the seventeenth century this trade was enormously profitable. It was based largely on the import of Chinese medicines and silks, and the export of Japanese copper. Copper was exported in such quantities in the seventeenth century that it affected prices in Europe. In the eighteenth century, however, trade declined for a number of reasons. Japanese production had reduced the demand for Chinese silks, which was only replaced to a limited extent by woolens, other textiles, and other products. Policies espoused by shogunal councilor Arai Hakuseki, which advocated self-sufficiency, resulted in rules that limited the number of ships that could come to Japan and the amount of copper that could be exported. Finally, the Dutch East India Company itself was in the process of slow collapse.
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