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MIT 21H 912 - Study Notes

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WEEK 3 INTRODUCTION TO READINGS Galeote Pereira, “Certain Reports of China…” (1565) Galeote Pereira traveled from Portugal to India in1534. He was in Malacca in 1539, and apparently made one ormore trading voyages to the coast of China between then and1547. In 1548 he went to Siam, then to China. There, he andthe Portuguese with him found that the new viceroy of theprovinces of Chekiang and Fukien, named Chu Wan, haddecided to stop the smuggling they had been conducting withcoastal Chinese. Early in 1549, Pereira and about thirtyother Portuguese were captured, along with their two shipsof unsold goods, and taken to the provincial capital asprisoners. Some of Pereira’s party and their Chinesecustomers were executed. However, Pereira and othersescaped that fate because Chu Wan’s enemies at the Court ofPeking now sought his impeachment for failure to obtainpermission for the executions. The Portuguese prisonerswere distributed among several small towns, where they wereallowed some freedom of movement, and some were able tocontact Portuguese traders by way of Chineseintermediaries. Pereira was one of those who escaped inthis way, and at some point afterwards he wrote down hisrecollections of his journey. The copy of his report thathas survived was made by young Indians at a Jesuit seminaryin Goa, India, in 1561. Tokugawa Iemitsu, “The Edict of 1635 Ordering the Closingof Japan” and “Completion of the Exclusion, 1639” At the end of the fifteenth century, the Japanesearchipelago was an area of diffuse and shifting politicaldomains. There was neither a unifying Japanese identity nora centralizing state. During the last half of the sixteenthcentury, three powerful political and military figures—OdaNobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu—sought toforge a central ruling authority. They did so throughconquest of and strategic alliances with local-levelauthorities known as daimyo. Many daimyo resisted. From1598 to 1616, central rule was consolidated under Ieyasu’sgrandson, Tokugawa Iemitsu. Portuguese traders began regular visits to Japaneseports in the midst of this dynamic struggle between localand centralizing authority. Along with the traders cameCatholic missionaries of the Jesuit order. Initially, thepriests and traders alike were officially encouraged.However, within a few decades daimyo opposed to centralrule strengthened their position by obtaining firearmsthrough alliances with the Christians/Portuguese. The twoedicts here express the reaction by the centralizing state. WEEK 3 QUESTIONS Galeote Pereira, “Certain Reports of China…” (1565) 1. In what ways does Pereira regard society in China asequal to his own social order? In what ways does he regardit as different in merit and worthiness? 2. In what ways does Pereira regard people in China asbeing very much like himself? In what ways does he regardthem as being very unlike himself? Tokugawa Iemitsu, “The Edict of 1635 Ordering the Closingof Japan” and “Completion of the Exclusion, 1639” 3. These edicts are often described as having had theeffect of “closing Japan.” How did they actually leaveJapan open? 4. To what extent were the edicts directed at non-Japanese,and to what extent were they directed at


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MIT 21H 912 - Study Notes

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