Under the maritime restrictions imposed by the Tokugawa shogunate in the 1630s, which would remain in force until the Bakumatsu Period (1850s), the only foreigners permitted to trade at the port of Nagasaki were the Dutch and the Chinese.[1]
There were essentially two categories of Chinese resident in Nagasaki in the Edo Period. Those who were seen as being aligned with China, chiefly including merchants who were based in China and came to Nagasaki primarily, or solely, to engage in trade, were restricted to a district known as the Tôjin yashiki, or "Chinese mansions," but were, like the Dutch, who were similarly confined to Dejima, allowed to leave Japan and to come back. Meanwhile, those seen as "resident Chinese," who were not traveling merchants but were more permanently resident in Japan, were permitted more freedom to inter-mingle with Japanese society, and to travel more freely across Japan; however, like the Japanese themselves, these "resident Chinese" were forbidden from leaving the country.[2]
References
- ↑ These were not particularly strict definitions; other Europeans did come to Dejima with the Dutch, and a small number of people from other parts of Asia were included alongside the Chinese in the umbrella category of Tôjin.
- ↑ Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. Re-Inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation. M.E. Sharpe, 1998. p83.