Changes

*''Died: [[1673]]''

*''Died: [[1673]]''

Francois Caron was one of the heads of the [[Dutch East India Company]] factory in [[Nagasaki]].

Francois Caron was one of the heads of the [[Dutch East India Company]] (VOC) factory in [[Nagasaki]], serving in that position from [[1639]] until [[1641]]. He had five children with a Japanese wife, all of whom relocated to [[Batavia]] in [[1641]].

He had five children with a Japanese wife, all of whom relocated to [[Batavia]] in [[1641]].

Born to French Huguenot parents in Flanders in 1600, Caron was raised in the United Provinces of the Netherlands. He arrived in Japan on a VOC ship in [[1619]]. He is said to have begun in the galleys, but was promoted due to his skill in [[Japanese language]], and by [[1627]] he served as interpreter for ''opperhoofd'' (factor) [[Peter Nuyts]] in an audience with [[Shogun]] [[Tokugawa Iemitsu]]. The following year, Nuyts was placed in charge of Fort Zeelandia, the chief Dutch base on [[Taiwan]], and Caron accompanied him.

 

 

Caron was resident and active in Japan through all of this. He married a Japanese woman in [[1621]] or [[1622]], and by 1639 the couple had five children. Caron also published, in [[1636]], a volume entitled ''A True Description of the Mighty Kingdom of Japan'', based on his experiences.

Caron then became ''opperhoofd'' in early 1639. That year, the shogunate expelled all Dutch wives and Dutch or mixed-race children from Japan; only men in service of the Company were permitted to stay. Yet, Caron, perhaps because of his elite position as ''opperhoofd'', was one of a very few who was granted an exception, and was permitted to have his entire family remain with him, in [[Hirado]], and then in [[Dejima]]. During his time as factor, he oversaw the relocation of the VOC factory – relatively newly built – from Hirado to Dejima. Leupp suggests here too that Caron’s diplomatic accommodation of shogunate demands – that is, his willingness to move to Dejima, and to quash other Dutchmen’s protests against it – kept the VOC in the shogunate’s good graces, and kept the Dutchmen from being expelled, or worse, as happened to the Spanish and Portuguese. Caron was succeeded as ''opperhoofd'' in 1641, and took a new position in [[Batavia]]. He moved there with his entire family, but later the same year departed Batavia for Holland, leaving his wife and children behind.

 

Caron returned to Batavia in [[1643]] to find that his wife had died. He then applied to the council of Batavia, petitioning them that though his marriage had never been formally consecrated by the Church, his children should be wiped clean of this stain on their character (i.e. having been born out of wedlock), and should be granted all requisite recognition, including rights of inheritance. The council granted his request.

 

Meanwhile, Caron had obtained a new wife while gone in Holland. She arrived in Batavia in [[1645]], and by the time of his death in [[1673]], they had had seven children together. Caron is said to have been quite conscientious in taking care of his half-Japanese children as well, however. The eldest was born in Hirado in 1622 and was named Daniel. He studied theology at Leiden, beginning in 1643, but then had a change of heart and signed up as a VOC soldier. He came to Batavia in [[1649]] as a soldier, but changed his mind again and by [[1650]] was doing missionary work in Taiwan. He is believed to have been killed in [[Zheng Chenggong|Zheng Chenggong’s]] seizure of Fort Zeelandia in [[1658]].

 

The second son was named Tobias, though little is known of him. Caron’s third son, Francois, graduated from Leiden and arrived in Batavia in [[1660]]. He then became a missionary in [[Amboyna]] (in the [[Malacca|Moluccas]]), and became fluent in Malay. He returned to Batavia in [[1676]], where he formed a family of his own, and died around [[1705]]. Caron’s two daughters, Petronella and Maria, married Dutchmen and remained in Batavia; little is known about them except that both were still living until at least 1670.

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==References==

==References==

*Gary Leupp, ''Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900'', A&C Black (2003), 8.

*Gary Leupp, ''Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900'', A&C Black (2003), 8, 61-63.

[[Category:Foreigners]]

[[Category:Foreigners]]

[[Category:Edo Period]]

[[Category:Edo Period]]