Roman Nishi

• Died: 1639

Roman Nishi, or Nixi, was a Japanese Jesuit active in Ayutthaya (Siam) in the 1620s.

An aide to Portuguese Jesuit Antonio Francisco Cardim, Nishi regularly served as interpreter and intermediary in interactions with Yamada Nagamasa, head of the Japanese community in Ayutthaya.

A sizable minority of the members of the Japanese community there were Christians, many of them having settled there after fleeing religious persecution in Japan, and so someone like Nishi was accepted and well-treated. Unlike Petro Kibe, another prominent Japanese Jesuit in Ayutthaya, who eagerly desired to return to Japan to proselytize there, Nishi never made any such inquiries or attempts, instead remaining in Ayutthaya and actively contributing to the local community there.

He died in Cambodia in 1639.

References

• Cesare Polenghi, Samurai of Ayutthaya: Yamada Nagamasa, Japanese warrior and merchant in early seventeenth-century Siam. Bangkok: White Lotus Press (2009), 51-52.