Suetsugu Shigetomo

• Died: 1676
• Japanese: 末次 平蔵 茂朝 (Suetsugu Heizou Shigetomo)

Suetsugu Heizô Shigetomo was a Nagasaki daikan charged with overseeing trade at Nagasaki for the Tokugawa shogunate. He was the fourth to hold the inherited name "Heizô" passed down within the Suetsugu family line.

In 1669, he helped oversee the construction of a Chinese-style ship meant to lead an expedition to survey islands off the Pacific Ocean coast of Japan. The expedition traveled to the Ogasawara Islands in 1675, led by Shimaya Ichizaemon (d. 1690), and brought back detailed maps as well as numerous exotic items, including aromatic woods and birds.

References

• Radu Leca, “Stripes and Feathers: Trade and the Spatial Imaginary in Late Seventeenth-Century Japan,” Japanese Art – Transcultural Perspectives, ed. Melanie Trede, Christine Guth, and Mio Wakita, Brill Pub. (2025), p183.