Slavery in Japan

• 1. Early Legal Codes And Seikō

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  In the 8th century, Japanese legal codes known as Ritsuryō defined a class of people called seikō and nuhi. These enslaved individuals tended farms and worked within households across the archipelago. Historians estimate that slaves comprised approximately 5% of the total population during this era. The term seikō literally translates to living mouth, reflecting their status as dependents who required sustenance from their masters. Records from the Nara and Heian periods show that these laws governed the buying and selling of captives alongside other forms of coerced labor. By the late medieval period, the attitude toward slavery had shifted among elites, yet the practice persisted into the Sengoku period despite growing criticism.

• 2. Sengoku War Captives And Genin

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  During the Battle of Kawanakajima in 1553, the Takeda army seized great numbers of women and children according to accounts found in the Koyo Gunkan text. Portuguese sources corroborate these graphic descriptions of cruelty inflicted upon communities devastated by conflict. In 1578, Shimazu armies overran Otomo territories in northern Kyushu, capturing more prisoners for sale or bondage. A merchant named Francesco Carletti purchased five Korean slaves around 1592 for about 12 scudi before freeing four of them in Goa. The custom of geninka allowed individuals to be exchanged for money, including children sold by parents or debt-bound workers. Japanese rulers imposed geninka as punishment for serious crimes, often extending it to the perpetrator's wife and children. This hereditary status perpetuated bondage across generations while blurring lines between voluntary servitude and forced labor.

• 3. Portuguese Slave Trade Dynamics

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  After Portuguese merchants first made contact with Japan in 1543, a large-scale slave trade developed involving Japanese people sold overseas. Some were prisoners of war sold by rival clans, others were sold by feudal lords, and still others were sold by families seeking to escape poverty. By 1562, Jesuit Luis de Almeida documented a group of Chinese female slaves at Tomari Port in Satsuma Province who had been captured during wars in China. These women were subsequently purchased by Portuguese traders bound for Macau. Asian slaves were valued as household servants or artisans rather than plantation laborers due to high transport costs deterring large-scale trade to South America. In Mexico City, an 1595 inquisition survey recorded only 88 Asian slaves compared to 10,000 African slaves, highlighting the relative rarity of this specific trade route. Despite these numbers, several hundred Japanese people ended up in Europe, marking them as the first of their nation to arrive there under such conditions.

• 4. Jesuit Moral Interventions

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  In 1571, King Sebastian I of Portugal banned ships carrying fewer than 300 tons or more than 450 tons from engaging in human trafficking. The Catholic Church issued papal decrees like Sublimis Deus in 1537 declaring the full humanity of all peoples worldwide. Jesuits attempted to rescue Japanese slaves particularly women from ships and brothels through organizations like the Nagasaki Misericórdia. Bishop Pedro Martins arrived in Nagasaki in 1596 and excommunicated merchants engaged in trading Japanese and Korean slaves. This action represented a pivotal shift after years of limited authority where missionaries could only offer ethical guidance without legal power. Despite these efforts, the trade persisted into the seventeenth century due to profitability and weak enforcement mechanisms available to religious orders. By 1598, the practice of issuing short-term servitude certificates was banned following criticism from figures like Mateus de Couros who viewed such involvement as misguided interference.

• 5. Hideyoshi Expulsion Edicts

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  Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued the Bateren Edict on the 19th of June 1587 ordering the expulsion of Christian missionaries from Japan. A memorandum preceding this decree alleged that Christian missionaries were engaged in trafficking Japanese individuals to China Korea and various European territories. However these accusations disappeared from the final edict which explicitly distinguished trade from religious concerns. Hideyoshi assigned exclusive blame for the Portuguese slave trade to Jesuit missionaries while exempting Portuguese merchants from any sanctions. Paradoxically he later established licensed pleasure districts in 1589 highlighting moral inconsistencies in his policies regarding sexual enslavement. His primary motivations appeared economic rather than ethical focusing on labor shortages in Kyushu caused by the depletion of human resources needed for agriculture and war. He ordered displaced people whether trafficked kidnapped or voluntarily fled to return to their fiefs to stabilize agricultural production nationwide.

• 6. Wartime Forced Labor Systems

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  When Japan invaded Joseon Korea in 1592 huge numbers of Koreans were abducted and sold into slavery transforming it into a major industry during the second invasion starting the 14th of March 1597. The Imperial Japanese military operated large-scale forced labor projects including construction of the Burma Railway during World War II. Prisoner-of-war labor was extensively utilized across the Pacific War alongside other coerced work systems. The military also ran the system commonly referred to as comfort women involving widespread descriptions of sexual slavery within brothels established throughout occupied territories. These wartime practices represented an escalation of earlier forms of unfree labor that had existed since antiquity but now operated under state-sanctioned imperial expansion. Historians note that these actions reflected strategic disregard for moral implications when they served Japanese interests during global conflict.