Europeans had Japanese slaves, in case you didn’t know…
An interesting TV report about Japanese who were owned as slaves by the Portuguese, translated by YouTuber yamataroci4:
As the report mentions, slavery was legal in Japan at the time, and the Portuguese were buying slaves offered to them by Japanese traders. However, the fact that some Japanese were being used as slaves by foreigners made some Japanese quite angry, including Hideyoshi, who eventually outlawed the slave trade when he came to power.
Slavery in Japan fun fact: Jesuit priests in Japan once presented the great warlord Oda Nobunaga with an African slave. Nobunaga supposedly gave the man the name “Yasuke,” and some claim that he was later freed and given a samurai rank…
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I do not understand what you misunderstand, but there was not already the system of a slave treating a person like a domestic animal in Japan at that time.
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I said slavery was legal in Japan at the time. Japanese may have treated their slaves with more humanity than the Europeans did, but that still doesn’t change the fact that people were owned as property by other people. I’m in no way condoning the practice of slavery or claiming the Portuguese were somehow without blame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Japan
It does not blame a westerner. It is for Hideyoshi Toyotomi and Ieyasu Tokugawa to have been great administrators.
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Thanks for the link, and thanks in advance for your help.
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Interesting clip. But they do say some things that sound a bit off to me. The part about Japanese slaves being brought to Argentina by Portuguese slavers. First of all, Argentina was never Portuguese. Second of all, the Spanish didn’t start colonizing Argentina until the 1580’s. So what would a Portuguese slaver be doing there? Selling the Japanese to the natives? Doubtful.
PS: Might be the translation tough. It’s pretty poor.
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madne0, it wasn’t necessary to be a Portuguese colony to buy slaves if needed. And remember that for 60 years Spain and Portugal were the same country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_Union
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actually Hideyoshi was in fact a slave trader and during his time, the portuguese spanish and dutch bought korean slaves from the nagasaki port after the Imjin war. Unfortunately, japanese people still think that they had mercy for the black slave giving him samarai status? This is absurd. Many japanese still deny the comfort women issue and many other atrocities committed at the hands of their government. It is sad that although their is such a generational gap and of course no one can be blamed in the present yet the ignorance continues just in order to save face. Japan should do what Germany has done for the past 50 years and apologize and restore their image. And in case you didnt know, the Japanese had japanese slaves as well!
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I see there is no question about Japan which cannot have issues of “apologies” and “why can’t the Japanese be like the Germans?” dragged into it. Hmm – if the Japanese were like the Germans, then they would have ended up rounding up the Koreans and gassing them en masse.
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“And remember that for 60 years Spain and Portugal were the same country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_Union”
Believe me, i know. I’m Portuguese
I’m not saying that we didn’t trade in Japanese slaves. I’m just saying it sounds kinda odd that Portuguese slaving vessels would be selling Japanese slaves in Argentina. Especially since Argentina was practically uninhabited (at least by Europeans) back then. And besides, wouldn’t it be much easier (and cheaper) to get African slaves? I can get Japanese slaves for the Asian colonies, but South America?
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I just recently read something about how Native Americans had Japanese slaves in North America long before the Europeans even discovered the Americas. I’m still looking for more information on it, thats what led me here. Chances are if that is even the slightest bit true for North America, it was happening in South America as well. Maybe not by the Portuguese though….
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That’s a little far-fetched. Closer to reality would be that Native Americans are actually descended from indigenous Japanese, the Ainu having crossed an ancient landbridge by heading north through Russia, over to Alaska, and then migrated south.
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However it would be fairer to say that some NA Indians are perhaps descended from some Ainu, the chances of it ONLY being Ainu in Japan (or what would become Japan) being the ones who moved over being remote.
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This would require some pretty hefty evidence to be taken seriously.
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Yeh, what about Samurai warlords, whom enslaves hundreds of poor Japanese.
Wait there is more, Chinese also enslaves many Japanese during Tang Dynasty, after Tang over ran half of Korean penisula, many Japanese who fighting for Kingdom of BaekJe independance were also captured by Tang army and many were force to become slaves.
I heard it was Indian and Chinese who started slavery.
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Some possible details about Yasuke here:http://indoor-mama.cocolog-nifty.com/turedure/2007/02/post_fdde.html
and
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A4%E3%82%B9%E3%82%B1
in the Wikipedia article on “Yasuke”.
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