Ōmura Sumitada (大村純忠, 1533 – June 23, 1587) was a Japanese ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' lord of the Sengoku period. He became famous throughout the country for being the first of the daimyo to convert to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

following the arrival of the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

missionaries in the mid-16th century. Following his baptism, he became known as "Dom Bartolomeu". Sumitada is also known as the lord who opened the port of

Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...

to foreign trade.

Early life

Ōmura Sumitada was born in 1533, the son of Arima Haruzumi, lord of Shimabara, and his wife, who was a daughter of Ōmura Sumiyoshi. His childhood name was Shōdōmaru 勝童丸. At age 5, he was adopted by his uncle Ōmura Sumisaki, and succeeded to the Ōmura family headship in 1550. As Sumisaki had no legitimate heirs, and the Ōmura clan had its origins in the family line of the Arima, Sumisaki readily adopted the young Shodomaru, who took the name Sumitada at the time of his succession.

Career

Following his succession, he was immediately faced with a multitude of pressures, the greatest of which was the attack from Ryūzōji Takanobu of Hizen-Saga. Sumitada found the answer to his problems in the form of Christianity. In 1561, following the murder of foreigners in

Hirado is a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 28,172, and a population density of 120 people per km2. The total area of the city is Geography Hirado City occupies the northern part of Nagasaki P ...

(in the area of influence of the

Matsura clan The Matsura clan, also spelled Matsuura, was a medieval and early modern Japanese samurai family who ruled Hirado Domain in Hizen Province on the island of Kyushu. They started as a group of military families under the name Matsura-to. They were ...

), the Portuguese began to look for other ports where they could trade. In response to their search, Sumitada offered them safe haven in his domain, at Yokoseura. This cast a great impression on the Portuguese, and particularly on the Society of Jesus (the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

). This they readily agreed to, and soon after, in 1563, Sumitada and his retainers became Christian, and Sumitada took the baptismal name Bartolomeu. After his conversion Sumitada, under the influence of the Jesuits, ordered the razing of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. Sumitada's subjects were forced to convert or be exiled from the domain. Jesuit Gaspar Coelho helped to encourage the destruction of temples and the persecution of non-Christians. The destruction and persecutions were committed due to Sumitada's religious zeal and the Jesuits' insistence that the destruction of the temples and shrines would be the most appropriate way to repay them as the Portuguese helped protect him and his domain. The Jesuits also believed that the firm planting of Christianity would require the institutional and iconographic elimination of local religions. Sumitada likely pursued Christianity to profit from Portuguese technology and weapons as the

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

was one of political fragmentation and uncertainty. However, after his baptism, Sumitada expressed more interest and genuine devotion to his new faith. To illustrate Sumitada's devotion to Christianity, the Portuguese Jesuit father Luís Fróis had once wrote:from ''The Samurai Sourcebook''

Opening Nagasaki

Goto Takaakira, an illegitimate son of Ōmura Sumisaki who hated Sumitada, led an uprising against him. During the chaos, Yokoseura was burned, ending the foreign trade there. As a result, in 1570, Sumitada opened the port of Nagasaki to the Portuguese and sponsored its development. When the Ryūzōji attacked Nagasaki in 1578, the Portuguese assisted Sumitada in repulsing them. Following this event, on June 9, 1580, Sumitada ceded Nagasaki "in perpetuity" to the Society of Jesus. Following

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

's campaign against the

Shimazu clan The were the ''daimyō'' of the Satsuma han, which spread over Satsuma, Ōsumi and Hyūga provinces in Japan. The Shimazu were identified as one of the '' tozama'' or outsider ''daimyō'' familiesAppert, Georges ''et al.'' (1888). in contr ...

, the Ōmura were confirmed in their holdings, though Nagasaki was taken from the Jesuits and made into a ''chokkatsu-ryo'', or direct landholding, of the Toyotomi administration.

Later life

Sumitada handed over domainal administration to his son Omura Yoshiaki and retired, living in a mansion at Sakaguchi. He died there of tuberculosis, on June 23, 1587.

Ōtomo Sōrin , also known as Fujiwara no Yoshishige (藤原義鎮) or Ōtomo Yoshishige (大友義鎮), was a Japanese feudal lord (''daimyō'') of the Ōtomo clan, one of the few to have converted to Catholicism. The eldest son of , he inherited the Funa ...

, another Christian daimyō, died within the same month. This was also the year when Toyotomi Hideyoshi banned Christianity in Japan, and both did not live to see the ban.

References

*Stephen Turnbull, ''The Samurai Sourcebook'' London: Arms and Armour Press, 1998. ()
Information on Sumitada, as well as a copy of the edict by which he granted Nagasaki to the Jesuits

* ttp://www2.harimaya.com/sengoku/html/ohmura_k.html Lengthy genealogy and discussion of Omura clan history {{DEFAULTSORT:Omura, Sumitada 1533 births 1587 deaths Daimyo Converts to Roman Catholicism Japanese Roman Catholics 16th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Japan Jesuit Asia missions Members of the Tenshō embassy