ABSTRACT
The first Europeans to reach the shores of Japan around 1543 were Portuguese sailors. The Portuguese, who for almost one century carried out trade relations with Japan, usually sailed from Lisbon via Goa, Malacca and Macao to Nagasaki. By using this maritime route they took at least two years and four months for reaching Japan from Portugal.! This was the longest route. The shortest one was that of the Dutch, who were able to reach Japan within about ten months. The Dutch Asian-bound fleets, after having passed the Cape of Good Hope, used to steer eastward between 36° and 42° of southern latitude until they reached the south-east trade winds where they set a northerly course for the straits of Sunda. Their 'general rendevouz' in Southeast Asia became the Javanese port of Jakarta, after it had been seized, fortified and renamed Batavia by the Dutch on 30 May 1619.2
The route used by the Spaniards, from Sevilla to Mexico (New Spain) and then from Acapulco over Manilla to Japan, was supposed to take about fourteen months. 3 The maritime communication of the Spaniards with Japan developed after Portugal and Spain had been united in a dual monarchy under the rule of King Felipe II (1527 - 98; reigned 155698). Between 1584 and 1600 a good number of Spanish ships from Manila bound for Macao or Mexico were blown off their course and forced to take refuge in some Japanese port. 4
First attempt at Japanese-Mexican trade relations
The Japanese ruler Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542 - 1616; reigned 1600 - 16) from the beginning of his reign, showed great interest in obtaining miners, shipbuilders and navigators from the Spaniards for opening Japanese trade relations with Mexico. 5 During the past decades the Japanese had, with the help of the Portuguese, developed their own flourishing trade communication with the Philippine Islands and with
Southeast Asia. 6 A favourable opportunity for leyasu achieving his goal arose, when in September 1609 Don Rodrigo de Vivero y Velasco, during his voyage from the Philippines to Mexico, was shipwrecked in Iwawada, off the coast of Kazusa in the Kanto area. When the Japanese local officials discovered that the former Spanish interim-governor of the Philippines was among the shipwrecked, they made the necessary arrangements for Vivero to meet with Tokugawa Hidetada (15781631; reigned 1616 - 23) in Edo and with his father leyasu in Sumpu, the modern Shizuoka.
