ABSTRACT
The influx of foreign goods and the religions that came along with them appeared to pose a threat of outside influence to the recently established Tokugawa regime. It is no surprise, of course, that religion and economy comprise significantly overlapping spheres in pre- and early modern life. Indeed, the notion of an autonomous economic and religious sphere might well be deemed anachronistic to the early modern period. If allowing merchant adventures to go forward with missionary adjuncts produced anxiety in aristocrats in Europe, the meaning of “heathen” goods imported to Europe introduced another kind of anxiety. Cooper's careful exegesis exposes the ways religions, markets, and medical discourses combined to mystify anti-black racism as the miraculous triumph of Christianity and science. Okuni's satirical presentation of the master less samurai, after all, pointed to anxieties about the influence of foreign goods on the social and political stability of the island.
