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Christianity had an impact on Japan, largely through the efforts of the Jesuits, led first by the Navarrese Saint Francis Xavier ( 1506 – 1552 ), who arrived in Kagoshima in southern Kyūshū in 1549.

Both daimyō and merchants seeking better trade arrangements as well as peasants were among the converts.

By 1560 Kyoto had become another major area of missionary activity in Japan.

In 1568 the port of Nagasaki, in northwestern Kyūshū, was established by a Christian daimyō and was turned over to Jesuit administration in 1579.

By 1582 there were as many as 150, 000 converts ( two per cent of the population ) and 200 churches.

But bakufu tolerance for this alien influence diminished as the country became more unified and openness decreased.

Proscriptions against Christianity began in 1587 and outright persecutions in 1597.

Although foreign trade was still encouraged, it was closely regulated, and by 1640 the exclusion and suppression of Christianity had become national policy ( see Tokugawa Period, 1600 – 1867, this ch.

; Religious and Philosophical Traditions, ch.

2 ).