There were three main European trading powers active in the Pacific during the early seventeenth century: the Dutch, the English, and the Iberians (Spain and Portugal were unified until 1640- note though that in practice, these traders often competed with each other). Both the Portuguese and the Spanish had the greatest experience trading with the Japanese and had developed connections with various daimyo. This actually turned out to be a major disadvantage for the Iberians over the long term. Not only was there a perception that the Iberians were interested in Catholic conversion as well as trade, but they were running against the grain of the process of state centralization that started under Ieyasu.

Both the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the English East India Company (EIC) were able to portray the Iberians as a threat to the recently established peace and stability. The EIC repeated the Iberians' mistake by requesting in 1613 to be able to trade in any port in Japan. The VOC was more canny in their dealings with the shogun. The VOC's Japanese hands realized that the shogun was now a permanent head of state and did not treat him as a temporary potentate useful for trade. The VOC began to court the shogun directly through gifts while simultaneously differentiating themselves from their rivals.

The EIC saw that it was losing ground and decided to emphasize its operations in India. The Dutch also helped their case by being relatively true to their claims of being only interested in trade. The early decades of Sakoku were highly profitable for both the VOC and the Shogunate. The VOC got to export bullion, especially silver and copper, and the Shogunate's officials received many gifts from the Dutch. However, the value of the trade declined in the eighteenth century and the relationship was no longer as mutually beneficial. The Japanese forbade the export of bullion and limited the number of the VOC's ships, while VOC officials complained of the culture of gift-giving. However, the maintenance of the Dutch presence was advantageous for the Shogunate. Each Dutch captain was required to submit a fusetsugaki or report on the outside world to the Japanese. Engelbert Kaempfer, a physician for the VOC and a very astute observer of Japan, noted:

it was not thought advisable to oblige them also to quit the Country, and yet dangerous freely to admit them. For this reason they are now kept, little better than prisoners, and hostages under the strict inspection of crowds of overseers, who are obliged by a solemn oath narrowly to watch their minutest actions, and kept, as it seems, for scarce any other purpose, but that the Japanese might be by their means informed of what passes in other parts of the world. Hence, to make it worth their while to stay, and patiently to endure what hardships are put upon them, they have given them leave to sell off their goods to the value of about 500,000 Crowns a year. It is certainly an error to imagine, that the Japanese cannot well be without the goods imported by the Dutch. There is more Silk and other Stuffs wore out in the Country in one week’s time, than the Dutch import in a year.

Sources

Jansen, Marius B. The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000.

Pyle, Kenneth B. The Making of Modern Japan. Lexington, MA [etc.]: D.C. Heath, 1996.