Background
Tsunenaga Hasekura was born in 1571 in Japan. In youth he was called Yoichi, and later Rokuemon.
支倉六右衛門常長
Tsunenaga Hasekura was born in 1571 in Japan. In youth he was called Yoichi, and later Rokuemon.
In 1613 Date Masamune decided to dispatch an embassy to Spain and Rome in order to establish trading relations with the West, and chose Hasckura Tsunenaga to head it. The party embarked from Tsuki-no-Ura in Mutsu, where the Date domain was situated, in the ninth month, with a Spanish Franciscan named Luis Sotelo to act as guide.
The ship, having crossed the Pacific, arrived in Acapulco in Mexico the following year. The party then proceeded across the Atlantic, landed at Sanlucar in Spain, and journeyed by way of Sevilla to Madrid. In 1615 Hasckura presented a letter from Date Masamune to King Philip III. The party then continued from Barcelona to Rome, where Pope Paul V received them in audience. Hasckura presented letters and gifts from Date Masamune, and the Pope in turn honored him with the rights of a Roman citizen.
Hasckura, however, was unable to obtain permission to carry on trade, which was the main object of his journey, and consequently delayed his departure for home. Finally despairing of success, he embarked on the home-ward journey, once more accompanied by Sotelo. He parted from Sotelo in Manila, from which he embarked in 1618, and in 1620 finally returned to Tsuki-no-ura. By this time Christianity had been placed under interdict by the Tokugawa shogunate, and as a result it was impossible to make use of the unusual experience and understanding that Hasekura had acquired in the course of his travels. He died on the first day of the seventh month of 1622.
In 1615 he received baptism, taking the Christian name Don Filippo Francesco Faxc- cura.
Children: Hasekura Yoritomo, Hasekura Yorimichi