An island country in Asia’s farthest east, it was not until 1543 that Japan was first reached by Europeans, half a century after Christopher Columbus’s controversial “discovery” of the New World. These were Portuguese traders, the only Europeans to have a connection to Japan for some time thereafter, along with the Spaniards. The Dutchmen, on the other hand, first came to Japan in 1600, when the VOC ship De Liefde was stranded in Bungo Province while on her way to the East Indies. The shipmates were taken to Edo (today Tokyo) and…
