On April 12, 1600, a Dutch ship named Liefde, also nicknamed Erasmus because of its figurehead representing the patron saint of sailors, accidentally docked on the Japanese coast of Bungo, on the island of Kyushu. The last survivor of a fleet of five ships that had set sail two years earlier from the United Provinces to the East Indies, the Liefde was in a sorry state. On board were only twenty-four emaciated and sick men, including a 42-year-old English pilot: William Adams. This impromptu landing marked the beginning of a historic turning point in relations between Europe and Japan.
At that time, Japan was a land jealously guarded by Portuguese missionaries and traders, Catholics hostile to the Protestant presence. Upon the arrival of the Liefde, the Portuguese Jesuits denounced the crew as pirates and demanded their execution. But Tokugawa Ieyasu, the future shogun and strongman of the country, preferred to question these men from a distant world. Fascinated by William Adams's skills in navigation, astronomy, and shipbuilding, he decided not only to spare him but to retain him at his court. Adams thus became the first Briton to achieve the rank of samurai.
Thanks to Tokugawa Ieyasu's trust, Adams gradually opened Japan to the Dutch, rivals of the Portuguese. In 1609, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) obtained permission to open a trading post, foreshadowing a partnership that would last for more than two centuries. As for the Liefde, it ended up wrecked on the Japanese coast shortly after its arrival. Only its figurehead, representing Erasmus, would be preserved, as a symbol of an incredible odyssey. This involuntary shipwreck thus became the starting point of a major diplomatic and economic relationship between Japan and Protestant Europe.
