Departments
ANJIN MIURA
三浦按針
(1564 - 1620)
William Adams
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William Adams’ life was the inspiration for James Clavell’s bestselling novel, Shogun. The main character of Shogun is John Blackthorne, a British seaman whose Dutch-owned ship crashes in Japan during a typhoon. The Japanese originally treat Blackthorne with suspicion. In time, though, the Englishman manages to ingratiate himself with a local warlord (daimyō / 大名), and eventually becomes an honorary member of the samurai (侍) warrior caste.
Early Life and Arrival in Japan
Shogun is a work of fiction, of course; but the true story of Adams’ life is every bit as remarkable as the plot of the novel. William Adams was born in Kent, England on Sept. 24, 1564. His father died when he was only twelve; and the young Adams was apprenticed to a shipyard owner in London. For the next twelve years, Adams learned the arts of shipbuilding, navigation, astronomy, and mathematics. While he was in his twenties, he served in the Royal Navy. After leaving the navy, he was employed as a pilot for a private merchant company. His travels took him all the way to the Russian Far East.
In 1598, the 34-year-old Adams was hired to lead a Dutch expedition to the Far East. The expedition originally consisted of five ships, but a series of disasters eventually pared the fleet down to one vessel, the Liefde. The Liefde was near the coast of Japan in April of 1600 when it sailed into a fierce typhoon.
The typhoon drove the Liefde ashore near present-day Usaki City, on Japan’s southernmost home island, Kyushu. Local Japanese authorities found Adams and his few remaining crew members on the beach and detained them.
Adams Make an Impression on the Shogun
In 1600, Japan was making the transition from a long period of chaotic civil war to relative stability under the centralized rule of the Tokugawa shoguns. The first of these rulers was Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu was still solidifying his power over the country when Adams landed in Japan. Shortly after his capture, Adams had an audience with the shogun himself.
Adams had to communicate with Ieyasu through the shogun’s official interpreter, a Portuguese Jesuit named Rodrigues. Because of the current political situation in Europe, Adams found that the Portuguese priest disliked him on sight. The Protestant nations of England and the Netherlands were at then at war with Catholic Spain and Portugal. Rodrigues told the shogun that Adams should be burned as a heretic.
Luckily for Adams, Ieyasu refused to burn the Englishman over differences in European religious doctrines. On the contrary, Ieyasu recognized Adams as a valuable source of knowledge. He became the shogun’s tutor in the fields of mathematics, science, and military strategy. He also learned Japanese, and would eventually nudge Rodrigues aside as Ieyasu’s official interpreter.
William Adams becomes Anjin Miura
Adams was accepted as a member of the samurai class, and rose to the rank of hatamoto / 旗本. This title gave him the right to hold land, and have a personal audience with the shogun. He was given a Japanese name, Miura Anjin.
Adams soon settled into a comfortable life in Japan. He took up residence on an estate given to him by the shogun. He also married a Japanese woman, Oyuki. Oyuki was the daughter of a samurai official in Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Adams and Oyuki had two children.
In 1611, Adams negotiated a trade agreement between Japan and the Netherlands. A similar agreement with Great Britain followed in 1613. He led a trade delegation to the Philippines for Ieyasu, and sailed to Indochina, Okinawa, and Thailand under contract with the British East India Company. Adams died in Japan at the age of 56 on May 20, 1620.
Before his death, Adams supervised the building of the first western-style ships on Japanese soil. He is therefore recognized as the honorary founder of the Japanese navy. Adams is honored annually in a ceremony near the Yokosuka naval base.
