Amakusa Shirō

天草四郎

c. 1621–1638
Boy figurehead of the Shimabara Rebellion
Also written: Amakusa Shirō · 天草四郎

The charismatic 16-year-old under whose banner some 37,000 rebels held Hara Castle against the shogunate through the winter of 1637–38. His head went to Nagasaki; his rising confirmed the bakufu's resolve to expel the Portuguese for good.

Full article: The Boy on the Water: Amakusa Shirō and the Manufacture of a Messiah, 1621–1638

Appears in

No Descendant Shall Remain: The Fourth Sakoku Decree and the Deportation of Nagasaki's Children, 1636
The Christian Century: Faith and Power in Feudal Japan
Number of Christian Converts in Japan, 1549–1700
A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650
The Fan Without Its Ribs: Dejima and the Three Acres That Held the West, 1634–1859
The Castle That Was Already a Ruin: Hara-jō, the Siege of 1637–1638, and What the Excavators Found
The Same Heart as Yours: Japan's Hidden Christians from the Underground Church to World Heritage, 1640–2018
The Sword Was at Hand: Konishi Yukinaga, the Merchant’s Son Who Refused Seppuku, c. 1555–1600
The Kōri Debacle: How a Rumor About a 13-Year-Old Boy Unmade a Hidden Church
Nagasaki: How a Handful of Fishermen’s Huts Became the Trade Capital of the World
Sakoku: How and Why Japan Closed Its Doors
The Shimabara Rebellion: The Siege That Sealed Japan
Born to Rule: Tokugawa Iemitsu and the Perfection of Control

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