University of Edinburgh Archive and Manuscript Collections

Scope and Contents A manuscript document written in 1828 declaring the religious Innocence of a Japanese family comprised of eleven people (six women and five men). Christianity was banned in Japan in 1612 by the Tokugawa shogunate, and the ban was only lifted in 1873 under the government of Emperor Meiji, who had gained power following the opening of Japan to trade by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1854. Until the lift of the ban, Japanese citizens were required to register annually at their local temple as...