William Adams: The English Samurai
Valor, honor, bravery, and the ritual act of suicide by seppuku have always captured my interest whenever I think of the samurai warriors of Japan.
Samurai were the warriors of Japan’s pre-industrial society. As the ruling military class, they became the highest rank in Japanese society during the Edo Period. Samurai were skilled in the use of weapons such as the yari (Japanese spear), yumi (longbow), and most notably the katana (long sword).
Woodblock print of William Adams.
They lived their lives according to bushido (“the way of the warrior”) which has high Confucian origins in ethical behavior. Many of them also practiced Zen Buddhism.
William Adams (1564–1620), known as Anjin Miura, “the pilot of Miura” in Japan, was the first-ever Western Samurai. Adams, born in Gillingham, Kent, England, was a ship navigator and the first Englishman to reach Japan. Initially he arrived in the island of Kyūshū in April 1600 after a grueling 19 months at sea onboard the ship Liefde.
William Adams meets Tokugawa Ieyasu, in an idealised depiction of 1707.
Out of a hundred crew members only 26 remained, most of them sick and dying. The ship was seized and the crew members were imprisoned at Osaka Castle on the orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu, then daimyo of Edo and future shogun.
William Adams was questioned three times between May and June 1600 by Tokugawa Ieyasu; Adams’ knowledge of shipbuilding, ships, and nautical mathematics piqued Ieyasu’s interests. Adams was later on asked to help Mukai Shogen, the commander in chief of Japan’s navy of Uraga, to build Japan’s first Western-style ship.
William Adams before Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Ieyasu favored Adams, making him diplomatic and trade advisor, and he gave him many other great privileges. Ultimately, he became Ieyasu’s personal advisor in all things related to Western powers and civilization. He later became the Shogun’s official interpreter.
William Adams was presented with two swords that represented the authority of a samurai, and he received the title of hatamoto (bannerman), a prestigious position that made Adams a direct retainer in the Shogun’s court.
As a samurai, William Adams was given a fiefdom in Hemi (present-day Yokosuka City) with 80 to 90 servants, an estate valued at 250 koku (a measure of the yearly income of the land in rice, with one koku defined as the quantity of rice sufficient to feed one person for one year).
Grave marker of William Adams.
Willam Adams died at Hirado, north of Nagasaki, on the 16th of May 1620 at the age of 55. His legacy, though not related to bloody battles fought with samurai swords, is a testament to the development and advancement of trade in Japan with the Western world. A monument to William Adams is located at Nihonbashi Muromachi 1-10-8, Tokyo, the location of his former Tokyo home. A celebration in his honor is held each year on the 15th of June.
