Shimabara Uprising

Shimabara Rebellion
Part of the early Edo period
Siege of Hara Castle
Date Late 1637- Early 1638 Location Minamishimabara, Nagasaki Result Tokugawa victory; Christianity in Japan driven underground
Belligerents
Tokugawa shogunate Protestant Dutch	Roman Catholics and rōnin rebels
Commanders and leaders
Itakura Shigemasa † Matsudaira Nobutsuna Matsukura Katsuie † Terasawa Katataka Miyamoto Musashi Hosokawa Tadatoshi Nicolaes Couckebacker Toda Ujikane Nabeshima Katsushige Kuroda Tadayuki Arima Toyouji Tachibana Muneshige Arima Naozumi Ogasawara Tadazane Takada Matabei Ogasawara Nagatsugu Matsudaira Shigenao Yamada Arinaga Mizuno Katsunari Mizuno Katsutoshi Mizuno Katsusada.	Amakusa Shirō † Arie Kenmotsu † Masuda Yoshitsugu † Ashizuga Chuemon † Yamada Emosaku.
Strength
Over 125,000	Between 27,000 and 37,000
Casualties and losses
2,000 to 2,800 dead and 11,000 wounded	Over 27,000 dead

The Shimabara Rebellion (島原の乱, Shimabara no ran) was an uprising in what is now Nagasaki Prefecture in southwestern Japan lasting from December 17, 1637, to April 15, 1638, during the Edo period. It largely involved peasants, most of them Catholic Christians.

It was one of only a handful of instances of serious unrest during the relatively peaceful period of the Tokugawa shogunate's rule. In the wake of the Matsukura clan's construction of a new castle at Shimabara, taxes were drastically raised, which provoked anger from local peasants and rōnin (samurai without masters). Religious persecution of the local Catholics exacerbated the discontent, which turned into open revolt in 1637. The Tokugawa Shogunate sent a force of over 125,000 troops to suppress the rebels and, after a lengthy siege against the rebels at Hara Castle, defeated them.

In the wake of the rebellion, the Catholic rebel leader Amakusa Shirō was beheaded and the prohibition of Christianity was strictly enforced. Japan's national seclusion policy was tightened and official persecution of Christianity continued until the 1850s. Following the successful suppression of the rebellion, the daimyō of Shimabara, Matsukura Katsuie, was beheaded for misruling, becoming the only daimyō to be beheaded during the Edo period.

In the mid-1630s, the peasants of the Shimabara Peninsula and Amakusa, dissatisfied with overtaxation and suffering from the effects of famine, revolted against their lords. This was specifically in territory ruled by two lords: Matsukura Katsuie of the Shimabara Domain, and Terasawa Katataka of the Karatsu Domain. Although the rebellion is portrayed by many historians as a religious uprising, that ignores the issues of discontent from famine and overtaxation. Those affected also included fishermen, craftsmen and merchants. As the rebellion spread, it was joined by rōnin (masterless samurai) who once had served families, such as the Amakusa and Shiki, who had once lived in the area, as well as former Arima clan and Konishi retainers. As such, the image of a fully "peasant" uprising is also not entirely accurate.

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