The first Europeans to reach Japan were the Portuguese in the AD 1540s. Having already set up trading posts elsewhere in Asia they established a highly successful trade based in the port of Nagasaki, in the far west of Japan. Portuguese carracks imported Chinese silk, spices and various European luxuries, and sailed away with silver as well as desirable Japanese items – lacquer, robes, painted screens and porcelain.

The strange and exotic appearance of the foreigners aroused curiosity; not just their physique, hair and faces, but also their clothes, such as the baggy bombacha trousers of the Portuguese. They were depicted in painted screens, and there was a brief fashion for European dress and trinkets. The Europeans also brought with them weapons, including the musket which was copied by the Japanese and which played a significant role in the battles of the late 16th century.

Missionaries accompanied the traders and had considerable success in conversions to Christianity, numbering in the tens of thousands. However, as the process of unification advanced, the leaders grew wary of the threat posed by allegiance to external powers. Edicts were issued banning Christianity, but proved ineffective. By the early 1600s, however, the Dutch and, briefly, the English had joined the international trade, and as Protestants not concerned with religious missions, they provided the only acceptable alternative.