Treasures from Population Registers in Nagasaki Hirado-cho

A pre-modern Japanese population register in Nagasaki known as Hirado-cho ninbetsu seisho tadashi from the year of Kan’ei 19 (1642) offers rich information on religion and geography of the time. The record reveals die patterns of Christian apostasy for individuals, as well as die trading environment and associated migrations in Nagasaki in the seventeenth century. In so doing, it also verifies and supplements what has been studied thus far about Nagasaki Christianity and foreign relations. A micro perspective of ordinary people and then lives reflected in the record provides a profounder comprehension of Nagasaki, which was the frontier to a modern Japan.