Abstract
As it is widely known, Jesuit missionaries in Japan received the donation of the port of Nagasaki in 1580, eventually lost in 1587 to the central ruler of the country, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. However, that was not the only piece of land they owned at some point in Japan. From the first donation received in Yamaguchi in 1552 to the loss of everything they had in 1614, Jesuits became a somewhat considerable political force by the 1580s. By rehabilitating a list of patrons of the mission compiled in 1677 in Macao, my goal is to show how Japan Jesuits became landowners and benefitted from taxation and food production. Landholding gave them access to labour on the form of kuyaku (a type of corvée), some presence in Japanese politics, and economic power. Nevertheless, land ownership led them to unforeseen directions, as when they became a target of the reforms promoted by Hideyoshi in the late 1580s. Jesuit landholding in Japan also shows how missionaries adapted to local circumstances by emulating regional Buddhist organizations in their relations with local warlords. Far from being political masterminds, the Japan Jesuits struggled to acquire financial independence, and land ownership was one of the many forms they resorted to in order to guarantee their survival.