Abstract
The Portuguese sailor and trader Mendes Pinto, later a companion of theJesuit Francis Xavier, claimed to have “discovered” Japan in 1542.1Although he had an expedient personality, his description of Japan and theSouth China Sea trade is strikingly accurate and gives his claim credibility.Even if he was not the very first European to tread Japanese soil, he wasundoubtedly “one of the earliest Portuguese travelers to that country, whichhe visited three or four times between 1544 and 1556.” This potentiallyearliest European voyager to Japan was an associate of Francis Xavier bothbefore and during the Jesuit leader’s early missionary efforts in Japan, a factthat that prolific member of the Society of Jesus’ own reliablecorrespondence corroborates. Pinto indeed helped to finance one of the firstJesuit churches in Japan in 1551 and seems to have taken the Society’sExercises and become a Jesuit himself in 1554.2 European trade, exploration,and missionary activity in the South China Sea were demonstrablyintertwined during the mid- and late-1540s. The Jesuits were thus at theforefront of intercultural interaction between Reformation Europe andwarring states-period Japan.