For further study:
Appreciate the time students spend to explain the argument from the Japanese government’s side of things.
How is the issue of the fumi-e connected with the decision to close the country from foreign influences? How did these policies protect Japan’s political interests?
Note: Many Japanese at that time were being sold as slaves and lured into other practices promoted by the traders including slave traders.
See more:
Text from the seclusion edict of 1636
No Japanese ship ... nor any native of Japan, shall presume to go out of the country; whoever acts contrary to this, shall die, and the ship with the crew and goods aboard shall be sequestered until further orders. All persons who return from abroad shall be put to death. Whoever discovers a Christian priest shall have a reward of 400 to 500 sheets of silver and for every Christian in proportion. All Namban (Portuguese and Spanish) who propagate the doctrine of the Catholics, or bear this scandalous name, shall be imprisoned in the Onra, or common jail of the town. The whole race of the Portuguese with their mothers, nurses and whatever belongs to them, shall be banished to Macao. Whoever presumes to bring a letter from abroad, or to return after he hath been banished, shall die with his family; also whoever presumes to intercede for him, shall be put to death. No nobleman nor any soldier shall be suffered to purchase anything from the foreigner.