Christopher and Cosmas

Christopher and Cosmas were two Japanese men, only known by their Christian names, who are recorded to have travelled across the Pacific on a Spanish galleon in 1587, and were later forced to accompany the English navigator Thomas Cavendish to England, Brazil and the Southern Atlantic, where they disappeared with the sinking of his ship in 1592.

They are first mentioned by the navigator Francis Pretty, in Richard Hakluyt's account of the travels of Cavendish. He writes that on 4 November 1587 the 27 year old Cavendish, with two ships the Desire (120 tons) and the Content (60 tons) intercepted a Spanish ship, a Manila galleon named Santa Ana, off the coast of Baja California (at Bernabe Bay, some 20 miles east of Cabo San Lucas). Cavendish disembarked the crew onshore, took the rich cargo, and put the ship on fire. But he also chose to keep with him several of the crew in view of his future voyages. In particular, he selected two young Japanese men:

On the 6th day of November following, we went into a harbour which is called by the Spaniards, Puerto Seguro. Here the whole company of the Spaniards, to the number of 190 persons were set onshore But before his departure, he took out of this great ship two young lads born in Japan, which could both write and read their own language. The oldest one was about 20 years old and named Christopher (He is so named in English sources, but his original (Christian) name must have been Cristóbal or Cristóvão). The younger one was named Cosmas (probably Cosme or Gusmão) and was 16. Both of them were said to be very capable. They had converted to Catholicism back in Japan, where Iberian missions were flourishing since the 1540s. They were probably fluent to some degree in Portuguese or Castilian. (Under the Treaties of Tordesillas and Zaragoza, only Portuguese ships and mission could trade and establish in Asia. However, ships were crewed by Spaniards and Portuguese as both Kingdoms were under a dynastic union at the time). Among the Spanish crew which was put ashore was the explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno, who would later play an essential role in the development of relations between New Spain and Japan.

Cavendish continued across the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean back to England. The two Japanese accompanied him all along, and probably stayed in England for about 3 years, since they are subsequently mentioned during the next mission of Cavendish to the Southern Atlantic, not in Hakluyt's Voyages, but in the writings of Samuel Purchas ("The admirable adventures and strange fortunes of Master Antonie Knivet, which went with Master Thomas Candish in his second voyage to the South Sea. 1591").

Christopher and Cosmas represent one of the first mentions of the travels of Japanese men across the Pacific. They illustrate the participation of Japanese sailors to the trans Pacific trade of the Manila galleons, and also the willingness of contemporary ships to take on board sailors of various nationalities. Numerous voyages would follow during the following century. Between 1598 and 1640, red seal ships would ply the Pacific for Asian trade, and embassies on Japanese built Western style ships would be sent to the Americas, in the persons of Tanaka Shōsuke (1610) and Hasekura Tsunenaga (1614). In the end, following the first contacts with the West in 1543, the Japanese acquired the skills of transoceanic voyages and Western shipbuilding, before losing them with the closing of the country (sakoku) in 1640. The next Japanese to reach England were likely the trio of Iwakichi, Kyukichi, and Otokichi in 1835, who had drifted across the Pacific in 1834 after being blown off course.