Questions: Tokugawa Japan (1603–1868)

Question 1

What was the alternate attendance (sankin-kotai) system?

• A. A rule that samurai had to take turns farming
• B. A requirement that daimyo spend alternate periods in Edo and leave their families there
• C. A schedule for Dutch ships to visit Nagasaki
• D. A rotation of emperors between Kyoto and Edo

Answer: (B)

Daimyo had to live in Edo every other year and keep their wives and heirs there. The cost of travel and two households drained their wealth, and their families served as hostages for good behavior.

Question 2

During the Tokugawa period Japan cut off all foreign trade.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

After the 1630s, the Dutch were allowed to trade from the island of Dejima at Nagasaki, Chinese merchants also traded at Nagasaki, and relations with Korea and the Ryukyu Kingdom continued through intermediary domains.

Question 3

Why did the shogunate ban Christianity and expel the Portuguese?

Model answer: It feared that Christianity divided loyalty between the shogun and a foreign religious authority and could open the way to European interference. The Shimabara Rebellion of 1637–1638, which involved many Christian peasants, strengthened this fear.

Missionaries had won many converts in the late 1500s. Tokugawa leaders saw the faith as a political danger, banned it, persecuted believers and, in 1639, expelled the Portuguese.

Question 4

Which event most directly began the end of Tokugawa isolation policies?

• A. The Battle of Sekigahara
• B. The arrival of US Commodore Matthew Perry's warships in 1853
• C. The Shimabara Rebellion
• D. The founding of Dejima

Answer: (B)

Perry demanded that Japan open its ports, and the Treaty of Kanagawa followed in 1854. The shogunate's weakness in the face of foreign pressure helped its opponents overthrow it in 1868.