About
I am William Adams (24 September 1564 – 16 May 1620), better known in Japan as Miura Anjin (三浦按針; ’the pilot of Miura’). I am an English navigator and, in 1600, I became the first Englishman to reach Japan. I was later granted samurai status, and was recognised as one of the most influential foreigners in Japan during the early 17th century.
I arrived in Japan as one of the few survivors of the ship Liefde under the leadership of Jacob Quaeckernaeck. It was the only vessel to reach Japan from a five-ship expedition launched by a company of Rotterdam merchants (a voorcompagnie, or predecessor, of the Dutch East India Company). Soon after my arrival in Japan, me and my second mate Jan Joosten became advisors to shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu, and both of us were appointed as hatamoto.
For more than a decade, the Tokugawa authorities did not allow me and Joosten to leave Japan. Although eventually given permission to return home to England, I decided to stay in Japan, where I died at the age of 55. In 1635, Tokugawa Iemitsu closed Japan to foreign trade and my half-Japanese children disappear from historical records at that time.
Read my story on Wikipedia.