Meanwhile, Japanese began appearing in
Spanish Manila, driven by merchants and spurred on by religious persecution at home. Beginning in 1585, Japanese ships began arriving in this harbor for
commercial purposes. Many of the Japanese who traveled on those ships settled in Manila, gradually forming a rather sizeable community; other Japanese who had already been living in other parts of Las Filipinas joined them in the capital for different reasons.
The Japanese colony continued to grow steadily, though it relapsed in some years. In 1597, in retaliation for the Nagasaki executions and the confiscation of goods carried on the Spanish galleon San Felipe when it docked in Japan, Spanish authorities decided to deport most of the Japanese living in Manila. But from 1612 on, with the onset of anti-Christian persecution in Japan, the community in Manila grew apace, doubling in size over a ten-year period (1613-1623), from fifteen hundred to three thousand.[6]
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[6] Ibidem; pp. 13-17.
