Qualla: San Juan Bautista (ship)

San Juan Bautista (ship): Introduction

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Per Honor et Gloria assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. It took 800 shipwrights, 700 smiths, and 3,000 carpenters exactly 45 days to build a ship that would carry samurai to the Pope. The San Juan Bautista -- named for St. John the Baptist, built in the style of a Spanish galleon -- launched from the harbor of Tsuki-No-Ura in Ishinomaki in 1613. She was one of Japan's first Western-style sailing ships, a product of the brief and remarkable moment when feudal Japan looked outward across the Pacific. Her mission: to deliver 180 people, including samurai diplomats, to the court of Pope Paul V in Rome. The voyage would span oceans, empires, and years. And it would end in heartbreak.

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Per Honor et Gloria assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

San Juan Bautista (ship): A Warlord's Ambition

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit STRONGlk7, CC BY-SA 3.0. Date Masamune, the powerful daimyo of Sendai, commissioned the San Juan Bautista with approval from the Bakufu -- the shogun's government in Edo. The project reflected Japan's brief fascination with Western maritime technology. The shogun had already commissioned ships from the E...

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Image: STRONGlk7 | CC BY-SA 3.0

San Juan Bautista (ship): The Samurai Who Sailed to Rome

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Claude Deruet, Public domain. On October 28, 1613, the San Juan Bautista departed Ishinomaki carrying an extraordinary cargo: 10 samurai of the shogun led by the Minister of the Navy Mukai Shogen Tadakatsu, 12 samurai from Sendai, 120 Japanese merchants and sailors, and around 40 Spaniards and Portuguese. Lea...

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Image: Claude Deruet | Public domain

San Juan Bautista (ship): Two Crossings, Then Silence

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The San Juan Bautista made the Pacific crossing twice. After delivering the embassy to Acapulco, she returned to Japan in 1615, carrying about 50 Spanish mining specialists invited to develop silver mines in the Sendai region, along with a group of Franciscan friars. In September...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

San Juan Bautista (ship): A Replica and a Tsunami

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Christopher Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1993, a full-size replica of the San Juan Bautista was reconstructed in Ishinomaki based on surviving records from the House of Date. Though the original blueprints were lost, the ship's dimensions had been carefully documented, allowing a faithful reconstruction. The replica ...

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Image: Christopher Johnson | CC BY-SA 2.0

San Juan Bautista (ship): Echoes Across the Pacific

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nicolás de Cardona, Public domain. The San Juan Bautista's legacy reaches further than its wooden hull ever could. In the Spanish town of Coria del Rio, near Seville, roughly 650 residents carry the surname Japon -- descendants, they believe, of members of Hasekura's delegation who remained in Spain rather than re...

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Image: Nicolás de Cardona | Public domain