Did Hideyoshi have a Christian daughter?

Hideyoshi's Christian Daughter

Did Hideyoshi’s daughter convert to Christianity?

When speaking of Hideyoshi and Christianity, Hideyoshi is known for the anti-Christian edicts of 1587 and the martyrdom of 26 Christians in 1597. Few know that he had a Christian daughter. Few know that he had daughters at all.

Hideyoshi's most famous two children are his two biological sons: Tsurumatsu, who died at age 2, and Hideyori, who died in the Siege of Osaka in 1615. However, Hideyoshi had four additional kids, two sons and two daughters, who were adopted as children. (Others were adopted as adults.) Adopting was common in the time period for family reasons and as a way of cementing alliances.

Hideyoshi's daughters were the third and fourth daughters of Maeda Toshiie, one of the most powerful warlords in Japan. The daughter who converted is the fourth daughter, Gohime or Princess Go. Gohime moved into Osaka Castle in the 1580s, spending several years there with Hideyoshi's wife, Nene, and her ladies-in-waiting. Nene was not a Christian, but she did support the Jesuit’s mission and her ladies-in-waiting were Christians who were allowed to attend the Catholic Church in Osaka.

In 1586, Gohime married Ukita Hideie, the teenage head of the Ukita Clan. She was maybe 13 at the time. Her new husband and mother-in-law were supportive of Christianity, so she continued to learn. In 1600, Hideie was on the losing side in The Battle for Sekigahara and Tokugawa Ieyasu exiled him and his sons in 1603.

After the exile, Gohime moved in with Nene, who became a Buddhist nun after Hideyoshi’s death. She converted to Christianity in 1606, and then moved back to the Maeda domain after her conversion, where she lived out the rest of her life.

The picture at the top can be found at a museum in the ancestral territory of the Ukita Clan.