Diego Collado

Diego Collado was a Spanish Christian missionary. He was born at Miajadas, in the province of Extremadura, Spain. He entered the Dominican Order at San Esteban, Salamanca around 1600, and in 1619 went to Japan. As Christianity had already been formally outlawed by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1614, Collado spent his time in hiding, frequently changing residences to avoid being arrested. He traveled the country, learning Japanese and proselytizing to the local population, until he was recalled to Europe in 1622. He spent the next decade challenging the monopoly of the Jesuits in ministering to Japan, and his account of the venal behavior he observed in Japan was cited by Thomas Gage, a former Dominican friar turned Protestant, as evidence of Jesuit malpractice and the conflict between Dominicans and Jesuits.