The word Nanban comes from namban-jinou “barbarians of the south”. This derogatory word originally referred to the people of South and Southeast Asia. The word took on a new meaning to designate Europeans coming to Japan from the South by boat, first from Portugal, then Spain, later from the Netherlands and England. This period of Christianization ended with the almost total exclusion of Europeans in 1650, when the archipelago was closed to foreigners under the Tokugawa shogunate. Trade was not completely suppressed though, as the Dutch East India Company, V.O.C., remained the only intermediary based on the islet of Deshima in Nagasaki Bay.