After the Portuguese Empire first made contact with Japan in 1543, a large scale of slave trade developed in which Portuguese purchased Japanese as slaves in Japan and sold them to various locations overseas, including Portugal itself, throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Many documents mention the large slave trade along with protests against the enslavement of Japanese. Japanese slaves are believed to be the first of their nation to end up in Europe, and the Portuguese purchased large numbers of Japanese slave girls to bring to Portugal for sexual purposes, as noted by the Church in 1555. King Sebastian feared that it was having a negative effect on Catholic proselytization since the slave trade in Japanese was growing to massive proportions, so he commanded that it be banned in 1571. Hideyoshi was so disgusted that his own people were being sold en masse into slavery on Kyushu, that he wrote a letter to Jesuit Vice-Provincial Gaspar Coelho on 24 July 1587 to demand the Portuguese, Siamese (Thai), and Cambodians stop purchasing and enslaving Japanese and return those slaves who had been removed to places as far as India. Hideyoshi blamed the Portuguese and Jesuits for this slave trade and banned Christian proselytizing as a result. Some Korean slaves in Japan who had been among the thousands of prisoners of war taken during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98) were bought by the Portuguese and taken to Portugal. Fillippo Sassetti saw some Chinese and Japanese slaves in Lisbon among the large slave community in 1578, although most of the slaves were African. The Portuguese "highly regarded" Asian slaves like Chinese and Japanese, much more "than slaves from sub-Saharan Africa". The Portuguese attributed qualities like intelligence and industriousness to Chinese and Japanese slaves which is why they favored them more. Luis Cerqueira, a Portuguese Jesuit, reported in a 1598 document that Japanese women were sold as concubines to African and European crewmembers on Portuguese ships trading in Japan. Japanese slaves were brought by the Portuguese to Macau, where some of them were enslaved to Portuguese, but could also be bought by other slaves. Thus, the Portuguese might own African and Malay slaves, who in turn possessed Japanese slaves of their own. In 1595 a law was passed by Portugal banning the sale of Chinese and Japanese slaves.