Shuhei Uetsuka was born in Kumamoto Prefecture, graduated from the Tokyo Imperial University, faculty of law, and took a voyage to Brazil with the first set of emigrants as an agent of the Kokoku Shokumin Kaisha (Kokku Colonization Company). He established the Promissão Colony in 1918, and promoted a campaign to call for the Japanese Government to offer low interest loans of 850,000 yen for aid to Japanese settlers and a campaign for the construction of the Hokusei Hospital. He is called "the father of Japanese immigration to Brazil".
