In our last presentation we learned about Japan’s isolation during the Tokugawa era and how the United States proposed to end that isolation Matthew Perry traveled across oceans with a letter from the US president requesting that Japan allow American ships to stop at Japanese ports to purchase coal and
Water there was also a request that an American representative be allowed to to live in one of these ports so that he could care for American Sailors who might accidentally end up on Japanese Shores Matthew Perry steamed into Edo Bay in 1853 and wrote a strongly worded letter
To Japan’s Emperor indicating that war with the United States would be disastrous for Japan he then left Japan with a promise that he would return in the spring with a much larger number of ship ships and men to receive Japan’s reply to president filmore’s request Perry did ined return to Edo but
He didn’t wait until spring he had received information that other European powers also had their minds set on opening Japan and so he wished to get to Japan and obtain a treaty before he was outflanked by the Russians or British he steamed into Edo Bay on February 13th
1854 with eight ships and 1,600 soldiers while he received no definitive answer from the Japanese it was clear that they did not plan to refuse America’s request so the Tokugawa officials and Perry sat down together and began negotiating Perry insisted that one of the two stopping ports for American
Ships be in Edo the Japanese countered with other suggested ports they also pleaded with Perry to move his eight ships out of Edo and move South maybe as far south as Nagasaki they compromised and Perry moved the ships to Yokohama Bay while in Yokohama 500 American troops went on Shore and Perry showed
The Japanese the gifts that President Filmore had sent for the Japanese this included a mile Telegraph system and railroad tracks with a small steam driven railroad car eventually on March 31st Perry and the Japanese signed the convention of Kanagawa with these terms Japan would allow American ships
To dock at shimoda and hakati and allow an American representative to reside in shimoda to assist any Shipwrecked American Sailors who needed to be repatriated to America at shimoda and hakati American captains could buy coal and get water for their ship’s steam engines what was of Paramount importance
To the Council of Elders was that this was not a commercial treaty and there was no exchange of ambassadors so they could tell those more hawkish Dao and the Imperial house that they had not opened up Japan to the West it should also be noted that the shogunate did not consult with the
Emperor before signing the Kanagawa agreement but as one might expect once America got its foot in the door it was just a matter of time that America wanted more that came just four years later in 1857 when the American resident in shimoda town St Harris made an important visit to
Edo in 1857 Harris was 53 years old and he had a circuitous route to becoming the first American representative in Japan he had begun working as an assistant in a New York City Dry Goods store he rose in the business and as a Democrat was elected to the New York Board of educ
Ation following the death of his mother Harris self-medicated his emotional pain through alcohol he began to fail in his business enterprises and had enough resources to buy a vessel that did some trading in Asia but that Enterprise also failed he lobbied through ties to sen Senator William seaward he was able to
Get the appointment to be the first American counsel General to Japan now he was making a very important decision to leave shimoda and travel to Edo in his diary of Monday November 30th 1857 he wrote today I am to enter Edo it will form an important Epoch of my life
And a still more important one in the history of Japan 12 Days Later Harris Le Ed the Jack shogun’s advisors about why Japan had no other choice but to open up to the United States he made many points during this two-hour oration but let me just mention five arguments he made the
First one actually makes me smile a bit because he was so right that an amazing book was written more than 150 years later that proved what he was saying was absolutely exact I’ve mentioned this book before before but I tried to give it as much recognition as possible
Because it is so well written and explains a great deal about the modern world the book is titled the most powerful idea in the world a story of steam industry and invention the title is self-explanatory and Rosen does an excellent and entertaining job proving how the steam engine truly changed Humanity
In his diary Townsend recalled his opening argument with these words my first main point related to the changed condition of the World by the introduction of steam and this is where Townsen began he told the sh Shogun advisers that the steamship had changed everything and there was no way that Japan would be
Able to hold off the onslaught of Western powers on their Shores again it is helpful to remember when townend is speaking we really don’t learn history by memorizing dates but they sometimes serve as a framework on which we can build our understanding so he is speaking in
1857 it was in the year 1850 7 years before that the number of steam ships on the oceans finally outnumbered the number of sailing ships so this was something that was both a new and growing industry and Townsend was correct the Advent of steamships particularly military warships would
Change everything and Japan could no longer remain isolated from the world his second point was that while Japan had remained isolated revolutions had taken place in the west based on fraternity or the Brotherhood of Man as as such it did Japan no good not to join in with the growing Brotherhood of
Nations just as an aside bringing up the idea of equality and Fraternity in 1857 by an American came on the eve of the American Civil War the third argument was that the Japanese should stop deluding themselves and realize that resistance to the Western Powers was futle Japan had not industrialized it
Had no Navy and the weapons of war clearly favored the West Japan would be committing National Suicide by trying to Stave off the West all Japan had to do was look to its neighbor China and see what had happened to that enormous country China had been humiliated in the
1839 Opium War war and had experienced an even greater humiliation and defeat in the arrow war that had begun just the previous year a war where the United St States came to the British Aid as the American Commodore Josiah ttel equipped blood is thicker than water the fourth reason that Perry said
The Japanese should immediately sign a commercialized treaty with the US was that America would give the Japanese much more generous terms than they would get from any other Western power there were two things related to this point first the way that Western Powers were creating spheres of
Influence around the world was that they were going to underdeveloped countries and the first Western power to get there would get a treaty with a clause called most Favored Nations status which meant that no foreign power could get better terms than what the first treaty laid out thus Perry told the Japanese that
They would not get a better deal from any other Western power than they would from the United States and so no other Western power could come in and ask for more than what the United States had gotten furthermore the US would not force opium to be legally traded in
Japan which the British would insist on the second consideration the Japanese should think about was that Perry had heard that the British were about to send their warships to Japan to force Japan open this was not an idle threat as there were Plans by other Western
Powers to get in on the ground floor with regards to opening Japan and getting a most favored nation status so there was an existential threat that Japan faced by 1857 Harris had spent 3 years in Japan and so he also began to understand the culture of the Japanese so his final
Point in arguing that Japan should sign a commercialized treaty was that the Japanese officials would save face by signing a treaty in short Harris told them look I’m here standing before you alone I’m not wearing any weapon there are no American warships in Edo Bay with their cannons pointed toward Shore so this
Isn’t gunboat diplomacy you are not being forced to sign this treaty because of a huge Army facing you it’s just me following this two-hour diet tribe ha who was now head headed the foreign policy wing of the shogun’s council asked Perry to give him time to share
This news with the leading Dao and they would get back to him ha had an uphill battle for it was one thing for Japan to allow American ships to stop at two obscure ports for coal and water it was another thing altogether to allow American ships to
Set up businesses in Japan to live in Japan to exchange ambassadors in short for Japan to be opened to the West many of the daima were adamantly against signing this type of treaty so for hat he thought the way around this intransigence was to take the treaty to
Kyoto and have emperor K sign the treaty after all for centuries the Emperors always did what was asked of them by the Shoguns because it was the Shoguns who kept the Imperial float economically but as we have seen emperor K was fanatically anti-foreign when he heard that ha was
Coming to Kyoto with a great sum of money for the emperor so as to have him sign the treaty K wrote to the Imperial Chancellor do they suppose I can be bought if As Long As I Am the ruler of this country I allow myself to become a
Mere dummy and permit trading with foreign barbarians I shall lose the confidence of the people and will leave a shameful reputation for generations to come I would have nowhere to hide myself from the gods or from my ancestors ha was somewhat shocked to be turned away at Koto with the message
That the emperor was not going to sign the treaty at a loss as to what to do hatas resigned and the Shogun nut replaced him with the Dao now suuki Emperor K was aware that Nuki was much more belligerent than ha and that he would also not recommend but Force K
To sign the treaty K wrote a letter to an adviser noting that Nuki would make a tough effort to get him to sign a treaty but that there was absolutely no chance I’ll will change my mind meanwhile Harris warned the shogunate that the British ships had left China and were now steaming toward
Japan time was running out for the Japanese now suuki signed the treaty and sent a message to the Imperial Court in Koto in which he tried to explain that it was an emergency situation and he didn’t have the time to seek the advice from the emperor when KY received this message he
Sent word that he intended to abdicate his position as as Emperor he claimed that even though the Imperial Throne had been unbroken for 2,500 years he believed that his unworthiness had become evident by the signing of a treaty with a foreign country as one scholar noted K blamed this entirely on
His own lack of virtue and this caused him immense grief in fact Emperor K was one of the most gifted Emperors that Japan had had ever had furthermore the one in line to replace the emperor was his six-year-old son mahito for the Imperial Throne to have
Just a young boy sitting on it at a time of great turmoil for Japan verged on a disastrous scenario at the end of the day Emperor K backed down from abdicating but he was not finished trying to reverse the course of the shogunate so the United States finally
Got to open up Japan and immediately after the signing of this treaty other Western Powers came in and received similar concessions some of the details of this treaty with the us including included the opening of five ports where Americans could freely trade these were hakoda Nagata Yokohama Yogo and
Nagasaki an immediate implication of Japan signing a treaty with the US included several major Dao who had been historic enemies of the Tokugawa house starting to take matters in their own hands by subverting laws the two most powerful anti tokogawa Dio domains were on the western portion
Of Japan far away from the capital these two were satuma on kushu and choshu on the western portion of honu Satsuma began to illegally send their brightest young men to England to learn the mechanics of building a modern Navy at the time England had the world’s most formidable Navy and Satsuma which
Had one of Japan’s best Bays kagoshima wanted to build a Navy that could take on the west joosu began to send their most promising young men to Prussia to study the mechanism M for building a modern Army including the manufacturing of the latest weapons of war many Dao and Samurai who understood
The emperor K’s position started advocating for a change of the political Paradigm they began moving to Kyoto to demonstrate their enmity against the Shogun and their support for the emperor they walked around carrying placards that included the phrase son no joy or rever the emperor expel the Barbarian the Shogun nut realized that
As bad as its foreign crisis was it was facing an even greater domestic threat the Shogun nut sent an Envoy to speak with K but he refused to see the shogun’s representative after waiting several months K eventually saw the shogun’s representative and gave him a letter to give to the Shogun
The letter opened with this sentence friendship and commerce with the foreign barbarians constitutes a fatal flaw in the Imperial land a pollution of the Divine land he was willing to pardon the shogunate for signing the treaty with foreign countries but Japan should immediately strengthen itself with a
Policy of Kobo or Union of the Imperial Court and the shogunate that is to say the Shogun nut should do everything in concert with the Imperial will and what K wanted was to dissolve all the foreign treaties that the shogunate had signed on February 11th 1862 Tokugawa emoi married Princess Kazu
Bringing the Imperial and shogunate house closer together this began a series of promises that the Shogun would make to imper where the Shogun promised certain dates by which the Americans would be expelled but every time these dates would come and go the foreigners were still in Japan the Shogun could not kick the
Americans out of Japan because of three issues and I want to end this presentation by looking at these three things business people are always looking for a way to make money and they quickly found found one in Japan they saw that in Japan gold was selling at lower prices than it was in
The rest of the world foreign entrepreneurs bought Japan’s gold and took it overseas and resold it for a handsome profit Japan’s response was to try to get to the world’s gold standard so they recalled all Japan’s gold coins melted them down and redistributed them at the same face
Value but with less gold in them this meant that there was more money but it was not worth what it used to be this led to inflation where the prices increased where the stiens and wages remain the same the second change that opening to the West brought to Japan had a lot to
Do with the headquarters of the Imperial house Kyoto during Tokugawa Japan each had a castle town where the Dao and all his Samurai retainers lived so compared to the rest of the world tokogawa Japan was a pretty urbanized place as there were over 250 of these Castle
Towns but everyone in Edo Japan knew when you were talking about cities there were three big ones Edo being the largest and then Osaka and Kyoto of the three Kyoto was the oldest one in fact before Tokugawa Japan one might say that kyota was Japan’s only major city with a population of
200,000 during the 2 and a half centuries of Tokugawa rule Kyoto remained extremely important for five reasons first it had the well-deserved reputation of being the center of Japan’s history there is nothing quite like that in the United States but perhaps one or two cities that that come
Close to this might be Boston or Philadelphia the second reason was it held the castle of the emperor the Imperial house and the Imperial relatives lived in Koto Koto was also the center of religious activity several important sects of Buddhism such as jodo nichirin and rinai had their
Headquarters in Kyoto over onethird of the dios had homes built in Koto so that when they retired they could spend their later years in religious activity Koto had the finest Physicians surgeons artists and other high cultural experts in the imperial capital but it was the fifth aspect of
Kyotto that made it impossible for Japan to close its doors to the West once America forced it open during Edo Japan Kyoto became the capital of industry and manufactur in of silk the Proto industrial factories in Koto included over 7,000 looms and the Kyoto silk experts held the secret of
How to dye silk and the manufacturing of beautiful textiles and fabrics as Japan opened up to the West it coincided with a major silkworm disease in Europe and before Louis pasture could find the cause it had dearly cost France which was a major exporter of silk products so for several
Years businesses flocked to Japan to buy silk from the newly opened country while this brought an economic boom to Japan it also caused a major problem because of the European silk blight Japanese farmers were encouraged to engage into production of silk growing mberry trees which was the
Food of silk worms the Japanese Farmers also benefited from Europe’s problems but as they neglected their staple of rice once Europe’s silk Market regained its strength the Japanese Farmers found that they were not getting paid what they had been previous years for their silk and that the price of rice had gone
Up because there was less of it due to the farmers neglecting their rice fields in favor of raising silkworms it created an economic crisis for the Edo Farmers the third and final event that made it so that there was no going back on opening to the West Was when the
Shanut sent a delegation of officials to America in 1860 those that study Japanese history are usually much more familiar with Japan’s iwakura mission that took place a decade after this first official visit the 1860 visit was a point of great pride for the Japanese while they allowed a few stranded Americans to
Joined them on their journey across the Pacific the crew was all Japanese and so they believed that they were showing the world how quickly they were learning one of the Japanese officials on the trip wrote as I consider all the other peoples of the Orient as they
Exist today I feel convinced that there is no other nation which has the ability or the courage to navigate a steamship across the Pacific after a period of only 5 years of experience in navigating and Engineering there are numerous observations that the Japanese made when they came to the United States in 1860
They landed in San Francisco and eventually crossed the continent to meet with the US Secretary of State and president where they formally ratified the Harris treaty they went on to New York City and met with Commodore Matthew Perry’s Widow as he had died in 1858 just four years after he had left
Japan the Japanese delegation came back to Japan overtly impressed with the United States in 1860 the US had 30,000 M of railroad tracks laid down with the furthest extent West being at St Joseph a town that bordered Missouri and Kansas one Japanese Observer noted about the richness of the
US I was surprised that there seemed to have been an enormous waste of iron everywhere in garbage piles on the seash shores everywhere I found lying old oil tins empty cans and broken tools this was remarkable to us for in yedo after a fire there would appear a swarm of
People looking for nails in the ashes the Japanese were treated very well while they were in America and the Japanese noted quote this generous treatment in every way brought to mind an old expression of ours as if our host had put us on the palm of his hand to
See that we lacked nothing in quote reading in the US n newspapers of the day there was a general excitement and affable treatment of the first Japanese mission to the US unfortunately there were Americans who were not as happy to have the Japanese come to the United States one newspaper article read
The truth is the Japanese came to acquire knowledge not to impart it an enlightened curiosity a desire to explore the secret of the strength and power of that formidable civilization of the West we have done our utmost to gratify and Inu instruct them the blame will not rest upon our shoulders if they
Are not able to build and arm their forts with weapons of war as deadly as known to us and to resist successfully every attempt of American or English ships to force an entrance into their harbors and those that are familiar with Japanese history will know how the 1860s
Played out in 1863 Emperor K issued the edict to expel The Barbarians which was an order for all westerners to leave immediately westerners began to be attacked in public and some were even killed the Japanese government then had to send large sums of reparations to the relatives of the
Deceased the most famous of these were was the murder of a British traiter working in the Satsuma domain and the Edo government was forced to pay 100,000 Sterling as reparations K became apathetic in the face of his inability to get rid of westerners and he retreated into a life of
Hedonism Chu openly rebelled against the Shogun and the Tokugawa house had to call out other dios to help put down the rebell Reon then in 1866 the Shogun died and he was replaced by Yoshi noobu who was arguably the most brilliant of all the previous 14 Tokugawa
Shoguns as soon as he took office he implemented massive changes to the political system to help modernize it and he called in several French advisers to assist in modernizing the Army but the following year in 1867 Emperor Comey died there were rumors that he was actually assassinated by the radical
Choshu faction who wanted the emperor to do away with the shogunate system but for all his frustrations with the shogunate emperor K never advocated for the Shogun nut to be done away with in truth his health had suffered due to his excesses and it is likely he died from
Smallpox which was a worldwide epidemic in 1867 when he died he had a 14-year-old son mahito who was to become the next Emperor and this is when the major crisis arose the Dao who had wanted to overthrow the shogunate system finally had an emperor that they might be able
To manipulate and the radicals in the Imperial house United with the choshu faction and when the three major dios included Mito tosa and Satsuma joined the anti Shogun movement it was apparent that a large bloody Civil War was going to take place it was within this context that
Shogun yoshinobu decided to come to an agreement with those who wanted to place the Emperor as the Imperial and political head of Japan Yoshi noo agreed to step aside in favor of mahito and the 800-year system of shogunate rule came to an end the advisers eventually told mahito that
He needed to move to Edo which was the seat of military and political power so that he could be seen as both the emperor and Japan’s political leader he moved to Edo and they changed its name from Edo to Tokyo or the Eastern Capital so we bring this portion of the
Class to an end seeing how America’s first interaction with Japan led to a dramatic shift in Japanese history and perhaps a little bit of a bitter taste for the Japanese in terms of losing their traditions because they were forced to open up to the West
source
