Ch 16 - The End of Asian Isolation

Into the Rising Sun

Exploration of the Bering Strait, Alaska, the Kurile Islands and the creation of a fur-trading monopoly in North America positioned Russia to pursue commercial overtures with Japan. Russian and British pressure in East Asia marked the beginning of a determined effort to gain entry to the commercial markets of Japan and Korea.

The great Russian explorations of the 17th century that led to the discovery of Sakhalin Island, the Kamchatka Peninsula and the barren Chukchi Peninsula at the eastern end of Siberia, helped bring into focus the outlines of Asia's northeast coasts. The Cossack Vladimir Vasilievich Atlasov, a tough and resolute explorer of peasant stock, took a real interest in Kamchatka and led a group of 65 Cossacks and 60 Yukagir from the Anadyr fortress in northeastern Siberia onto the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1697 and brought the sparsely populated territory into the realm of the Russian Empire. That same year, Atlasov discovered the existence of the Kurile Islands extending southwest from southern tip of Kamchatka.

Yezo Province (modern Hokkaido, "North Sea Province"), the mountainous frontier territory at the northernmost extent of the Japanese islands, was long the domain of the aboriginal Ainu people. The Japanese knew it was there, but were not sure if it was an island or part of Asia or the Americas. What lay to the north of Yezo remained a mystery not only to the Japanese, but to the Chinese and Europeans as well. In 1702, a Japanese sailor-adventurer named Dembei found himself isolated in a strange land after his ship wrecked along the Kamchatka coast. He was brought to Vladimir Atlasov, who ordered the Japanese sailor be taken to Moscow to be received by Peter the Great. Dembei gave Russia its first real knowledge of Japan's northern Yezo Province. In the decades that followed, Russia made several unsuccessful attempts to develop relations with Japan by way of Kamchatka and the Kurile Islands, yet none of the attempts had much effect.

Russia began casting her eyes further afield in a determined effort to establish itself as a regional sea power. Tsar Peter the Great, although oriented more toward Europe and the west, took a keen interest in the eastern end of his vast empire. He wanted the entire area mapped and wanted to know what peoples lived in them. He was particularly interest in answering the question of whether a northeast passage existed around Siberia that would allow maritime trade with China and Japan. The tsar's newly forming Russian Navy attracted the attention of a young Dane named Vitus Jonnasen Bering from Horsens, Denmark. In 1703, the twenty-two-year-old sailor enlisted in as a sublieutenant in the Russian Navy and moved to Russia, where he married and began a family. Apart from a single visit to Copenhagen in 1715, Vitus Bering never saw Denmark again.

Tsar Peter the Great conceived the ambitious Kamchatka Expedition, his last and greatest scheme for advancing Russian exploration, just six months before his death in January 1725. He appointed Captain Vitus Bering to lead an expedition to explore the seas between Siberia and Alaska to determine if the two lands were connected by a land bridge. The expedition team left St. Petersburg in 1725, and spent the next two years slogging its way overland on foot, on horseback and raft to move men and supplies through Siberia to the Kamchatka Peninsula. It took another year to complete the necessary preparations for the voyage, including the construction of two ships:  the Fortune and the St. Gabriel. When all was ready, the expedition set sail from Kamchatsk on July 13, 1728, to "inquire where the American coast begins."

The two ships sailed north, then northeast, following the Siberian coast to the barren Chukchi Peninsula. Rounding the peninsula in early August, Vitus Bering became the second explorer to sail through the famous 55 mile-wide strait separating Siberia from the western extent of Alaska. The Russian navigator Semyon Dezhnyov sailed through the strait in 1648, but his report of the voyage went unnoticed until 1736. Sailing in fog and poor visibility, the St. Gabriel passed within 39 miles of the Alaskan coast, but Vitus Bering never saw land. He continued north into the open Arctic Ocean until the threat of polar ice forced the ships to turn back. Returning south through the strait and sea that would later bear his name, Bering continued to map the Siberian coast and collect information on native residents. After returning to St. Petersburg in 1730, Bering reported to the Russian court of Empress Anna that, although he never saw the Alaskan coastline, there was no land bridge between Siberia and the North American continent. He added, "... there really does exist a northeast passage and that from the Lena River [which empties into the Laptev Sea on the edge of the Arctic Ocean] it is possible, provided one is not prevented by polar ice, to sail to Kamchatka and thence to Japan, China, and the East Indies."

A sceptical Russian public criticized Bering for not having actually seen the North American coast and castigated him for his timidity. Mindful of the disasters that had overtaken past expeditions marooned in Arctic ice, sensible men in the Russian court realized that Bering had merely been prudent and appointed him to organize and lead and a second expedition. The project attracted both money and participants on a grand scale. Bering's simple plans for a second voyage quickly became the Great Northern Expedition, the largest and most ambitious the world had ever seen.

The 977-member-strong Great Northern Expedition was split into four separate detachments, each with a unique task:  to map the entire Russian-Siberian coast from Arkhangelsk to the mouth of the Ob River;  from Ob to the mouth of the Yenisey River;  from the Yenisey to the mouth of the Lena River;  from the Lena to the Chukchi Peninsula, to Kamchatka and Japan;  and to map the western coast of North America from the recently discovered strait to Mexico. The expedition also included a number of scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences, who were to describe the nature and peoples of North America. Commercial tasks included establishment of trade relations with Japan.

The huge expedition departed St. Petersburg for the White Sea in 1733, and spent the first years carefully mapping Siberia's northern coastline. The expedition reached the southeast coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1740, where Vitus Bering laid the foundation stones at Avacha Bay for the port of Petropavlovsk, named after the two ships that would carry his expedition west:  the St. Peter and the St. Paul. Final preparations were completed by the following spring. Vitus Bering aboard the St. Peter and fellow navigator Aleksey Ilich Chirikov commanding the St. Paul departed Petropavlovsk on June 4, 1741, for the shores of North America.

Separated by a storm just twelve days out to sea, the two ships continued westward. The St. Paul made landfall on July 15 along the coast of southeastern Alaska, probably near Prince of Wales Island. After a futile search for Bering's ship, Chirikov turned for home after losing two scouting parties of his own men. Meanwhile, Vitus Bering and the St. Peter, sailing much further north, entered the Gulf of Alaska in early July. On July 16, the St. Peter made landfall at Kayak Island, about 100 miles east of Prince William Sound. Short on supplies and with many of the crew suffering from scurvy, Georg Wilhelm Steller, a respected German natural scientist and the ship's surgeon, took a landing party ashore on Kayak Island in search of plants to help cure the crew. Although none of the local plants were useful, Steller gathered artifacts, plant specimens and a few birds and concluded that the ship had indeed reached North America.

Anxious to get the St. Peter back home before winter, Vitus Bering decided not to sail further south and instead explored Alaska's rugged and inhospitable southwestern coast, frequently obscured by rain and fog. The St. Peter sailed the waters off Kenai Peninsula, Cook Inlet, Kodiak Island, the Alaska Peninsula, and the Aleutian Islands. Suffering from an unknown illness and no longer in effective command of his ship, Bering never investigated the land he sighted during the difficult return voyage. The St. Peter made landfall on November 5, 1741. After anchoring near the mouth of a creek, the crew realized they were on a large, treeless, uninhabited island (Bering Island, the largest of the Komandorskiye Island group). Weakened by illness, they built small huts half dug into loose sand and collected driftwood to live through the coming winter. Many men died that winter including Vitus Bering (December 8), who was buried close to his hut. The St. Peter floundered at anchor during a winter storm, but the following spring the survivors built a small single-masted vessel from the wreckage and sailed for home. Only 46 of the original crew of 78 men reached Kamchatka in August 1742, carrying the tales and journals of their remarkable adventure.

By the second half of the eighteenth century, European and Russian seafarers had explored all of the world's oceans to some extent. Russia's Great Northern Expedition not only mapped and described much of Russia's Arctic coastline, but discovered excellent fur-trading possibilities in the Aleutians and Alaska. The expedition demonstrated to the whole world how vast an empire Russia actually was and prepared the way for a Russian foothold on the North American continent.

Beginning in 1768, and continuing for over half a century, adventurous Russian frontiersmen and fur traders ranged from the Kurile Islands to southeastern Alaska, exploiting the rich supply of sea otter and seal pelts for the lucrative China trade. One of these daring traders, Grigori Shelekhov, built a large fur business in Siberia when the lure of profits drew him to the Aleutians. Encouraged by Tsarina Catherine the Great, Shelekhov led a company to Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island in 1783-84, where he founded the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska. After two years of exploring the mainland and establishing outposts, Shelekhov returned to Russia hoping to secure a trade monopoly for his company. To manage his business interests in Alaska, Shelekhov went to Alexander Baranov, whose own fur business had recently faltered. Baranov gladly accepted the offer and in 1790 became the managing agent of the Russian fur trading company on Kodiak Island.

Alexander Baranov's able direction of Shelekhov's young company attracted the tsar's attention. In 1799, the tsar granted the firm a monopoly on trading privileges in Russian America, which included the Aleutian Islands, Alaska and all territory down to 55° north latitude. As head of the newly formed Russian American Company, Baranov established a permanent settlement at Sitka, Alaska, organized a thriving fur trade and directed virtually all Russian activities in North America. His dogged determination to keep the settlement going despite Native American attacks and challenges by British and American trading vessels brought steady profits to the company, one-third of which went to Moscow. Baranov made Russia a well-established commercial power on the North American continent as far south as San Francisco, California, where he established Fort Ross in 1812. The impact of his colonial administration was so great during his twenty-eight year rule he came to be known as the "Lord of Russian America."

In little more than fifty years after Japan closed the port of Nagasaki to all but the Dutch, the Russian Empire found itself in position to knock on Japan's back door. The first Russian probe of Japan came in 1771, when an exiled Russian adventurer/convict named Baron von Benyowsky and a few of his comrades seized a small boat and sailed from Kamchatka to Awa in Shikoku, Japan. Pretending to be Dutch, Benyowsky told the Japanese that Russia was planning to attack Hokkaido the following year. The startling news spurred Japanese national defense advocates into action. Seven years later, a Russian merchant ship arrived at Kunajiri Island off eastern Hokkaido and asked the daimyo of Matsumae for trading privileges. The daimyo's refusal did not deter further Russian attempts to seek entry to Japan.

The first real hint of an opening came in 1792, when Tsarina Catherine the Great dispatched Naval Lieutenant Adam Kirillovich Laxman at the head of a small expedition organized by his father. The navy ship Ekaterina sailed from Okhotsk via the Kurile Islands to the port of Nemuro on the northeastern end of Hokkaido. Outwardly, the mission intended to return two Japanese castaways, but its real intent was to explore the possibility of opening trade relations with Japan. Despite Japan's policy of national seclusion, the Ekaterina received a hospitable welcome at Nemuro. Lt. Laxman asked the daimyoof Matsumae to inform the Japanese government that Russians were headed for Edo (modern Tokyo) as "neighboring allies," not "antagonistic and infidel adversaries." He also handed over a letter from the Tsarina to be delivered to the Japanese government that indicated he was authorized to open negotiations to establish trade between Russia and Japan. While the Russians waited for a response, they spent the winter in a small settlement built at the nearby Japanese village of Akkeshi.

The Tsarina's letter reached Edo, but the Japanese were in no hurry to respond. The appearance of Laxman and the Russian ship at Nemuro alarmed the bakufu, which immediately rejected the Russian proposal. Senior Councilor Matsudaira Sadanobu ordered that plans be drawn up immediately for a coastal defense system centered on Edo Bay and personally inspected the coastlines of Sagami Bay and the Izu and Boso peninsulas. The following year, Lt. Laxman finally received a curt message from Edo that stated if he wished to be received, he should present himself at the port of Nagasaki. Discouraged, Laxman never bothered to sail to Nagasaki, but returned to Russia.

Shortly after Laxman's visit, Senior Councilor Matsudaira Sadanobu resigned from the bakufu and his defensive plans were scrapped. Nevertheless, the bakufu councilors of this period were quick to react to the threat of foreign nations trying to poke a hole in Japan's wall of national seclusion. In 1798, Russians landed northeast of Hokkaido on the island of Etorofu, the largest island in the Kurile chain. During their visit, they planted the Russian Orthodox cross, claim stakes with Russian inscriptions and other indications of territorial possession. The samurai Kondo Morishige explored the same island in 1799 and tore down the Russian crosses and claim stakes and replaced them with posts that proclaimed Dai Nippon Etorofu, "Etorofu is a part of Greater Japan." He then returned to Edo and convinced the bakufu to place Yezo Province under the direct rule of the Shogun as a counter to Russian pressure in the region. By the early 1800s, enforcing Japan's policies of national seclusion had become a pressing problem for the bakufu. The situation in Hokkaido had become particularly worrisome.

Lieutenant-Commander Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenstern, a veteran of the Russian-Swedish War, proposed to dispatch ships from the port of Krondstadt at the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland to the coast of Russian America. The plan was supported by Catherine the Great and received the approval of Alexander Baranov and the directors of the Russian American Company, who agreed that merchants would pay half the expedition's expenses. Grigori Shelekhov's son-in-law, Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov, chamberlain of the Imperial Court at St. Petersburg and part owner of the Russian American Company, joined the expedition with a particular interest in establishing trade relations with Japan.

In late summer of 1803, the Russian sloop Nadezhda, commanded by LtCdr Kruzenstern, and LtCdr Yury Lisyansky's sloop Neva departed Krondstadt, crossed the Atlantic and rounded Cape Horn at the tip of South America. After passing the Hawaiian Islands, Lisyansky set the Neva on a course for Russian America, where he recorded detailed descriptions of the Aleutian Islands. Meanwhile, LtCdr Kruzenstern and Nicholai Rezanov aboard the Nadezhda sailed on towards Petropavlovsk, from which they explored and mapped the eastern and northern coasts of Sakhalin Island.

After picking up a party of Japanese castaways and gifts for the Japanese emperor, Kruzenstern and Rezanov sailed for Nagasaki. In 1804, the Nadezhda anchored off Deshima Island at Nagasaki, the only port where the Dutch were legally permitted to trade with Japan. According to protocol, Rezanov was granted a meeting with the Shogun's envoy in Nagasaki. After releasing the Japanese castaways, Rezanov presented gifts to the envoy for the emperor and a message seeking permission to trade with Japan. The Japanese kept the Russians under close guard during the wait for a response from Edo.

Earlier in 1804, the bakufu had removed eastern Hokkaido from the jurisdiction of the Matsumae domain in northern Honshu and placed it under its direct control. Now the Russians were knocking on the door at Nagasaki. The bakufu felt that Japan "had no need of foreign goods ... to permit trade relations would merely deprive her of useful commodities and risk the entry of foreign religious doctrine." After keeping the Russians waiting for three months, the Japanese finally informed Rezanov that permission was denied. Angered by the rebuff, the Russians left Nagasaki, but not without a plan. On Rezanov's orders, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Khvostov and Gavriil Ivanovich Davydov, two captains in the service of the Russian American Company, repeatedly raided and looted Japanese shipping in the waters off Hokkaido and outposts on Etorufu and Sakhalin Island to drive off Japanese settlers. On their own authority, the two Russians repeatedly informed the Japanese they would return unless Japan came to terms with Russia. Rezanov hoped to force Japan to open trade relations with Russia, but the naval raids in northern Japan only served to stiffen Japanese defenses and set the tone for the next reception accorded an official visit by the Russians.

England and the Netherlands were engaged in the Napoleonic Wars when the British warship H.M.S. Phaeton sailed into the poorly-guarded harbor at Nagasaki in 1808, hoping to catch a Dutch merchant ship near Deshima Island. Infuriated that no enemy ships were in port, the Phaeton's young commanding officer, Lieutenant Fleetwood Pellew, demanded food and supplies from the governor of Nagasaki and threatened to sink every ship in the harbor if his demands were not promptly met. The mere presence of the British was a direct violation of the sixth Sakoku (literally, "closed country") edict and it put the Nagasaki governor in a dangerous position. Fearing the consequences of a refusal, the governor relented and Lieutenant Pellew got his supplies. Shamed by his inability to resist the British, the Japanese governor committed seppuku, ritual suicide, the evening after H.M.S. Phaeton sailed from Nagasaki. Subsequent port calls by British ships at other coastal cities on Japan's main islands and the Ryukyu Islands resulted in comparably regrettable incidents.

The Phaeton Incident of 1808 clearly demonstrated just how lax the shogunate's regulations had become after nearly 200 years of unsuccessful attempts by foreign interests to alter Japan's national seclusion policy. The bakufu failed to adopt any sort of consistent policy regarding such intrusions until 1825, when it responded to a proposal by Takahashi Kageyasu and issued the ikokusen uchiharairei, "Order to Drive Away Foreign Ships." The order also directed Japanese coastal authorities to open fire on any ship that came close enough to shore and to arrest or kill any foreigners who attempted to set foot on Japanese soil. The ninen nashi, "no second thought" law, was never fully implemented however, because of opposition by a number of officials, including Matsudaira Sadanobu.

Just two years before the Phaeton Incident, the Russian cruiser Diana departed Krondstadt in western Russia on yet another around-the-world expedition. Under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Vasili Mikhailovich Golovnin, a Russian soldier trained by the British Navy and a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, the Diana rounded Cape Horn, and sailed up the west coast of North America, calling on Russian colonies in California and Alaska. In 1809, Golovnin was assigned to Kamchatka to lead a coastal survey of the Kurile Islands.

After reaching Kunashiri Island at the southern end of the Kuriles in 1811, LtCdr Golovnin anchored the Diana for a port call. Immediately after stepping ashore, Golovnin and several of his officers were arrested by samurai under the daimyo of Matsumae and taken to the port city of Hakodate in southern Hokkaido. In retaliation for the arrests, the Diana's executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Petr Ivanovich Rikord, grabbed Takataya Kahei, an influential Yezo merchant, and held him captive while trying to secure the release of his comrades. LtCdr Rikord decided against the use of force and instead entered negotiations with the Japanese. For the next two years, Rikord patiently talked with Takataya and representatives of Japan's shogunal government. The talks were marked by calmness, honesty and a remarkable degree of trust and courtesy shown by each side toward the other.

After 26 months and 26 days in captivity, LtCdr Golovnin and his men were released in exchange for Takataya Kahei. The Russians rejoined their shipmates aboard the Diana and sailed for home. Vasili Golovnin returned to St. Petersburg, where he wrote a book detailing his captivity at Hakodate. Zapiski Flota, "Memoirs of a Captivity in Japan," described Golovnin's life in captivity and provided a view of Japanese social, economic and political conditions under the policy of national seclusion. Despite his imprisonment, Golovnin wrote a positive account of the Japanese that became a bestseller after its first publication in 1816. The book was immediately translated into other languages, including Japanese.

Beginning early in the 19th century, Western nations displayed an increasing interest in establishing contact with Choson for trade. The reception given foreign ships arriving in Choson was little better than in Japan. Despite its strong feelings against foreigners, Choson was nonetheless perfectly capable of comprehending the motives of foreign nationals who suddenly began arriving in increasing numbers off their shores. Sightings of foreign ships in Choson waters, previously the objects of peripheral interest to crowds, now sent gunners running to their battle stations. Those who sailed in with aggressive intentions were met with swift hostility, whereas those in distress were given aid and hospitality before being sent on their way.

The first noteworthy attempt to open trade with Choson occurred in 1832, when the British East India Company merchant ship Lord Amherst appeared off the coast of Chungchong Province seeking trade. Local authorities turned the British away explaining that it was against the law for them to engage in foreign commerce. The British ship H.M.S. Samarang, commanded by Captain Sir Edward Belcher, visited Cheju Island and southern Choson ports on a surveying and scientific mission in 1845. Belcher discovered that Choson was a Chinese tributary state with neither the authority nor the desire to trade with foreign countries. Meanwhile, in the northeast, the Russians had constructed a settlement on the Tumen River and were pressing the Seoul government for trade relations and timber rights. The Yi court reported these incidents to the Qing Board of Rites.

Following Captain Belcher's visit, the Yi government requested Chinese authorities to "instruct the British" in Hong Kong to refrain from sending any more ships to Choson. The man responsible for relations with Westerners at Chinese trade ports, Imperial Commissioner Chi-ying, carefully explained Choson's unique position to the British:

"It [Choson] could not be opened to trade by China, for it was not part of China;  it could not open itself to trade, for it was not independent."

These unsuccessful visits to Choson were only the beginning of a period of frequent visits from foreign ships seeking commercial privileges. With each visit the demands became increasingly insistent.