Ch 20 - The Awakening of Japan

Journey to Edo

The Imperial Court and the Shogun's government split over how to respond to American treaty initiatives, a battle that exposed the internal weaknesses of Japan's leadership and set the stage for violent confrontations among opposing factions. The Japanese-American Treaty of Kanagawa, signed in March 1854, opened Japan to inroads by other Western powers.

The Western powers seemed to converge on Japan just at the time when the island nation was ripening for a miraculous internal revolution that would soon take it from feudalism to modernism. The Tokugawa shogunate had become softer and less resolute over the years and was being pulled in a variety of directions by the daimyo. The bakufu was torn between two mounting pressure groups;  those who wanted to maintain a policy of rigid isolation and those who desired to open the country to foreigners. It was no easy choice. Blind nationalistic fanatics favored a policy of "repelling the barbarians," joi, while the more educated daimyo, particularly those of "Dutch learning," realized the folly of such a policy. Divided by intensely controversial internal problems and an ever increasing level of pressure from the outside, the bakufu could present no united front to either the West or the rest of Japan. It needed far more knowledge about these foreigners.

Shortly after Commodore Matthew Perry's visit in July 1853, the bakufu summoned Nakahama Manjiro to Edo Castle from his post as a teacher at the Tosa School. Undaunted by the stature of the men seated in the state council, Manjiro stood resolutely before the Shogun's Chief Councilor, Abe Masahiro, and described conditions in the United States:  the practice of electing the President, the President's duty to obey the country's laws, and so on. He explained that the United States had long desired to establish friendly relations with the Japanese and had no imperialistic designs upon Japan. "America greatly hopes to enjoy a deep and abiding friendship with Japan," he told the councilors. "America does not come with suspicious designs but with a full and open heart." America was not only a generous nation, he added, but a modern nation, and therefore had absolutely no intentions of invading any other country.

Manjiro asked Chief Councilor Abe Masahiro to open a harbor in southern Kyushu, on one of the small islands of the Satsuma domain, or in the Ryukyu Islands, where American whaling ships could take on fresh water and provisions. He also submitted his report, "Record of the Investigation of John Manjiro," which described the actual conditions in America and clearly demonstrated his passionate belief in the need for Japan to open itself to the world.

Nakahama Manjiro's "America" became the America known to the Japanese during the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate and the early years of the Meiji era. The Shogun was so impressed with Manjiro's knowledge of the American people, society, science and technology that he elevated him to the rank of samurai and made him a court translator and interpreter. Manjiro traveled throughout Japan to teach the science of shipbuilding and navigation, translated the 20-volume "U.S. Navigation Science" he'd brought with him, and edited English conversation texts. His knowledge deeply influenced men like Sakamoto Ryoma, Katsu Kaishu, and Fukuzawa Yukichi, pioneers of modernization in Japan. He reportedly taught naval science to Katsu Kaishu, who later became the dean of Japan's Naval College. He also instructed Sakamoto Ryoma in American politics and navigation, and discussed the spirit of rationalism with Fukuzawa Yukichi. It is impossible to measure the full impact of Nakahama Manjiro's testimony in enabling Japan to accept the Japan-United States Friendship Treaty. Calvin Coolidge, America's 30th president, later said of him,

"When John Manjiro returned to Japan, it was as if America had sent its first ambassador. Our envoy Perry could enjoy so cordial a reception because John Manjiro had made Japan's central authorities understand the true face of America."

The next move in dealing with the American proposal was up to Abe Masahiro, the able, young daimyo whose political shrewdness had earned him a position on the council in 1843 at the age of twenty-four. Undecided about how to approach the problem, he decided to consult with Tokugawa Nariaki, the ninth lord of the Mito Tokugawa clan and one of Japan's most powerful daimyo. Tokugawa Nariaki ardently supported a growing movement in Mito that claimed the true Japanese way was the way of the emperor and urged the bakufu to grant more power to the daimyo. He also argued the government should encourage national consolidation and adopt Western military and industrial techniques to strengthen Japan's national defenses. Tokugawa Nariaki wanted to use Western military technology, but had little use for Westerners, whose commercial trade goods and physical presence on Japanese soil violated sacred Japanese tradition.

A gentle, well-liked man who occasionally bent too quickly and too easily to prevailing political winds, Abe Masahiro took a step unprecedented in the bakufu's entire history. He referred the matter of how to deal with Commodore Matthew Perry's proposal and the possible end to Japan's national policy of seclusion to the Imperial Court and all the daimyo. By including Emperor Komei's Imperial Court in the decision making process, Abe created a strong rallying point for critics of the bakufu. By inviting the daimyo to comment on the proper response to Perry, Abe provided a unique opportunity for opponents and politically ambitious elements of the bakufu to step into the center ring of Japanese politics. It threw open the door to criticism of not just Japan's seclusion policy, but of all the shogunate's policies. The decision demonstrated as clearly as anything could the bakufu's growing weakness.

Foreign attempts to penetrate Japan came at a time when the feudal nation already suffered from immense economic and social problems. Low agricultural production, natural disasters and increased taxation over the past century forced the Shogun, already living well beyond his means already, to increase taxing and borrowing. Many of Japan's daimyo were doing the same as famine and revolt threatened to spread among exploited peasants and samurai alike. In addition, a new merchant class, chonin, emerged to supply goods for the nation's growing population. They became restless and wanted to tear down the feudal trade restraints, land transfer and certain kinds of new production imposed by the daimyo. Thus even as the Americans, British and Russians approached from the outside, spreading frustrations within Japan were already beginning to undermine Tokugawa rule.

Commodore Perry's arrival in the mid-1850s intensified the debate over how to deal with Japan's internal problems by introducing the highly dangerous question of just Japan would have to change in order to deal with the foreigners. Almost overnight, the formerly restricted discussions of internal politics were transformed into an explosive public argument. Several domains that had never been fully controlled by either the Shogun or his bakufu intensified the political stakes by seizing on the debate in an attempt to challenge the bakufu and solve their growing economic crises by transforming themselves to make their own domains more efficient. It soon became apparent that the shogunate faced exactly what it had long feared:  opening Japan to foreign influences was helping to destroy social harmony and undermine Tokugawa rule.

Among the hundreds of memorials submitted for consideration, not one offered a brilliant solution. One group, including the Shogun's Confucian scholars and the Imperial Court, well insulated in the capital at Kyoto, strongly advocated a position of no concessions whatsoever and demanded the Americans be driven off. Almost everyone supported a policy of seclusion, but the daimyo failed to recognize that the bakufu had no power to enforce such a position and they could not reach a consensus on how to deal with the foreigners. About a third of the daimyo realized that Japan had no choice but to make some concessions on trade, if only to give them time to prepare militarily. Ii Naosuke, the 13th Lord of Hikone on Lake Biwa, believed Japan should use the profits from international trade to build a modern navy and strengthen its national defense to deal with Commodore Matthew Perry on Japanese terms. A number of them were willing to go to war with the United States over the issue. Some of the more powerful daimyo, who had a remarkable confidence that Japan could quickly match Western military technology, advised persuading Perry to just leave with only a vague response. Any idea of stalling the Americans as long as possible was little more than procrastination and was bound to fail.

In 1852, soon after Tsar Nicholas I learned of the United States plan to open Japan, Count Nikolai N. Muraviev warned him that America and Great Britain posed a serious threat to Russia's good standing in Asia. Russia had to establish ties with Japan as well as with China. Vice Admiral Efimii Vasilevich Putiatin was dispatched to Nagasaki with orders to demand treaty negotiations with the Japanese Government. The sudden appearance of Admiral Putiatin's flagship, the Pallada, and four Russian warships shortly after the Americans departed Kurihama cast doubt on any thought of stalling the West. Having studied Western treatises on gunnery, the Shogun's advisors knew that Edo, a city built largely of wood and paper, could easily be destroyed by naval bombardment. Furthermore, Edo relied on shipping for its food supply and lay fully exposed and vulnerable. A sustained naval blockade could cut off the city's supplies of staple foodstuffs that came by ship from Osaka. The Japanese quickly grasped that their smaller ships and antiquated shore batteries were no match for the American ships they had just seen at Uraga and Kurihama, nor could they hold their own against the more powerful British warships now actively patrolling the Yellow Sea. The defenseless Japanese feared they would suffer the same fate as China. Japan needed a stronger national defense system, but Abe Masahiro knew that the West, and more immediately Commodore Perry, would not give them time to build one.

Admiral Putiatin and the Russians departed Nagasaki following months of indecision and delay. Not long afterwards, on February 24, 1854, Commodore Perry and his American fleet arrived in Japanese waters for the second time and forced the issue to a climax. This time, his imposing fleet of seven black-hulled American warships steamed far into Edo Bay. The two steam-powered frigates Susquehanna and Mississippi, the new steam frigate Powhatan, and the sail warships Macedonian, Vandalia, Southampton, and Lexington cruised to within site of Edo itself in a nearly overwhelming show of naval power. Unwilling to accommodate so large a military force under the walls of the Shogun's castle, the nervous Japanese talked the Americans into moving their fleet some 45 miles further west. The large American squadron anchored off the tiny fishing village of Kanagawa, now part of the large port city of Yokohama.

Not long after voicing his support for Japan's exclusionist policy and proposing the strengthening of national defenses, Lord Ii Naosuke reconsidered his position. In a private submission to Shogun Tokugawa Iesada, he advised that the time for change had arrived. Treaties with the foreigners should be signed while Japan still had the opportunity to get favorable terms. The Japanese came to fear that unless concessions were made they would suffer an American attack.

Commodore Perry's second visit to Japan differed markedly from those of his predecessors in that he not only knew what he wanted, but knew exactly how to go about getting it. Unlike his first visit in July 1853, Perry found the Japanese authorities quite disposed to a policy of conciliation. In the month-long negotiations that followed, Commodore Perry skillfully mingled a bold display of dignity with the vague threat that if Japan refused a treaty similar to America's Treaty of Wangxia with China, the United States might send even more ships with even more stringent instructions for their commander. As Perry later reported to Washington, "I was well aware that the more exclusive I should make myself and the more exacting I might be, the more respect these people of forms and ceremonies would be disposed to award me."

Commodore Perry overestimated Japanese ignorance regarding the West, for many high-ranking Japanese knew far more about the Western world than the West knew about Japan. They had been keeping up with American affairs ever since 1797, when Nagasaki officials discovered that the Dutch East India Company, short of their own ships, were sneaking American vessels into Nagasaki Harbor under the Dutch flag. After the Shogunate demanded more information about these new foreigners, the Dutch began delivering reports that amounted to history lessons, describing the American colony's revolt against the British in 1776, the 1787 Constitution, and men such as George Washington - "a very capable general," whose name has been given to "a new city" - and Thomas Jefferson. Since the Dutch had supported the American colonies in the 1770s, the Shogunate heard a notably pro-American version of history. By the 1840s, the Japanese were receiving good world geographies and histories and were exploiting their contacts in China to obtain fresh information, much of it published by American missionaries. Now faced with the challenge of actually dealing with foreigners, it suited their needs to feign complete ignorance of such matters. It was a wonderful excuse for delay, deceit, even rudeness, but they frequently knew far more than they admitted.

As the Shogun's negotiators carefully examined the American demands, the two sides demonstrated their friendship by exchanging gifts. Commodore Matthew Perry carried a considerable array of presents, including books, maps, a Morse needle-type telegraph register, and a miniature steam locomotive with cars and rails. The Japanese obligingly gazed with delight and wonder as the small train was demonstrated, leaving Perry to feel like Santa Claus when he presented the gifts. He might have been less enthralled with the presentation had he known that his hosts were already well aware of railroads and trains from their reading of British newspapers. Shogun Tokugawa Iesada had already read the complete story of the American expedition as it was being provisioned, complete with pictures, in the Illustrated London News.

The Japanese acceded to the Americans only to what they felt were the minimum concessions and by the final week of March, the two sides came to terms ( - Central Japan). Japan agreed to open two relatively unimportant seaports to American ships;  Shimoda, located on the end of the Izu Peninsula near Edo Bay on the main island of Honshu, and Hakodate, located on the northern island of Hokkaido. American ships were granted permission to resupply with wood, water, provisions, coal, and other necessities at each port and citizens of the United States temporarily living at Shimoda and Hakodate were not to be subject to restrictions or confinement as the Dutch and Chinese were at Nagasaki. The bakufu also agreed to allow an American consular officer or agent to reside at Shimoda any time after eighteen months from the date of the treaty signing, "provided that either of the two Governments deem such arrangement necessary."

Remarkably, nothing was explicitly stated regarding trade. A naval officer first and foremost, Commodore Perry had little interest in trade issues. Abe Masahiro explained to Perry that allowing foreigners entry into Japan's market was a complex matter and that any decision of such an issue required a great deal of time. It was a diplomatic way of making the point that Japan had no intention of following China's downhill slide into dependency based on the wishes and commercial interests of foreigners. As a result, no trade issues were mentioned in the agreement. Even though the bakufu managed to avoid commercial relations with the United States, the agreement included a most-favored-nation clause taken from the Chinese treaty system that automatically gave the United States any additional privileges that Japan may grant to another nation in the future. With everything in writing, on March 31, 1854, the two parties signed a Japanese-American Treaty of Amity and Friendship, the Treaty of Kanagawa. Commodore Matthew Perry signed for the United States. Daigaku Hayashi and Abe Masahiro signed for the Shogunate .

News of Commodore Perry's success quickly reached the United States via the U.S.S. Saratoga, which made the crossing from Japan to America in record time. The New York Times proudly bragged that America had upstaged the Europeans and opened Japan to the West by using "peaceful diplomacy, to overcome obstacles hitherto considered insurmountable," and despite "the sneers, the ridicule, and the contempt of shortsighted European and American newspapers." The Treaty of Kanagawa was widely recognized at the time as marking the end of over two centuries of virtually excluding all foreign traders - except for the Dutch - from the coast of Japan. On his return to the United States in September 1854, Perry received a collective memorial sent by the American merchants at Canton which stated,

"You have conquered the obstinate will of man and, by overturning the cherished policy of an empire, have brought an estranged but culturated [sic] people into the family of nations. You have done this without violence, and the world has looked on with admiration to see the barriers of prejudice fall before the flag of our country without the firing of a shot."

Despite his dramatic show of force and stern negotiating tactics, Commodore Perry got an agreement that was little more than a shipwreck convention that ended the ill treatment accorded American whaling crews shipwrecked off the Japanese coast or landing for provisions or repairs. The treaty made no provisions for coaling stations, contained no articles of extraterritoriality and mentioned nothing about foreign trade. While the Treaty of Kanagawa was considered an incidental event in America's contemporary diplomatic history, it was an event with dramatic consequences for Japan. It became the signal document for the execution of similar treaties between Japan and other Western powers and paved the way for the Japanese to adopt western industrial, military and diplomatic techniques. No one at the time envisioned that Commodore Perry had opened a new epoch in East Asian history.

The door to Japan, once only slightly ajar, had now swung wide open and other Western powers rushed through with hurriedly drafted preliminary treaty conventions. None found the task easy however, because when it came time to deal with foreigners, it suited the Japanese quite well to feign ignorance, a tactic that provided a marvelous excuse for delay, even deceit. They often knew much more than they revealed, and to prolong the inevitable, Japanese negotiators expressed a strong hesitancy to admit obvious facts, consistently backed down on agreements and often dragged their feet to slow down negotiations. Such tactics caused Western powers to become not only indignant, but extremely watchful.

Rear Admiral Sir James Sterling, commander of a British squadron of four warships, concluded an Anglo-Japanese treaty on October 14, 1854, which included both a most-favored-nation article and a trace of extraterritoriality. Early the following year, on February 7, 1855, Vice Admiral Efimii Vasilevich Putiatin, commander of a Russian squadron, concluded a Russo-Japanese treaty in Shimoda modeled closely after the American Treaty of Kanagawa. The Russian treaty included articles that granted reciprocal extraterritoriality, most-favored-nation status for Russia, and opened three ports for ship repairs and provisioning and consular residence:  Nagasaki, Shimoda and Hakodate. It also settled the question of Russian and Japanese sovereignty over Sakhalin Island and the northern Kurile Islands. The treaty gave Japan control over the Kurile Islands south from Iturup (Etorofu) and Russia control over the island north from Urup (Uruppu). Sakhalin Island was made a "jointly occupied" territory. In 1856, the Dutch signed a similar agreement to which was added the right to freedom of religion. Each added concession granted by Japan in each of these treaties also accrued to the United States.

A majority of merchants in the Far East regarded the treaties concluded by Perry, Stirling and Putiatin as essentially useless. They wanted conditions in Japan similar to those obtained in China's treaty ports through the treaties of Tianjin and pressured their respective governments to renegotiate the agreements to obtain trading rights and extraterritorial privileges. Much of the initial groundwork in this effort was accomplished by Townsend Harris, a self-educated man with years of experience in East Asia and the first American to hold the post of Consul General to Japan. On October 25, 1855, Harris sailed from New York Harbor and headed for the Far East aboard Commodore James Armstrong's flagship, the screw frigate U.S.S. San Jacinto, commanded by Captain Harry H. Bell. Also aboard was Henry C. J. Heusken, a twenty-five year old Dutch-American whose command of the Dutch and Japanese languages earned him a spot on this historic mission.

Traveling under orders from President Franklin Pierce and Secretary of State William L. Marcy to negotiate a full-fledged commercial treaty with Japan, Harris and Heusken visited Madeira, the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Ceylon, and Penang. After a four-day stop at Singapore, where Commodore Armstrong took command of the East India Squadron, the San Jacinto anchored off the mouth of the Me Nam (now the Chao Phraya) River in Siam on April 13, 1856. Townsend Harris traveled up the Me Nam River to Bangkok, where he renegotiated the American 1833 commercial treaty with King Mongkut of Siam, a likable despot later immortalized by Yul Brynner in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical comedy, "The King and I." On the morning of June 1, Harris and Heusken departed Siam for Hong Kong, where major engine repairs kept the San Jacinto in port for almost two months. Departing Hong Kong on August 12, the American delegation of two finally reached Japan on August 21, when the San Jacinto dropped anchor at, Shimoda, a forlorn little town with an awkward harbor situated among the stony hills of the Izu Peninsula.

From his quarters aboard the San Jacinto, Harris spent days haggling with local officials over the matter of establishing his consulate office ashore, the first official foreign diplomatic office ever permitted on Japanese soil. Harris quickly discovered that his arrival had taken the Japanese totally by surprise. Due to the mistranslation of Article 11 in the Treaty of Kanagawa, the Japanese understood that a consul general would live in Japan only if "both" nations desired it. In truth, the original treaty document stated "either nation." The Japanese were both confused and dismayed by Harris' presence. Since they could do nothing without instructions from higher authorities, they sent urgent messages to Edo demanding orders on what to do. Until such instructions arrived, the did their naive best to discourage the Americans and somehow get them to go away. By early September, Harris managed to acquire a residence in Shimoda. On September 4, after a naval shore party erected a flagpole in front of Townsend Harris' new consulate and helped him raise the Stars and Stripes there for the first time, the San Jacinto weighed anchor and headed for Shanghai. Once ashore, Harris and Heusken found themselves alone in a foreign land. After reflecting on his new position, Harris noted,

"I shall be the first recognized agent from a civilized power to reside in Japan ... I hope I may so conduct myself that I may have honorable mention in the histories which will be written on Japan and its future destiny."

Harris spent many frustrating months attempting to make formal contact with the Governor of Shimoda while the Japanese stalled and delayed his progress. Ill and suffering the deprivations of his meager accommodations, the experience proved to be both trying and debilitating. Beginning in January 1857, Townsend Harris took a much firmer tone with his hosts. His anger erupted more often as the Japanese continued to delay his efforts to get some kind of response from Edo on treaty negotiations. After one particularly acrimonious meeting, Harris wrote a lengthy message to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or whoever handled such work, emphasizing the urgency of getting on with the treaty, because Japan was currently being threatened by another foreign government and time was running out. He never said as much, but Harris clearly had in mind the British fleet sitting in Hong Kong under the control of Governor John Bowring, which the British wanted to deploy against Japan. He managed to convince Iwase Tadanari, the bakufu official assigned to negotiate with him, that Japan could no longer refuse to establish full diplomatic and commercial relations with foreign powers.

By early June, Harris finally achieved his goal;  acceptance from the Governor of Shimoda on a preliminary convention that contained all the points he had been proposing since his arrival. The convention stipulated in writing the privileges accrued by the United States under the most-favored­nation article of the Treaty of Kanagawa. It was merely the preliminary draft of the treaty Harris really wanted, but it was still a needed step in the right direction. The American sloop Portsmouth, commanded by Captain Andrew Hull Foote, arrived at Shimoda from Shanghai in September and restocked the American consulate's food supplies. In addition, news finally arrived from Edo that allowed Harris to present the President's letter directly to the Shogun himself. A huge cavalcade of some three-hundred fifty men left Shimoda on November 23, including Harris, Heusken, the Vice-Governor of Shimoda, the Mayor of Kakizaki, hundreds of attendants, porters and personal guards. The diplomatic mission reached the Shogun's capital city in a few days and soon got down to the business of drawing up a formal treaty.