Sakoku
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Sakoku (Japanese: 鎖国, literally "country in chains" or "lock up of country") was the foreign relations policy of Japan, whereby nobody, whether foreign or Japanese, could enter or leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu in 1641 and remained in effect until 1853, though the term was not coined until the 19th century. It was still illegal to leave Japan until the Meiji restoration.
The policy stated that the only foreign influence permitted was the Dutch factory (trading post) at Dejima in Nagasaki, but trade with China was also handled at Nagasaki. In addition, trade with Korea was conducted via Tsushima Province (today part of Nagasaki Prefecture) and with the Ryukyu Kingdom via Satsuma Province (in present-day Kagoshima Prefecture). Apart from these direct commercial contacts in peripheral provinces, all of these countries sent regular tributary missions to the shogunate's seat in Edo. As the emissaries traveled across Japan, even regular folk had a glimpse of foreign cultures.
Trade under Sakoku
Japan traded at this time with four different entities. These entities were: the Korean Kingdom, the Dutch (through the Dutch East India Company), the Chinese (through private traders), and the Ryukyu Islands. Tashiro Kazui has shown that trade between Japan and these entities was divided into two kinds of trade: Group A in which he places China and the Dutch, "whose relations fell under the direct jurisdiction of the Bakufu at Nagasaki" and Group B, represented by the Korean kingdom and the Ryukyu kingdom, "who dealt with Tsushima (the Sō clan) and Satsuma (the Shimazu clan) domains respectively."Tashiro, Kazui. "Foreign Relations During the Edo Period: [i]Sakoku[link] Reexamined." [i]Journal of Japanese Studies.[link] Vol. 8, No. 2, Summer 1982.
These two different groups of trade basically reflected a pattern of incoming and outgoing trade. The outgoing trade flowing out from Japan to Korea and the Ryukyu kingdom, eventually being brought from those places to China. In the Ryukyu's and Korea, the respective domains put in charge of trade, built trading towns where actually commerce took place, so in that sense trade to these places was an outgoing trade. The trade with Chinese and Dutch traders took place directly at Nagasaki with the traders coming to Japan instead of Japanese traders going to them.
Rationale
The Sakoku policy was a way of controlling commerce with other nations as well as asserting its new place in the East Asian hierarchy, one that helped push Japan away from tributary relations that had existed between itself and China for multiple centuries before hand. Later on the Sakoku policy was the main safeguard against the total depletion of Japanese mineral resources, such as silver and copper, to the outside world; although, while silver exportation through Nagasaki was controlled by the Bakufu to the point of stopping all exportation, the exportation of silver through Korea continued in relatively high quantities.
The way Japan kept abreast of Western technology during this period was by studying medical and other texts in the Dutch language obtained through Dejima. This process was called "Rangaku" (Dutch studies). It became obsolete after the country was opened and the sakoku policy collapsed. Thereafter, many Japanese students (e.g. Kikuchi Dairoku) were sent to study in foreign countries, and many foreign employees were employed in Japan (see o-yatoi gaikokujin).
This policy ended with the Convention of Kanagawa in response to demands made by Commodore Perry.
Challenges to seclusion
Many isolated attempts to end Japan's seclusion were made by expanding Western powers during the 18th and 19th century. American, Russian and French ships all attempted to engage in relationship with Japan, but were rejected.
- In 1778, a merchant from Yakutsk by the name of Pavel Lebedev-Lastoschkin arrived in Hokkaido with a small expedition. He offered gifts, and politely asked to trade in vain.
- In 1787, La Perouse (1741–1788) navigated in Japanese waters in 1787. He visited the Ryukyu islands and the strait between Hokkaido and Honshu, naming it after himself.
- In 1791, two American ships commanded by the American explorer Kendrick stop for 11 days on Kii Oshima island, south of the Kii Peninsula. He is the first known American to have visited Japan. He apparently planted an American flag and claimed the islands, although accounts of his visit in Japan are inexistant.
- From 1797 to 1809, several American ships traded in Nagasaki under the Dutch flag, upon the request of the Dutch who were not able to send their own ships because of their conflict against Britain during the Napoleonic WarsK. Jack Bauer, A Maritime History of the United States: The Role of America's Seas and Waterways, University of South Carolina Press, 1988., p. 57:
- * In 1797 US Captain William Robert Stewart, commissioned by the Dutch from Batavia, takes the ship Eliza of New York to Nagasaki, Japan, with a cargo of Dutch trade goods.
- * In 1803 William Robert Stewart returned onboard a ship named "The Emperor of Japan" (the stolen and renamed "Eliza of New York"), entered Nagasaki harbour and tried in vain to trade through the Dutch enclave of Dejima.
- * Another American captain John Derby of Salem, tried in vain to open Japan to the opium trade.
- In 1825, following a proposal by Takahashi Kageyasu, the Bakufu issued an "Order to Drive Away Foreign Ships" (Ikokusen uchiharairei, also known as the "Ninen nashi", or "No second thought" law), ordering coastal authorities to arrest or kill foreigners coming ashore.
- In 1837, an American businessman in Canton, named Charles W. King saw an opportunity to open trade by trying to return to Japan three Japanese sailors (among them, Otokichi) who had been shipwrecked a few years before on the coast of Oregon. He went to Uraga Channel with Morrison, an unarmed American merchant ship. The ship was fired upon several times, and finally sailed back unsuccessfully.
- In 1842, following the news of the defeat of China in the Opium War and internal criticism following the Morisson incident, the Bakufu responded favorably to foreign demands for the right to refuel in Japan by suspending the order to execute foreigners and adopting the "Order for the Provision of Firewood and Water" (Shinsui kyuyorei).
- In 1844, a French naval expedition under Captain Fornier-Duplan visits Okinawa on April 28, 1844. Trade is denied, but Father Forcade is left behind with a translator.
- In 1845, whaling ship The Manhattan rescues 20 Japanese shipwrecked sailors. Captain Mercator Cooper is allowed into Edo Bay, where they stayed for four days and met with Governor of Edo and several high officers representing The Emperor. They were given several presents and allowed to leave unmolested, but told never to return.
- In 1846, Commander James Biddle, sent by the United States Government to open trade, anchored in Tokyo Bay with two ships, including one warship armed with 72 cannons, but his demands for a trade agreement remained unsuccessful.
- In 1848, Half-Scottish/Half-Chinook Ranald MacDonald pretended to be shipwrecked on the island of Rishiri in order to gain access to Japan. He was sent to Nagasaki, where he stayed for 10 months and became the first English Teacher in Japan. Upon his return to America, MacDonald made a written declaration to Congress, explaining that the Japanese society was well policed, and the Japanese people well behaved and of the highest standard.
- In 1848, Captain James Glynn sailed to Nagasaki, leading at last to the first successful negotiation by an American with "Closed Country" Japan. James Glynn recommended to the United States Congress that negotiations to open Japan should be backed up by a demonstration of force, thus paving the way to Perry's expedition.
- In 1849, the British Navy's HMS Mariner entered Uraga Harbour to conduct a topographical survey. Onboard was the Japanese castaway Otokichi, who acted as a translator. To avoid problems with the Japanese authorities, he disguised himself as Chinese, and said that he had learned Japanese from his father, allegedly a businessman who had worked in relation with Nagasaki.
These largely unsuccessful attempts continued until, on July 8, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy with four warships: Mississippi,Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna steamed into the Bay of Edo (Tokyo) and displayed the threatening power of his ships' Paixhans guns. He demanded that Japan open to trade with the West. These ships became known as the kurofune, the Black Ships.
End of seclusion
The following year, at the Convention of Kanagawa (March 31, 1854), Perry returned with seven ships and forced the Shogun to sign the "Treaty of Peace and Amity", establishing formal diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States. Within five years Japan had signed similar treaties with other western countries. The Harris Treaty was signed with the United States on July 29, 1858. These treaties were widely regarded by Japanese intellectuals as unequal, having been forced on Japan through gunboat diplomacy, and as a sign of the West's desire to incorporate Japan into the imperialism that had been taking hold of the continent. Among other measures, they gave the Western nations unequivocal control of tariffs on imports and the right of extraterritoriality to all their visiting nationals. They would remain a sticking point in Japan's relations with the West up to the turn of the century.References
See also
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