Abstract
On July 8, 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the US Navy and his retinue of 967 sailors and marines dropped anchor off the shore of Uraga. They came to Japan traveling in two sailing vessels and two steamers, all armed with cannons and a total of 61 guns. Uraga was located near Edo, the city where the Shogun or the “Barbarian quelling General” and his Bakufu or “field tent government” resided. Although the Bakufu authorities had some forewarning of the coming of Perry from Dutch merchants residing in Japan, the arrival of the Americans on huge, noisy, steam-belching “Black Ships” (Kurofune), as the Japanese called them, had created panic throughout their land, with families fleeing from their homes and people scurrying for shelter.1 Perry was on board the Mississippi, a coal-fueled, three-mast, iron-clad, steam-powered vessel with a displacement of 3,220 tons and armed with ten cannons.2 The ship had left a US naval base in Norfolk, Virginia on November 24, 1852 and arrived in Hong Kong Island on April 7, 1853. At Hong Kong Harbor, Perry’s ship was met by the US sailing vessels the Plymouth and Saratoga which had docked earlier and was awaiting Perry’s arrival. When the Susquehanna, a US steam-powered vessel with a displacement of 3,824 tons and armed with 15 cannons arrived in Hong Kong from Shanghai, Perry continued on his journey with his squadron of four ships reaching Shanghai, and finally making a stop at Naha, the capital of the Ryukyu island kingdom on Okinawa.3 ^
Keywords
- International Relation
- Open Door
- Foreign Minister
- Open Door Policy
- Liaodong Peninsula
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Notes
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Kase, Toshikazu, Toshikazu, Nihon Gaikoshi, 23, Nichibei Kosho (Japanese Diplomatic History: Japan–US Negotiations), Kajimakenkyujo Shuppankai, 1970, p. 321.
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Unoki, K. (2016). Japan-US Relations 1853–1941. In: International Relations and the Origins of the Pacific War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-57202-8_3
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