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Sakoku: The Japanese Closed Period
In 1635, the Tokugawa Shogunate faced a crossroads. A previous leader had allowed Catholic missionaries to convert one-hundred thousand people. There was fear Japan was becoming Christian and would soon lose sovereignty. So, the shogunate banned foreigners from entering or trading with Japan to protect their cultural and political hegemony. Missionaries were executed, Christians oppressed, and all ships trying to enter Japanese harbors were fired upon. Only the Dutch kept diplomatic contact. -
Introduction: Opening of Japan
When the Western frontier ended, Americans turned their attention to a new "frontier": Asia. The Navy was tasked with negotiating unequal trading treaties with local governments, providing America with new markets. The biggest prize was the Japanese market, closed off to foreign trade for centuries. Through diplomacy and might, the Navy secured a trade agreement with Japan. However, the treaty also marked the start of a new age where America and Japan became industrialized, colonial empires. -
James Biddle Expedition
A veteran of the US expansion into Oregon Country, Capt. James Biddle's fleet became the first thrust of US imperial expansion into Asia in 1845. Under threat of force, his fleet forced the Chinese to sign the Treaty of Wanghia, which guaranteed the United States the same unequal trading rights. Upon his success, Biddle and his fleet were sent to exact a similar treaty with the Japanese. However, upon reaching Edo Bay, Biddle's request was denied. He was forced, under military threat, to flee. -
James Glynn Expedition
In 1848, fifteen American shipwreck victims were captured by the Shogunate. Knowing they would be executed, the US sent the USS Preble to intervene. Met with a blockade, Capt. James Glynn's ship rammed its way through to Nagasaki, where Glynn successfully negotiated the release of the eleven surviving prisoners. However, the men were hung in cages and three died of exposure or took their lives. Upon reaching America, the men's stories featured in the Penny press for months. -
Matthew Perry Departs For Japan
Matthew Perry, a distinguished captain with experience in the Caribbean and Libya, was picked by Navy and Executive branch officials to lead the effort to open up Japan for trade. Perry was told that he should study the Japanese culture, respect and utilize its strict bureaucratic manners to his advantage. In 1852, he set off for Canton, China, to lead the first expedition. Unlike past expeditions, Perry, in his first visit to Japan, delivered a message, exchanged gifts, and politely left. -
Convention of Kanagawa
The Convention of Kanagawa, brought to the Tokugawa by Matthew Perry the previous year, was signed upon Perry's return in 1854. Perry brought with him gifts, such as a working model of a steam ship and the works of John Audubon, that showed off America's military might and intellectual merit. The Tokugawa, wooed by Perry's diplomacy and threatened by his military might, gave the United States unequal trading rights, asserting American dominance and opening up a new market for industrial goods. -
Japanese Embassy To United States Established
The Tokugawa Shogunate, hoping to expand upon diplomatic relationships with the United States, established its first American embassy in 1860. The diplomats' arrival of was highly covered in the press, and the men were paraded through D.C., Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco. However, while the men's presence signaled of Japanese openness, the assassination of the official responsible for their mission cast doubt upon how lasting the new ties would be. -
Japanese students arrive in the United States
In 1866, American and Dutch missionaries smuggled the first of many Japanese students from Nagasaki to Rutgers, NJ. The students were primarily Samurai whose parents hoped English education would help prepare them for an increasingly Western, industrial Japan. As the Tokugawa did not allow citizens to emigrate or leave Japan, the students were the first population exchange between America and Japan. The students would play a role in the Meiji Restoration by advocating for American-style policy. -
Tokugawa Shogunate Falls; Meiji Restoration Starts
Fearing that a failure to quickly modernize would lead to foreign domination, opponents of the Tokugawa placed their support behind elevating the role of the emperor, who had long been a purely symbolic figure. After a period of conflict, the Tokugawa fell and Emperor Meiji became the preeminent political force in Japan. Under his influence, Japan quickened the pace of modernization and industrialization. American and European advisors (pictured) were imported to advise this transformation. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 shut off the valve of Chinese immigration to the United States and its territories, but did not reduce the desire for cheap immigrant labor. The Japanese, who were not excluded by this act, were a "natural replacement". In the following decades many Japanese, fleeing cramped, overpopulated urban centers, emigrated. A great many of them immigrated to Hawaii, where they worked the sugar plantations. A small population of merchants appeared in San Francisco. -
City of Tokio Arrives in Honalulu
Due to Hawaiian government subsidies for importing Japanese laborers to fill a shortage, the SS City of Tokio, at the time the second-largest American ship, brought 943 Japanese to Honolulu, including 676 men, 159 women, and 108 children. This was the first group of Japanese migrants in the Issei, or first, generation of Japanese Americans. -
SF Board of Education Introduces Segregation
In 1893, the SFBE introduces legislation to segregate Japanese students. The motion fails, but passes in 1906. Japanese officials, reacting to the discrimination, illegal by treaty, reached out to Roosevelt, who then sued the district. The SFBE didn't back down, and Roosevelt was forced to reach a "Gentlemen's Agreement" where Japan cut visas for US-bound migrants and SFBE dropped its policy. Anti-Japanese racism exploded during the affair and flared up again during the race riots in 1907. -
Annexation of Hawaii: Empire Building
In 1898, the United States annexed Hawaii. President William McKinley had argued for the annexation on the heels of the Spanish-American War. While nationalist sentiment provided popular support, McKinley was also concerned about growing Japanese presence in Hawaii. The Meiji, owing to their American and European advisors, had quickly industrialized and begun building an imperial empire. The Hawaiian Queen had even offered to become a Japanese protectorate to ward off American aggression. -
Guam and Northern Mariana Islands Annexed
After the Spanish American War, Guam and The Northern Marianas were annexed. The Marianas were treated by the United States as stopover points for ships, important in the creation of a "two ocean navy" and access points to China. Like the Perry Mission, suppression of Chamorro sovereignty was conducted through a mix of "carrot" and "stick." The local Chamorro people, already having been subjected to 300 years of colonialism in 1898, were only given US citizenship in 1986. -
United States Annexes The Philippines
At the conclusion of the Spanish American War, the US paid Spain twenty-million USD to annex the entire Philippine Archipelago. American imperialist expansion into Asia was viewed favorably by the Japanese Empire, who favored American presence to a presumed German invasion. The Japanese and global community did not believe that Filipino independence was tenable. However, the American expansion increased Japanese appetite for naval modernization and set the stage for later confrontation in 1941. -
Taft-Katsura Agreement
With the victory of Japan in the Japanese-Russo War, Japan burst onto the scene as the preeminent naval power in the South Pacific. The treaty ending the war was negotiated by Theodore Roosevelt, and through the diplomatic discussion, came about the Taft-Katsura Agreement. The treaty forced both states to recognize each other's colonial territories, Japan in Korea and US in the Philippines, in order to prevent future conflict. This treaty cemented Japan's ascension to preeminent colonial empire. -