Sakoku
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.
 |
A Chinese junk in Japan, at the beginning of the Sakoku period (1644-1648 Japanese woodblock print). |
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 travelled across Japan, even regular folk had a glimpse of foreign cultures.
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: Sakoku Reexamined." Journal of Japanese Studies. 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.
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.
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 stopped for 11 days on
Kii Oshima island, south of the
Kii Peninsula. He was 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 nonexistent.
* 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 Wars[K. 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, took the ship
Eliza of New York to Nagasaki, Japan, with a cargo of Dutch trade goods. :* In 1803 William Robert Stewart returned on board 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
1804 a Russian envoy named
Nikolai Rezanov, sailed into Nagasaki, to request trade exchanges. The Bakufu refused the request, and the Russians attacked
Sakhalin and the
Kuril islands during the following three years, prompting the Bakufu to build up defences in
Ezo.
* In
1808, the English warship
HMS Phaeton, raiding on Dutch shipping in the Pacific, sailed into Nagasaki under a Dutch flag, demanding and obtaining supplies by force of arms.
* In
1811, the Russian naval lieutenant
Vasily Golovnin landed on
Kunashiri Island, and was arrested by the Bakufu and imprisoned for 2 years.
|
Japanese drawing of the Morrison, anchored in front of Uraga in 1837. |
*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 favourably 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 visited
Okinawa on
April 28,
1844. Trade was denied, but Father Forcade was left behind with a translator.
*In
1845, whaling ship
The Manhattan rescued 20 Japanese shipwrecked sailors. Captain Mercator Cooper was allowed into Edo Bay, where he stayed for four days and met with the 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.
 |
Japanese 1854 print relating Perry's visit. |
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.
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.
*
Isolationism
