July 8, 1853 Commodore Perry sails into Tokyo Bay
157 years ago on this day in 1853, Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, representing the U.S. government, sailed into Tokyo Bay, Japan, with a squadron of four US warships. For a time, Japanese officials refused to speak with Perry and attempted to ignore the Americans, but under threat of attack by the powerful American ships they accepted letters from President Millard Fillmore, making the United States the first Western nation to establish relations with Japan since it had been declared closed to foreigners two centuries before.
Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the thirteenth President of the United States, serving from 1850 until 1853, and the last member of the Whig Party to hold that office. He was the second Vice President to assume the Presidency upon the death of a sitting President, succeeding Zachary Taylor who died of what is thought to be acute gastroenteritis or hyperthermia (heat stroke). Fillmore was never elected President; after serving out Taylor's term, he failed to gain the nomination for the Presidency of the Whigs in the 1852 presidential election, and, four years later, in the 1856 presidential election, he again failed to win election as the Know Nothing Party and Whig candidate.
Matthew Perry, Father of the American Steam Navy
USS Mississippi, Perry's flagship.
Prior to Perry's expedition, only the Dutch and the Chinese had been allowed to continue trade with Japan after 1639, but this trade was restricted and confined to the island of Dejima at Nagasaki.
After giving Japan about nine months to consider the establishment of external relations, Commodore Perry returned to Tokyo with nine ships in March 1854. On March 31, he signed the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade and permitting the establishment of a U.S. consulate in Japan.
Ugly American or "Turning Japanese"? Perry as he appeared to the Japanese.
Approximately six years after opening itself to US presence and trade and on the eve of the American Civil War, the first Japanese diplomats to visit a foreign power in over 200 years reached Washington, D.C. in April 1860, and remained in the U.S. capital for several weeks, discussing expansion of trade with the United States. Treaties with other Western powers followed soon after, contributing to the collapse of the shogunate and ultimately the modernization of Japan -- a fact which would be largely regretted in America on December 7th, 1941.
In less than 50 years following Perry's visit, Japan will have shrugged off its quaint yet medieval culture and replaced it with a more western-style, industrial society capable of fielding a huge and powerful army and air force and putting a mighty modern fleet to sea. It all began with an American naval officer's ultimatum.
