A Yankee Barbarian At The Shogun’s Court (June 1964 | Volume: 15, Issue: 4)

A Yankee Barbarian At The Shogun’s Court

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Authors: Emily Hahn

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June 1964 | Volume 15, Issue 4

In 1853 an American named Townsend Harris, a merchant who was spending most of his time that year between Hong Kong and Shanghai, pricked up his ears at the news that his government was planning to force a way into Japan. Harris was no longer young, and his business in the Far East had lately been so bad that he had been forced to sell his trading vessel. Consequently, he felt the strain of uncertainty, and wondered if there might not be a place for him on Commodore Perry’s staff. He wrote and offered his services, but Perry wouldn’t consider adding him to the force. Like many other civilians who wrote to the Commodore, he was turned down. His opportunity was to come, but that would be later.

Harris was only one of many people living under a strain. The Japanese too were badly worried, though few outside their tight little islands realized it. They were not supposed to be aware even that the Perry expedition was in preparation, but they knew more about the outside world than the world could have guessed, especially about the way things were going for their neighbor, China. Like the Chinese, the Japanese believed firmly in the policy of isolation. As an island empire, Japan naturally found it easier to carry out this policy. Besides, as a smaller country she wasn’t apt to tempt imperialists quite as strongly. Only the Dutch, of all the eager European traders, had been successful in gaining a foothold in Japan. Even so, they were kept immured on the little island of Deshima, off Nagasaki, where they had to live without their wives and families; they were forbidden to set foot on the main islands.

The Chinese had tried to take just as high a hand with foreign merchants, but they hadn’t got away with it. It is true that for years the British, American, French, and other “barbarians” were forced to keep to their allotted space in “factories” outside the walls of Canton, but they were getting out of hand, and for several years had been troublesome. Led by the British, they had fought the Chinese, gravely shaking the old order. The barbarians now had footholds in various ports along the coast, and were constantly trying to get into the interior, a state of affairs shocking not only to China but to her near neighbor, Japan. Yedo—modern Tokyo—as well as Peking was concerned when the British demanded audience of the Emperor of China. Yedo knew that the barbarians would certainly soon cast their covetous eyes further.

And now it was on the verge of happening. Only one thing had not been foreseen in Japan—that America, rather than Britain, would be the intruder. Usually it was the British who took the offensive, but in iHßg they considered themselves too seriously enmeshed in China to branch out in a new direction. Meanwhile the Americans, who had recently fulfilled their