Black Ships - WikiHQ

thumb|A Japanese print from 1854 describing [[Matthew Calbraith Perry|Commodore Matthew Perry's "Black Ships".]]

The Black Ships (in , Edo period term) were the names given to both Portuguese merchant ships and American warships arriving in Japan in the 16th and 19th centuries respectively.

In 1543, Portuguese initiated the first contacts, establishing a trade route linking Goa to Nagasaki. The large carracks engaged in this trade had the hull painted black with pitch, and the term came to represent all Western vessels. In 1639, after suppressing a rebellion blamed on the influence of Christian thought, the ruling Tokugawa shogunate retreated into an isolationist policy, the Sakoku. During this "locked state", contact with Japan by Westerners was restricted to Dutch traders on Dejima island at Nagasaki.

In 1844, William II of the Netherlands urged Japan to also open the mainland to trade, but was rejected. On July 8, 1853, the U.S. Navy sent four warships into the bay at Edo and threatened to attack if Japan did not begin trade with the West. The ships were Mississippi, Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna of the expedition for the opening of Japan, under the command of Commodore Matthew C. Perry. The expedition arrived on July 14, 1853 at Uraga Harbor (present-day Yokosuka) in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Though their hulls were not black, their coal-fired steam engines belched black smoke.

Their arrival marked the reopening of the country to political dialogue after more than two hundred years of self-imposed isolation. Trade with Western nations followed five years later with the Treaty of Amity and Commerce. After this, the kurofune became a symbol of the end of isolation.thumb|Brooklyn Museum – Commodore Matthew Perry's "Black Ship"

First Kurofune ships: Nau do Trato

thumb|A Portuguese black [[carrack in Nagasaki, in the early 17th century.]]

In 1543 Portuguese traders arrived in Japan initiating the first contacts with the West. Soon they established a trade route linking their headquarters in Goa, via Malacca to Nagasaki. Large carracks engaged in the flourishing "Nanban trade", introducing modern inventions from the European traders, such as refined sugar, optics, and firearms; it was the firearms, arquebuses, which became a major innovation of the Sengoku period—a time of intense internal warfare—when the matchlocks were replicated. Later, they engaged in triangular trade, exchanging silver from Japan with silk from China via Macau.

Carracks of 1200 to 1600 tons, named nau do trato ('treaty ship') or nau da China by the Portuguese, engaged in this trade had the hull painted black with pitch, and the term came to apply for all western vessels. The name was inscribed in the Nippo Jisho, the first western Japanese dictionary compiled in 1603.

In 1549 Spanish missionary Francis Xavier started a Jesuit mission in Japan. Christianity spread, mingled with the new trade, making 300,000 converts among peasants and some daimyō (warlords). In 1637 the Shimabara Rebellion blamed on the Christian influence was suppressed. Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries faced progressively tighter restrictions, and were confined to the island of Dejima before being expelled in 1639.

The Tokugawa shogunate retreated back into a policy of isolationism identified as , forbidding contact with most outside countries. Only a limited-scale trade and diplomatic relations with China, Korea, the Ryukyu Islands, and the Dutch was maintained. The Sakoku policy remained in effect until 1853 with the arrival of Commodore Perry and the "opening" of Japan.

Gunboat diplomacy

Commodore Perry's show of military force was the principal factor in negotiating a treaty allowing American trade with Japan, thus effectively ending the Sakoku period of more than 200 years in which trading with Japan had been permitted to the Dutch, Koreans, Chinese, Ryukyuans, and Ainu exclusively.

The sight of the four ships entering Edo Bay, belching black smoke and able to move with no need of wind, deeply frightened the Japanese. Perry ignored the official requests that he move to Nagasaki—the licensed port for external trade—and threatened to attack Edo and burn it to the ground if he was not allowed to land. It was eventually agreed that he should land nearby at Kurihama, whereupon he delivered his letter and left.

The following year, at the Convention of Kanagawa, Perry returned with a fleet of eight of the fearsome Black Ships, to demonstrate the power of the United States navy, and to lend weight to his announcement that he would not leave again, until he had a treaty. In the interim, after a debate by officials the Japanese government had decided to avoid war and agree to a treaty with the United States.

Works

Pacific Overtures, a musical about Japan's westernization in the 19th century by Stephen Sondheim
Madama Butterfly, an opera about a US Navy officer and his Japanese wife by Giacomo Puccini

Notes

References

[https://www.academia.edu/5461862/Diplomacy_Far_Removed_A_Reinterpretation_of_the_U.S._Decision_to_Open_Diplomatic_Relations_with_Japan]
[digitized by University of Hong Kong Libraries, Digital Initiatives, "China Through Western Eyes." ]
[digitized by University of Hong Kong Libraries, Digital Initiatives, "China Through Western Eyes." ]

External links

Black Ship Festival celebrating the arrival of the Blackships and the opening of Japan to the world.
New National Theatre Tokyo
Opera Japonica