, also known as and later known as John Matthew Ottoson (1818 – January 1867), was a Japanese castaway originally from the area of Onoura near modern-day Mihama, on the west coast of the Chita Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture.

Biography

Otokichi was from Mihama, Aichi Prefecture. In 1832, at age 14, he served as a crew member on a rice transport ship bound for Edo, the Hojunmaru (宝順丸), in length with a cargo of 150 tons and a crew of 14. The ship left on October 11, 1832, but was caught in a storm and blown off-course far out in the Pacific Ocean.

Drift to America

The ship, without a mast or a rudder, was carried across the northern Pacific Ocean by currents. It drifted for 14 months, during which the crew lived on desalinated seawater and on the rice of their cargo. Several crew members died of scurvy; only three survived by the time they arrived at Cape Alava, the westernmost point of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, in 1834. The three survivors were Iwakichi, 29; Kyukichi, 16; and Otokichi, then 15.

The British Government ultimately declined interest in the enterprise, and the castaways were instead dispatched to Macau on board the General Palmer, so that they could be returned to their home country. Despite starring country singer Johnny Cash as John McLoughlin, and having a reported budget of US$4,000,000, the film was not a commercial success.

See also

  • Nakahama Manjirō, another castaway, who went to America 10 years later.
  • Oguri Jukichi, another castaway, whose damaged vessel Tokujomaru drifted to vicinity of Santa Barbara, California in 1815.
  • Hasekura Tsunenaga, who went to Europe through Mexico on a diplomatic mission in 1614, on the Japanese galleon San Juan Bautista.
  • Tanaka Shōsuke visited the Americas in 1610
  • William Adams (sailor), English pilot of Dutch fleet who settled in Japan 1600.
  • Christopher and Cosmas, first Japanese to visit England in 1591
  • Bernardo the Japanese, first Japanese person to set foot in Europe
  • Ranald MacDonald, first native-English speaker to teach English in Japan
  • , castaway on Unalaska, Alaska, first Japanese to complete a circumnavigation of the world with Nikolai Rezanov in 1806
  • Wakamiya-maru, a 1794 Japanese shipwreck in Alaska, some of the survivors becoming the first Japanese to circumnavigate the world, as passengers with the first Russian circumnavigation.

References

  • Life of Otokichi
  • Friends of MacDonald official website
  • Singapore’s First Japanese Resident: Yamamoto Otokichi, 07 JUL 2016 biblio asia, National library Singapore