Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

IWAKURA MISSION • 117
IRWIN, ROBERT WALKER (1844–1925). American businessman,
executive of Mitsui Trading Company, and adviser to the governments
of the United States, Japan, and the Kingdom of Hawaii. In 1885, Irwin
negotiated government-sponsored Japanese immigration to
Hawaii. Irwin was one of the first American men to legally become a
Japanese citizen, and he married a Japanese woman (Takechi Iki).
ITO, HIROBUMI (1841–1909). Samurai from Choshu domain (Yamaguchi
Prefecture) and top official in the Meiji government. Hirobumi
Ito traveled to England in 1863 with other Choshu samurai to
study Western science and later helped lead the Choshu–Satsuma
coalition that overthrew the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868. Ito then
held several top positions in the Meiji government, serving as prime
minister four times. He traveled with the Iwakura Mission to the
United States and Europe from 1871 to 1873, and traveled to Europe
in the 1880s to study Western constitutions. The Meiji Constitution,
promulgated in 1889 and lasting until 1946, was primarily Ito’s work.
Ito was assassinated by a Korean nationalist in 1909 while serving as
the resident-general of Japan-controlled Korea. See also MEIJI ERA;
MEIJI RESTORATION.
IWAKURA MISSION. From late 1871 until 1873, top-ranking members
of the new Meiji government journeyed to the United States and
Europe. Led by Prince Tomomi Iwakura, the Iwakura Mission had
two purposes. One was to renegotiate the “unequal treaties” (also
known as Ansei Treaties) between the United States, several European
countries, and Japan that the previous Tokugawa government
signed in the late 1850s. The other purpose was to study the science,
education, military, government systems, and social systems of the
West that could be utilized by the Meiji government for industrializing
and modernizing Japan. Although treated well by U.S. President
Ulysses S. Grant, other heads of state, and political leaders, the
Iwakura Mission was unsuccessful in renegotiating the “unequal
treaties.” However, much of the information about Western societies
and institutions carefully studied by Meiji government officials and
Japanese students who accompanied the Iwakura Mission would be
adopted and adapted in the years and decades to come and significantly
contributed to Japan’s industrialization and modernization. See
also IWAKURA, TOMOMI (1825–1883); MEIJI ERA.