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

CHRONOLOGY • xvii
1854 14 February: Perry returns to Japan, this time with eight
warships. 31 March: Perry and Tokugawa government officials sign
the Kanagawa Treaty, formally known as the U.S.–Japan Treaty of
Friendship.
1854–1855 Britain, France, Russia, Holland sign treaties of friendship
with Japan. Ports of Shimoda, Hakodate, and Nagasaki are opened to
Westerners for limited trade.
1855 Institute for Western Learning opened by Tokugawa government.
Renamed Institute for the Study of Barbarian Books in 1857, then as the
Institute for Development (Kaiseijo) in 1862. In 1877, the Kaiseijo becomes
part of Tokyo University, the first modern university in Japan.
1856 The Tokugawa bakufu hires Charles Wolcott Brooks, an American
businessman in San Francisco, as Japan’s consul general and commercial
agent.
1856 July: Townsend Harris arrives in Japan as United States consul
general, the first American diplomat stationed in Japan.
1858 Naosuke Ii, daimyo of Hikone domain, appointed chief minister of
Tokugawa government, the most powerful position in the Tokugawa
bakufu after the Shogun. 6 June: In Baltimore, Maryland, Joseph Heco
(Hikozo Hamada) becomes the first Japanese to become an American citizen.
29 July: Townsend Harris and Togukawa bakufu ratify the
U.S.–Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce. Britain, France, Holland, and
Russia sign similar treaties with Japan by October. All of these treaties are
officially known as the Ansei Treaties, and unofficially as the “unequal
treaties.”
1859 James Curtis Hepburn, Guido Verbeck, Francis Hall, and Eugene
Van Reed arrive in Japan.
1860 January: The Tokugawa bakufu sends a delegation of officials,
usually known as the Shogun’s Embassy, to the United States. In May,
President James Buchanon meets with Norimasa Muragaki, leader of
the delegation, and other Tokugawa bakufu officials at the White House.
24 March: Naosuke Ii is assassinated in Edo by samurai upset at the
Tokugawa bakufu’s agreements with Western countries.
1861 15 January: Henry Heusken, secretary of the American Legation
in Edo, is assassinated by anti-foreign samurai. 4 March: Abraham