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

INTRODUCTION • 5
also increasingly disunited by the 1850s. The majority of the Japanese
population were peasants; farmers and fishermen who produced agricultural
goods that sustained the entire population. Artisans, those who made
items by hand, and the merchants were the other two levels of this Confucian
hierarchy and who, like most samurai, lived in the larger cities. Not
part of this four-level hierarchy were those in “special” categories, such
as imperial family members; priests (Buddhist and Shinto); Ainu native
people; the burakumin who handled animal products, disposed of human
corpses, and did other “outcaste” work; and foreigners.
Japan of the mid-19th century is often described as “isolated” because
it did not engage in substantial foreign relations. This view is
somewhat misleading. Such relations had existed extensively before the
1600s, and then in a limited manner from the 1630s to the 1850s. A policy
known as sakoku (“national seclusion”) significantly restricted the
country from foreign relations in the early 17th century. However, the
sakoku policy was primarily directed at Portugal and Spain. The Dutch,
Koreans, Okinawans, and especially the Chinese maintained trade and
contact with Japan throughout much of the Tokugawa Era (1600–1868).
Nevertheless, Japan’s contact with the West during most of the Tokugawa
Era was limited to Dutch traders in Nagasaki, and to Dutch books
on science and medicine. During the Euro–American era of scientific,
political, and industrial revolutions Japan had very little contact with
the West. By 1850, Japan was both an ancient and advanced culture, especially
in the arts, architecture, philosophy, and administrative systems.
But its economic and military power, and its knowledge of science
and technology needed for large-scale industrialization was far
behind even a middle power, such as the United States.
Tokugawa Japan was a highly structured society, divided by class and
hierarchy. The Tokugawa shogun, at the apex of all samurai, controlled
the country and domain lords, the daimyō, through the shogunate government
(also known as the bakufu). Yet, during the first half of the 19th
century, internal political and social strains were weakening Tokugawa
bakufu power. Lower and middle rank samurai felt their talents were being
squandered while their stipends were reduced. Daimyō from powerful
domains were increasingly frustrated at being controlled, spied
upon, and taxed by shogunate authorities in Edo. Prolonged famines in
the 1830s led to an upsurge in rebellions against Tokugawa authorities,
especially Oshio Heiachiro’s rebellion in Osaka in 1837.