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

8 • INTRODUCTION
Tokugawa and pro-Restoration forces ended with the downfall of the
Tokugawa shogunate and the emergence of the Meiji imperial government.
The first resident American diplomat sent to Japan was Townsend
Harris. He negotiated the United States–Japan Treaty of Amity and
Commerce of 1858, which included commercial trading rights and
extraterritorial rights for Americans living in designated areas in Japan.
This was the first of the Ansei Treaties, also known as the “unequal
treaties,” between Japan and Western countries. Henry Heusken, a
Dutch-born American citizen, was Harris’s indispensable assistant and
translator at the American consulate in Kanagawa. Heusken also assisted
other countries negotiate treaties and agreements with Japan.
Tragically, Heusken was murdered by anti-foreign ronin in 1861.
Soon after completion of the U.S.–Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce,
the Tokugawa shogun decided to send an embassy of government
representatives to the United States to officially ratify the treaty in
Washington, D.C. The leader of the 1860 Embassy was Norimasa
Muragaki, a conservative samurai official who often complained during
the trip about the barbarian ways of Americans. Shaking hands, dancing,
casual dress (i.e., business suits) by President James Buchanan and
other American officials, and being introduced to wives and daughters
of American officials at receptions upset Muragaki and other conservative
members of the Japanese delegation. Other members of the delegation,
such as Yukichi Fukuzawa and Manjiro Nakahama, liked the relatively
egalitarian, informal ways of the Americans.
The Shogun’s Embassy attracted a great deal of attention in 1860. It
was the first time practically anyone in the United States could see and
meet Japanese. At hotels in San Francisco, Washington, New York, Baltimore,
and Philadelphia, the lobbies were mobbed with Americans
wanting to see the diplomats from the “mysterious” country of Japan
wearing their elegant kimonos with top-knot hair styles. Walt Whitman
wrote a poem titled, “A Broadway Pageant,” in honor of Japan and Asia
after watching a welcoming parade for the Japanese diplomats in New
York. There were troubling incidents: some American newspapers made
fun of short Japanese with “funny clothes and funny rituals,” and two
samurai swords were stolen from one Japanese diplomat’s hotel room.
But overall the trip was a success and the Japanese diplomats were welltreated—and
nearly all their expenses paid for by the American gov-