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

ernment. Even the dour, conservative Muragaki later told his wife that
Japanese should stop referring to Americans as barbarians.
When the Japanese diplomats returned to Japan in 1861, the United
States erupted into the American Civil War (1861–1865), the bloodiest war
in American history with more than 600,000 deaths. Japan, too, was nearing
a state of civil war over the crisis between domains supporting a
“restoration” of imperial rule and others trying to reform and revitalize the
Tokugawa shogunate. Naosuke Ii, who approved the U.S.–Japan Treaty of
Amity and Commerce and second only to the shogun in the Tokugawa hierarchy,
was assassinated in early 1861. Japan’s relationship with the West,
particularly what many considered to be the “unequal treaties” between
Japan and Western countries, was a major factor in the burgeoning political
crisis—a crisis that included assassinations of Westerners and Japanese
deemed to be “pro-West.” Muragaki, Fukuzawa, Joseph Heco, and other
Japanese with significant experience with the West lived in fear of attack
during the early 1860s. By the mid-1860s, the crisis became more anti-
Tokugawa than anti-foreign and erupted into domestic civil war. After losing
significant battles against the anti-Tokugawa forces in late 1867 and
early 1868, the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, bowed to the inevitable
and turned over governing authority to the emperor, ending two and a half
centuries of rule by the Tokugawa shogunate. Thus began the Meiji Era,
Japan’s entrance into the industrial and modern age.
Knowledge Shall Be Sought Throughout the World
So As to Strengthen the Foundations of Imperial Rule
INTRODUCTION • 9
Charter Oath, Issued by Emperor Meiji, 1868
In 1871, Japan sent many of the Meiji government’s highest officials
on an extended mission led by Prince Tomomi Iwakura to the United
States and Europe. Earlier, the government sent Arinori Mori to Washington
as Japan’s first resident diplomat to the United States, and to
make advance preparations for the Iwakura Embassy. Its primary objective
was to re-negotiate the “unequal treaties” of the 1850s the previous
Tokugawa government signed with the United States and several European
countries (Britain, France, Holland, Germany, and Russia). The
United States and the European countries politely refused to re-negotiate
the treaties because they believed Japan did not have a system of laws up