Before the Black Ships: Western Attempts to Establish Diplomatic Relations with Japan

Abstract

It is a well-known fact in Japanese historiography that the country was opened up to Western powers by the American Perry expedition in 1853, dubbed in Japan ’the arrival of the black ships’. However, those ships did not come out of nowhere; there had been various earlier attempts to establish diplomatic and commercial relations with Japan, first by Russia and later by other Western powers. These attempts sparked heated debates in Japan regarding the danger caused by the foreign ships and the best way to avoid this menace. In this paper, after providing a brief description of earlier initiatives aimed at establishing diplomatic relations with Japan, I concentrate on United States foreign policy vis-à-vis Japan: the USA came into contact with Japan through its thriving whaling industry, as in the 1820s US whalers frequented the waters close to Japan. Later various economic considerations led to the decision to organize an expedition to Japan to effectively ensure that Japanese ports would receive US ships and to open the country for commerce. The success of the US expedition was due to various factors, not least the motivation and determination of its leader, Matthew C. Perry.