America encounters Japan, 1836-94

Abstract

Chapter 1 describes the events leading up to the opening of Japan and the Meiji Restoration, from the growing pressure from foreign ships seeking trade and relations with Japan in the late seventeenth century onward, to the Treaty of Kanagawa concluded by US Commodore Matthew Perry and representatives of Japan in 1854, and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce negotiated in 1858 by Townsend Harris, the first US consul to Japan. It then outlines Japan’s subsequent efforts to ensure the revision of the unequal treaties, and the development of greater mutual understanding and cooperation between the governments of Japan and the US at the time of the Sino-Japanese War.