The Tokugawa's External Threats

Discussion

Why had the Tokugawa political system remained stable for 200 years?

How did economic changes undermine this stable system by the 1800s?

Long-term Tokugawa Policies

Ideology

Limited domains to 1 castle

Villages self-regulating

*“Alternate attendance”

*“Seclusion”

Controlled access to world

Economic & Social dislocation

200 years of changes

Market economy

Population triples (30 million in 1800)

Urban population doubles (15-20% in 1800)

Peasant protest

Growing disparities in land and wealth

Violence against merchants and rich villagers

Samurai hurt economically

Fixed stipends of rice

Why were the Western European and American powers threatening China and Japan in the 19th century?

Table data source: David Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004): 407.

Foreign Threats to China and Japan

Similar trade policies, ca. 1800

Nagasaki

Canton

Tea

50% of British China trade in 1800

British Tea Imports

Chests of opium sold (1 chest=approx. 150 lbs.)

*Opium War 1839-41

David vs. Goliath?

Population in 1800

Britain, 10.5 million

China, 300 million

Area (today)

Britain, 244,820 sq. km. (ranked 86th)

China, 9,596,960 sq. km. (ranked 4th)

British “Gunboat diplomacy”

The Nemesis

"Unequal Treaty" (1842)

$21 million silver dollars indemnity
New trading system

5 treaty ports

Cession of Hong Kong
Extraterritoriality for British subjects
Most-favored-nation clause

American interest in Japan

Why was the U.S. interested in opening relations with Japan around 1850?

Whaling boats, 1820s

Whale oil

Mexican-American War, 1848

Manifest destiny

California goldrush and statehood, 1849-50

China (opium) trade

US #2 behind Britain

Advent of practical steamship, 1840s

Coal power

*American Gunboat Diplomacy in Japan

Commodore Matthew C. Perry's United States mission

“Black Ships”

Susquehanna & Mississippi

Edo Bay, July 1853

Letter from Millard Fillmore

“The undersigned, as evidence of his friendly intentions, has brought but four of the smaller [ships of war], designing, should it become necessary, to return to Yedo in the ensuing spring with a much larger force” (Gordon, p. 50).

White flag

Japan's internal debate

Tokugawa council

Abe Masahiro, chief councillor

Weak shogun (1853-1866)

Tokugawa Iesada (1824–1858, r. 1853-58)

All daimyō participate in 1853

Majority opinion

National isolation, but avoid hostilities

Minority opinions

Placate the Americans, rapid modernization

Total rejection of Americans

Perry's return to Edo Bay, Feb. 1854

*Treaty of Kanagawa, March 31, 1854

What is your impression of the terms of the treaty?

Why would it be disturbing from the Japanese perspective?

2 coaling stations

Shimoda

Hakodate

American consul general in Shimoda

Townsend Harris, 1856

Internal political turmoil

Weak shoguns (1853-1866)

Tokugawa Iesada (r. 1853-58)

Tokugawa Iemochi (1846–1866, r. 1858-66)

Chiefs of Tokugawa council

Abe Masahiro, Resigned 1855

Hotta Masayoshi, 1855

Reformist

Negotiates draft treaty, spring 1858

Imperial rebuff, spring 1858

Resigned

Ii Naosuke, June 1858

Pragmatist

Signs treaty

Crackdown on dissent, summer 1858

*Unequal Treaty, July 1858

5 ports of trade

Hakodate (Hokkaidō), 1858

Nagasaki, 1859

Kanagawa (Yokohama) in Edo Bay, 1859

Niigata (Sea of Japan), 1860

Hyōgo (Osaka Bay), 1863

Foreign residents

Extraterritorial rights

Foreign consuls in treaty ports

Low tariffs: 5 to 20%

More treaties, 1858

Britain, Holland, Russia, France

British add most favored nation clause