The
Black Ships (in
Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none have gained general acceptance...
, 黒船,
kurofune) was the name given to Western vessels arriving in Japan between the 15th and 19th centuries. In particular, it refers to
MississippiUSS Mississippi, a sidewheel steamer, was the first ship of the United States Navy to bear that name. She was named for the Mississippi River. Her keel was laid down by the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1839; built under the personal supervision of Commodore Matthew Perry. She was commissioned on...
,
PlymouthUSS Plymouth was a sloop-of-war constructed and commissioned just prior to the Mexican-American War. She was heavily gunned, and traveled to Japan as part of Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s effort to force Japan to open her ports to international trade...
,
SaratogaUSS Saratoga, a sloop-of-war, was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for the Battle of Saratoga of the American Revolutionary War. Her keel was laid down in the summer of 1841 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard...
, and
SusquehannaUSS Susquehanna, a sidewheel steamer, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for a river which rises in Lake Otsego in central New York and flows across Pennsylvania and the northeast corner of Maryland to empty into the Chesapeake Bay....
, that arrived on July 14,1853 at
Uragais a subdivision of the city of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is located on the south eastern side of the Miura Peninsula, at the northern end of the Uraga Channel, at the entrance of Tokyo Bay.-History:...
Harbor (part of present-day
Yokosukais a city located in Kanagawa, Japan.It is located at the mouth of Tokyo Bay in the Miura Peninsula, and the city stretches across the peninsula to Sagami Bay. Its neighbors are Yokohama, Miura, Hayama, and Zushi.-Heian period:...
) in
Kanagawa Prefectureis a prefecture located in the southern Kantō region of Honshū, Japan. The capital is Yokohama. Kanagawa is part of the Greater Tokyo Area.- History :The prefecture has some archaeological sites going back to the Jōmon period...
,
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
under the command of
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Commodore Matthew Perry. The word "black" refers to the black color of the older sailing vessels, and the black smoke from the
coalCoal is a readily combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock normally occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
-fired power plants of the American ships.
Commodore Perry's superior military force was a factor in negotiating a treaty allowing American
tradeTrade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both. Trade is also called commerce or transaction. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and services. Later one side of the barter were the metals, precious...
with Japan, thus effectively ending the period of more than 200 years in which trading with Japan was only allowed to the
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
and
ChineseChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
.
The following year, at the
Convention of KanagawaOn March 31, 1854, the or was concluded between Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the U.S. Navy and the Empire of Japan. The treaty opened the Japanese ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to United States trade, guaranteed the safety of shipwrecked U.S. sailors; however, the treaty did not create a basis...
, Perry returned with eight ships and forced the
shogun is a military rank and historical title for Hereditary Commanders in Chief of the Armed Forces of Japan. The modern rank is equivalent to a Generalissimo...
to sign the "Treaty of Peace and Amity", establishing formal diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States.
The
Black Ships (in
Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none have gained general acceptance...
, 黒船,
kurofune) was the name given to Western vessels arriving in Japan between the 15th and 19th centuries. In particular, it refers to
MississippiUSS Mississippi, a sidewheel steamer, was the first ship of the United States Navy to bear that name. She was named for the Mississippi River. Her keel was laid down by the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1839; built under the personal supervision of Commodore Matthew Perry. She was commissioned on...
,
PlymouthUSS Plymouth was a sloop-of-war constructed and commissioned just prior to the Mexican-American War. She was heavily gunned, and traveled to Japan as part of Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s effort to force Japan to open her ports to international trade...
,
SaratogaUSS Saratoga, a sloop-of-war, was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for the Battle of Saratoga of the American Revolutionary War. Her keel was laid down in the summer of 1841 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard...
, and
SusquehannaUSS Susquehanna, a sidewheel steamer, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for a river which rises in Lake Otsego in central New York and flows across Pennsylvania and the northeast corner of Maryland to empty into the Chesapeake Bay....
, that arrived on July 14,1853 at
Uragais a subdivision of the city of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is located on the south eastern side of the Miura Peninsula, at the northern end of the Uraga Channel, at the entrance of Tokyo Bay.-History:...
Harbor (part of present-day
Yokosukais a city located in Kanagawa, Japan.It is located at the mouth of Tokyo Bay in the Miura Peninsula, and the city stretches across the peninsula to Sagami Bay. Its neighbors are Yokohama, Miura, Hayama, and Zushi.-Heian period:...
) in
Kanagawa Prefectureis a prefecture located in the southern Kantō region of Honshū, Japan. The capital is Yokohama. Kanagawa is part of the Greater Tokyo Area.- History :The prefecture has some archaeological sites going back to the Jōmon period...
,
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
under the command of
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Commodore Matthew Perry. The word "black" refers to the black color of the older sailing vessels, and the black smoke from the
coalCoal is a readily combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock normally occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
-fired power plants of the American ships.
Commodore Perry's superior military force was a factor in negotiating a treaty allowing American
tradeTrade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both. Trade is also called commerce or transaction. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and services. Later one side of the barter were the metals, precious...
with Japan, thus effectively ending the period of more than 200 years in which trading with Japan was only allowed to the
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
and
ChineseChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
.
The following year, at the
Convention of KanagawaOn March 31, 1854, the or was concluded between Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the U.S. Navy and the Empire of Japan. The treaty opened the Japanese ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to United States trade, guaranteed the safety of shipwrecked U.S. sailors; however, the treaty did not create a basis...
, Perry returned with eight ships and forced the
shogun is a military rank and historical title for Hereditary Commanders in Chief of the Armed Forces of Japan. The modern rank is equivalent to a Generalissimo...
to sign the "Treaty of Peace and Amity", establishing formal diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States. Within five years, Japan had signed similar treaties with other
western countriesThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term that can have multiple meanings depending on its context...
. The Harris Treaty was signed with the United States on July 29, 1858.
The surprise and confusion these ships inspired are described in this famous kyoka (a humorous poem similar to the 5-line
wakaWaka or Yamato uta is a genre of classical Japanese verse and one of the major genres of Japanese literature...
):
| 泰平の |
Taihei no |
| 眠りを覚ます |
Nemuri o samasu |
| 上喜撰 |
Jōkisen |
| たった四杯で |
Tatta shihai de |
| 夜も眠れず |
Yoru mo nemurezu |
This poem is a complex set of
punA pun, or paronomasia, is a form of word play that deliberately exploits ambiguity between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect...
s (in Japanese,
kakekotoba or "pivot words").
Taihei (泰平) means "tranquil";
Jōkisen (上喜撰) is the name of a costly brand of
green teaGreen tea is a type of tea made solely with the leaves of Camellia sinensis that has undergone minimal oxidation during processing. Green tea originates from China and has become associated with many cultures in Asia from Japan to the Middle East. Recently, it has become more widespread in the...
containing large amounts of
caffeineCaffeine is a bitter, white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that is a psychoactive stimulant drug. Caffeine was discovered by a German chemist, Friedrich Ferdinand Runge, in 1819. He coined the term kaffein, a chemical compound in coffee, which in English became caffeine...
; and
shihai (四杯) means "four cups", so a literal translation of the poem is:
- Awoken from sleep
- of a peaceful quiet world
- by Jokisen tea;
- with only four cups of it
- one can't sleep even at night.
However, there is an alternate translation, based on the pivot words.
Taihei can refer to the "Pacific Ocean" (太平);
jōkisen also means "steam-powered ships" (蒸気船); and
shihai also means "four vessels". The poem, therefore, has a hidden meaning:
- The steam-powered ships
- break the halcyon slumber
- of the Pacific;
- a mere four boats are enough
- to make us lose sleep at night.
'Black Ships' (Kurofune) is also the title of the first Japanese Opera, composed by
Kosaku Yamada, was a Japanese composer and conductor.In many Western reference books his name is given as Kósçak Yamada. During his music study in the Imperial German capital of Berlin from 1910-13 he hated the moment when people laughed at him because his "normal" transliteration of his first name "Kosaku"...
, "based on the story of Tojin Okichi, a geisha caught up in the turmoil that swept Japan in the waning years of the Tokugawa shogunate" and premiered in 1940.
See also
- French Military Mission to Japan (1867-1868)
- Gunboat diplomacy
In international politics, gunboat diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of military power — implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare, should terms not be agreeable to the superior force....
- History of Japan
The written history of Japan begins with brief information of Twenty-Four Histories, a collection of Chinese historical texts, in the 1st century AD. However, there is evidence that suggests people were living on the islands of Japan since the upper paleolithic period...
- Manifest destiny
Manifest Destiny is a term that was used in the 19th century to designate the belief that the United States was destined, even divinely ordained, to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean...
- Sakoku
was the foreign relations policy of Japan under which no foreigner could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633-1639 and remained in effect until...
- Unequal Treaties
Unequal Treaties is a term used in reference to the type of treaties signed by several East Asian states, including Qing Dynasty China, late Tokugawa Japan, and late Joseon Korea, with Western powers and the post-Meiji Restoration Empire of Japan, during the 19th and early 20th centuries...
- United States Korean Expedition of 1871
- Pacific Overtures
Pacific Overtures is a 1976 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a libretto by John Weidman, and additional material by Hugh Wheeler, set in 1853 Japan...
- Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
, a representation of the roughly the same times in a European perspective
External links