Steamships and Samurai: How The Perry Expedition Shattered Feudal Japan

And inadvertently created America’s biggest Pacific rival

(Public domain)

On July 8th, 1853, four American warships, commanded by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, steamed into Edo Bay, Japan. He had been given a mandate to end the Japanese policy of isolation and open up the country to American trade. Perry wasted no time and immediately turned his guns on the vulnerable capital and began firing blanks as a show of force. Despite being surrounded by dozens of small guard ships, Perry was not dissuaded. He informed the Japanese that any attempt to board his ships would be repulsed with force.

This event is known as the Opening of Japan in the West and as Kurofune Raikō, the Arrival of the Black Ships, in Japan. The appearance of Perry, with his four warships and countless cannon, sent Feudal Japan into a political spiral that would lead to the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and usher in the Japanese Empire. Ironically, while Perry was ultimately successful in opening Japan to foreign trade, he also created the state that would go on to terrorize Asia and the Pacific less than a century later.

Perry was given ample leeway to engage in gunboat diplomacy to force the Japanese to the negotiating table. The Americans were trying their hand at a tactic that was…