{"id":602,"date":"2022-09-20T09:11:32","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T09:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/?p=602"},"modified":"2022-09-30T14:36:05","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T14:36:05","slug":"foreigners-in-treaty-port-japan-1859-1872","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/2022\/09\/foreigners-in-treaty-port-japan-1859-1872\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreigners in Treaty-Port Japan (1859 \u2013 1872)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Foreigners in Treaty-Port Japan (1859 \u2013 1872)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1854, with the Treaty of Kanagawa, Japan\u2019s \u2018closed country\u2019 sakoku <\/em>policy was replaced with an \u2018open country\u2019 kaikoku <\/em>policy.1<\/a><\/sup> This open era created new markets, new distribution routes and critically opened new Treaty Port towns. The most significant of these was the Treaty Port of Yokohama. Yokohama\u2019s success and use as trading hub was so significant that it led it to the town being known to be \u2018synonymous with the West\u2019.2<\/a><\/sup> John Dower explores how the local Japanese viewed this new commercial hub and their new foreign counterparts through analysing Yokohama prints, Yokohama-e. <\/em>Yokohama prints were woodblock prints that, during the 19th<\/sup> century, became an extremely popular way to depict Treaty Port towns and depict the actions of the new foreign merchants and traders. This blog entry will explore how the Yokohama prints illustrated; first, the different uses of the new Treaty Port towns, second the lack of knowledge or information the locals had about these new foreigners and, third the suspicion the locals attributed to the foreigners.<\/p>\n

One primary source, Utagawa Sadahide\u2019s \u2018Pictures of Western Traders at Yokohama Transporting Merchandise\u2019<\/em>, 1861, will be the principal source for this blog entry; Dower uses it to gain an insight into the different activities within the thriving treaty port harbour in Yokohama. The woodblock depicts five vessels within the bustling Yokohama port and the various tasks that are occurring on them when they are coming into the harbour. The five vessels represent the five nations with bilateral treaties allowing them to use the harbour. Many different activities are occurring within the print, from clerks making notes to crewmen climbing the riggings. These various activities illustrating what Dower calls \u2018the unprecedented bustle\u20193<\/a><\/sup> in the Yokohama harbour and reinforces how Treaty Ports were a hub of trading, business and all the other activities that facilitated Japan\u2019s new international markets. The American ship, denoted by an American flag, includes a long row of small cannons running along the length of their ship.2<\/a><\/sup> The presence of these cannons, Dower views as a \u2018subtle touch of the ominous\u20194<\/a><\/sup>, signalling the Japanese\u2019s uncertainty and discomfort with their new open era; they now looked out \u2018upon the unknown world of foreign nations\u2019.((Ibid.))Second, most critically, it displays the suspicion attached to foreigners in Yokohama. Locals still were sceptical of the Americans after their aggressive \u2018gun-boat diplomacy\u2019 which triggered the kaikou<\/em> policy. It further illustrates how alongside treaty port towns being a hub of commerce, they were also a place where foreigners could display their naval strength. As Jeremy Taylor explores, the harbour in Yokohama was \u2018on occasions lined with foreign troops of all kinds to intimidate Japanese government officials into further concessions\u2019.5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

It should be noted that, as Dower argues, it is unlikely that Sadahide was creating this print based on his first-hand view of the harbour. Dower explores how a similar European port scene appeared in the Illustrated London News before the publishing of Sadahide\u2019s print, and this had potentially been the inspiration behind Sadahide\u2019s work. This use of a European source to depict Yokohama\u2019s harbour exposes again the lack of understanding and great uncertainty that Japanese locals and artists had towards these foreign nations and this new influx of trade and chaos. Dower emphasises how often different features of the woodblock prints were a \u2018departure from strict reality\u2019.6<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Overall, Sadahide\u2019s woodblock print is used by Dower to draw conclusions about the Yokohama local\u2019s impression and interactions with their new foreign counterparts and their attitude towards the new use of their previously quiet village. It is clear the locals viewed their foreign counterparts with caution and uncertainty, often relying on European sources or images to fill their lack of knowledge of the new concepts and people that now surrounded them.<\/p>\n

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  1. John W Dower, \u201cYokohama Boomtown, Foreign Community in Treaty Port Japan 1859-1872,\u2019\u201d MIT Visualising Cultures, 2008, https:\/\/visualizingcultures.mit.edu\/yokohama\/yb_essay01.html, 1. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  2. Ibid., 27. [↩<\/a>]<\/span> [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  3. Ibid., 25. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  4. Ibid. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  5. Jeremy E. Taylor, \u201cThe Bund: Littoral Space of Empire in the Treaty Ports of East Asia,\u201d Social History<\/em> 27, no. 2 (2002): pp. 125-142, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/03071020210128364, 137. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  6. Dower, Yokohama Boomtown<\/em>, 27. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Foreigners in Treaty-Port Japan (1859 \u2013 1872) In 1854, with the Treaty of Kanagawa, Japan\u2019s \u2018closed country\u2019 sakoku policy was replaced with an \u2018open country\u2019 kaikoku policy.1 This open era created new markets, new distribution routes and critically opened new Treaty Port towns. The most significant of these was the Treaty Port of Yokohama. Yokohama\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,67,18],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-japan","tag-postcards","tag-treaty-ports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions\/643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}