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Who Were the First Japanese to Visit Washington?

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(The following is a post by Eiichi Ito, reference specialist in the Asian Division.)

Book over
Front cover of “Meriken Kokai Nikki Ryakuzu,” [Japan, not before 1860], Japanese Rare Book Collection, Library of Congress, Asian Division.
Every year some 700,000 visitors come to Washington, D.C. to view the famous sakura, the cherry blossoms (a gift from the city of Tokyo in 1912), and to enjoy the events organized throughout the city as part of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Many among this large number of tourists are from Japan, as sakura-viewing is a much cherished Japanese tradition. Watching these visitors recently, I couldn’t help but wonder: who were the first Japanese visitors to Washington, D.C. and when did they come? In search for an answer, I turned to the Japanese rare book collection of over 5,500 items, housed in the Library’s Asian Division, and in that collection I found a unique item which could offer a clue.

It is a pictorial journal of the first Japanese delegation to the United States in 1860. What story does this item tell us?

 [Commodore Perry in Japan], Still image, [between 1850 and 1900], Prints and Photographs Collection, Library of Congress.
[Commodore Perry in Japan], Still image, [between 1850 and 1900], Prints and Photographs Collection, Library of Congress.
In 1854, under mounting Western pressure, Japan decided to abandon its two-hundred-year-old national seclusion policy when Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States Navy returned to Edo Bay (now Tokyo Bay). He had come a year earlier to deliver the United States President Millard Fillmore’s letter, requesting that Japan open its ports to American trade. Following Commodore Perry’s second visit, the two countries signed the Treaty of Peace and Amity, also known as the “Kanagawa Treaty,” in Kanagawa (now Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture) on March 31, 1854.

Townsend Harris, still image, Prints and Photographs Collection, Library of Congress
Townsend Harris, still image, Prints and Photographs Collection, Library of Congress

Subsequently, in 1858 Townsend Harris (1804-1878), the first U.S. Consul General to Japan, successfully negotiated The Treaty of Amity and Commerce, or the “Harris Treaty of 1858.” This was the first trade agreement between the two countries. It set a model for Japan’s similar agreements with other Western countries, including Britain, France, the Netherlands and Russia, all signed in 1858.

Ratification of the Harris Treaty in Washington resulted in the first Japanese diplomatic visit to Washington in 1860. Led by three principal Ambassadors to the U.S. — Masaoki Shinmi, Norimasa Muragaki and Tadamasa Oguri, the first Japanese delegation, after making stops in Hawaii, San Francisco and Panama, landed at the Washington Navy Yard on the Anacostia River on May 14, 1860. Subsequent to Washington, they also visited Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York before setting off the home-bound-voyage across the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. A member of this delegation most likely documented this visit in a journal with a series of sketches. By just looking at those illustrations, one can feel the curiosity and eagerness of the delegation to see and learn from everything they encountered.

Who did these illustrations? Unfortunately, there is no indication in the journal.

Washington, D. C. Washington Navy Yard. First Japanese Treaty Commission to the U. S., 1860. Prints and Photographs Collection, Library of Congress, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a20654. According to a journal by Ambassador Norimasa Muragaki, published in 1918 [https://lccn.loc.gov/86218476], this photo most likely was taken during the delegation’s visit to the Washington Navy Yard on May 24 or 25, not on May 14 when they first arrived. The delegation was invited to observe operations of the blast furnace and other facilities at the Navy Yard.
Washington, D. C. Washington Navy Yard. First Japanese Treaty Commission to the U. S., 1860. Prints and Photographs Collection, Library of Congress. According to a journal by Ambassador Norimasa Muragaki, published in 1918, this photo most likely was taken during the delegation’s visit to the Washington Navy Yard on May 24 or 25, not on May 14 when they first arrived. The delegation was invited to observe operations of the blast furnace and other facilities at the Navy Yard.
In November 2015, the Asian Division hosted a talk on this pictorial journal by Kristi B. Jamrisko, a Ph.D. student of art history at the University Maryland, College Park. Jamrisko believes that the sketches could be the work of Toshichi Sato, attendant to Ambassador Oguri. Sato’s diary, which contained drawings along with notes of records and impressions throughout the journey, had been kept privately until it was published in 2001 under the title, “Bakumatsu Kenbei Shisetsu Oguri Tadamasa Jusha No Kiroku: Nanushi Sato Toshichi No Sekai Isshu.” All the illustrations in the Library’s copy closely resemble those included in the published journal.

If the Library’s pictorial journal were truly the work of Sato, it could be a valuable record of the first visit of the Japanese delegation.

Illustrations - Washington
A guest room in the Willard Hotel in Washington, where the delegates stayed (left), and a view of the Capitol and the Washington Monument (right).
A bird’s-eye view of an avenue in New York City (left) and the Port of New York City (right).

Comments (2)

  1. The pictorial journal’s depiction of the Capitol dome shows its girders fully curved at the top, whereas in this photograph seemingly from from September 1860 (it is annotated “Sep 1860”) the construction clearly had not proceeded that far:
    http://coololdphotos.com/u-s-capitol-dome-being-built-in-1860/

    Unless that photograph has been misdated the journal would seem to record observations made rather later than May 1860.

  2. Thank you for the comment, Mr. Dillon. The editor of the book (2001) mentioned in the blogpost, Murakami Taiken, raised the similar point. The drawing of another copy (possibly the original in 1860?) published in the 2001 book shows the dome in construction, as captured in this photograph taken between 1860 and 1863 (https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3a01226/). I met Mr. Murakami in May at the Washington Navy Yard’s unveiling ceremony of the stone plaque commemorating the first Japanese delegation’s landing in 1860.

    According to Mr. Murakami, one possible explanation is that the copier of the LC’s journal saw a photograph or drawing of the completed dome at a later point, and then drew the complete dome. It is also possible that the copier himself never came to Washington or the U.S. in 1860 as a member of the delegation. Pointing to a drawing of the King and Queen of Hawaii in the LC’s journal, Mr. Murakami observes that the heels of their shoes are missing in the LC’s copy while the 2001 published version shows the heels. The Japanese people did not wear the Western style shoes with heels around 1860 in fact. The copier probably was not familiar with the Western style shoes with heels, and therefore missed them when copying/drawing, as the editor explained to me.

    The U.S. Capitol’s dome was constructed from 1855-1866 according to the Architect of the Capitol (http://aoc.gov/capitol-buildings/capitol-dome), and The Washington Monument was completed in 1884 according to the National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/wamo/learn/historyculture/index.htm). I think it is fair to say that the LC’s pictorial journal was copied/made sometime between 1866 and 1884 as the Washington Monument in the drawing was depicted still in construction.

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