THE TREATY HOUSE was completed on March 8, 1854. From his ship Perry could see that the building was surrounded by cloth screens. This upset him, and he remarked that the enclosure reminded him of a prison yard. He immediately sent an officer ashore to demand that the screens be removed. They were hastily folded up and taken away, much to the amusement of the crew, who laughed at the “cloth fortifications.” In reality, these screens displayed the coat of arms of the local daimyo and were intended as decorations.
Five Japanese commissioners were at the Treaty House ready to start the talks. Crowds had kowtowed on their hands and knees, noses touching the dirt in order to honor the arrival of these officials.
A group of colorfully costumed samurai and their underlings were stationed at the entrance of the Treaty House. Lieutenant George Preble described them in a letter to his wife: “The retainers of the great chief in their heraldic dresses bring one back to the feudal ages. I saw the retainers of one chief yesterday wearing cloaks with broad red and white stripes with a blue patch on the shoulder so that they looked not unlike a walking regiment of American flags. The retainers of another chief wore cloaks with blue and white checks, six inches square—walking chessboards.”1
OVERLEAF: Americans landing at Yokohama, March 8, 1854.
reproduced from the collections of the Library of Congress
Some 500 American seamen and marines and 3 ships’ bands proceeded to shore in 27 boats. Perry took no chances. All men, even the musicians, were armed with swords and pistols.
Entering the Treaty House.
reproduced from the collections of the Library of Congress
When they landed, they formed two lines, marines on the left and seamen on the right. Officers waited on the wharf to greet the Commodore and upon his arrival they escorted him to the Treaty House as bands played “The Star Spangled Banner.” The music, the splendor of the officers’ full-dress uniforms, and the precision of their parade made an imposing show. As a climax, Perry arranged a 21-gun salute in honor of the Emperor, then a 17-gun salute in honor of the Japanese dignitaries. As a further compliment, a three-striped Tokugawa flag was hoisted to the masthead of the U.S.S. Powhatan.
The Treaty House was made of unpainted white pine and had paper windows. It was adorned with colorful tassels and streamers. Despite these decorations, Lieutenant Preble wrote that the building looked like a coal shed. There were magnificent temples that could have been used for the meeting. But the Japanese were not about to taint their sacred structures with foreign devils. And besides, the Commodore had insisted upon a location on flat land within cannonshot of his ships. A farmer’s wheat field had been chosen for the site.
Japanese officials escorted Commodore Perry, his son, Oliver, Commander Adams, and interpreters Samuel Williams and AntÓn Portman into the building. The American and Japanese delegates were seated on benches facing each other. Tiny cups of tea, candies, and small pipes of tobacco were passed around.
A rough sketch by William Speiden, Jr., purser of the Mississippi, shows the meeting in the private audience room with the Americans seated left and the Japanese seated right.
reproduced from the collections of the Library of Congress
Chief interpreter Yenosuke started the talks. He kept bowing, crouching, and crawling back and forth between the commissioners and the Commodore in order to converse with them. Interpreter Williams found Yenosuke’s groveling “repulsive,” and wondered, “…what respect can a man have for himself in such a position?”2 He could not realize that Yenosuke was conducting himself according to the proper etiquette of his people. Greatly respected as a scholar, Yenosuke had been summoned from Nagasaki, where he had learned to speak fluent Dutch. He also learned a smattering of English from shipwrecked American sailors who had been held in Nagasaki.
Communicating was time-consuming and difficult. Perry spoke to interpreter Portman who spoke Dutch to Yenosuke who crept across the room to translate the conversation into Japanese. Then the reverse procedure took place.
Interpreter Samuel Williams
courtesy of the Chrysler Museum
Interpreter Williams’s services were not needed at this time, for he was Perry’s expert in the Chinese language. Williams wandered outside the Treaty House where he was kept busy autographing samurai’s fans, using Chinese characters. Williams did not use Western letters because the Japanese could not make head or tail of our side-winding script. (Our handwriting looked like messy scribbles. Their calligraphy, on the other hand, reminded sailors of the clawprints of chickens that had walked across paper.)
The Commodore
courtesy of the Chrysler Museum
A long scroll was handed to Perry. This proved to be a reply to President Fillmore’s letter that had been delivered the previous July. The scroll, which addressed the Commodore as “Ambassador,” was to “His Majesty the President.” It stated that answering all the Americans’ requests was “positively forbidden by the laws of our Imperial Ancestors.” But it agreed to supply American ships with coal, wood, water, and other provisions. The document even mentioned that Japan was willing to open up one harbor—but not for about five years. It also stated that shipwrecked seamen would be treated well. (See Appendix B.)
Hayashi, a professor from Edo University who acted as chief commissioner, commented that his government would not open the country for foreign trade. At this time, Perry was not concerned about establishing trade relations. He was more interested in emphasizing the plight of shipwrecked sailors. He warned that if castaways continued to be treated cruelly there could be war. Hayashi declared that Perry’s information about Japan’s behavior toward foreign prisoners was false. He told the Commodore that Americans could be inhumane. They slaughtered thousands of people on the battlefield. The Japanese, by contrast, had not waged war for almost three centuries. Therefore, Japan placed a higher value on human life than America did.
This gave Perry pause for thought. It is possible that at this time he recalled reading about the ritual suicides that seemed to make life cheap. Along with samurai and soldiers, patriots protesting government policy, officials who made mistakes, people who could not pay their debts, students who failed, and lovers who could not marry gained honor through ritualized self-destruction.
Although suicide was repugnant to him, Perry had paid tribute to a self-sacrifice that would have been laughable from a Japanese point of view. In 1853, when Perry was on his way to Japan, he made a stop at Mauritius, an island in the Pacific near Madagascar. He and his officers visited a monument in honor of a lady and her husband-to-be who went down with a ship that sank in 1744. The woman could have saved herself by removing some of her voluminous clothing in order to swim to the nearby shore. But she refused out of modesty. Her fiancé chose to stay by her side, and they drowned together. Modesty, honor, self-destruction! On Mauritius, these values seemed romantic to Perry.
But during his talks with Commissioner Hayashi, the Commodore was in no mood to engage in a conversation about the value of human life. Negotiating a treaty was uppermost in his mind. He told Hayashi that if this could not be accomplished, the United States would probably send more ships, but he hoped that everything would be settled in a friendly manner.
Perry remarked that a treaty similar to the one made between the United States and China would be satisfactory. This treaty opened ports and guaranteed special privileges for Americans. The Chinese treaty and two notes from Commodore Perry were left for the commissioners to study.