COMMODORE PERRY OPENS JAPAN TO THE WORLD
An Heroic Deed Without Bloodshed
THERE are victories of peace as well as of war. Of course, you do not need to be told that. Everybody knows it. And it often takes as much courage to win these victories as it does those of war. I am going now to tell you of one of the greatest victories ever won by an American naval hero, and without firing a gun.
Not far away from the great empire of China lies the island empire of Japan. Here the map shows us three or four large islands, but there are many hundreds of small ones, and in and out among them flow the smiling blue waters of the great Pacific Ocean.
The people of Japan, like the people of China, for a long time did not like foreigners and did not want anything to do with them. But that was the fault of the foreigners themselves. For at first these people were glad to have strangers come among them, and treated them kindly, and let missionaries land and try to make Christians of them. But the Christian teachers were not wise; for they interfered with the government as well as with the faith of the people.
The Japanese soon grew angry at this. In the end they drove all the strangers away and killed all the Christian converts they could find. Then laws were made to keep all foreigners out of the country. They let a Dutch ship come once a year to bring some foreign goods to the seaport of Nagasaki, but they treated these Dutch traders as if they were of no account. And thus it continued in Japan for nearly three hundred years.
The Japanese did not care much for the Dutch goods, but they liked to hear, now and then, what was going on in the world. Once a year they let some of the Dutch visit the capital, but these had to crawl up to the emperor on their hands and knees and crawl out backward like crabs. They must have wanted the Japanese trade badly to do that.
When a vessel happened to be wrecked on the coast of Japan, the sailors were held as prisoners and there was much trouble to get them off; and when Japanese were wrecked and sent home, no thanks were given. They were looked upon as no longer Japanese.
The Russians had seaports in Siberia, which made them near neighbors to Japan, so they tried to make friends with the Japanese. But the island people would have nothing to do with them. Captain Golownin, of the Russian navy, landed on one of the islands; but he was taken prisoner and kept for a long time and treated cruelly. That was the way things went in Japan till 1850 had come and passed.
It took the Yankees to do what the Dutch and the Russians had failed in doing. After the war with Mexico, thousands of Americans went to California and other parts of the Pacific coast, and trading ships grew numerous on that great ocean. It was felt to be time that Japan should be made to open her ports to the commerce of the nations, and the United States tried to do it.