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| 1837–53 |
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IEYOSHI as shogun. The question of opening the country to foreign trade in compliance with the demands of the Western nations became pressing. Sentiment in favor of an imperial restoration was slowly growing, and economic ills were impoverishing many warriors who became r nin (masterless samurai). | 1 |
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| 1838 |
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| Nakayama Miki (1798–1887), a woman, founded the faith-healing Tenri sect, the most popular of the modern religious sects. | 2 |
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| 1839–40 |
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| Conservative scholars, in an effort to check the rapid growth of Western learning, had restrictive measures instituted and imprisoned two leading scholars of Western learning (Rangaku, “Dutch Learning”) who favored the opening of Japan (See 1716–45), Watanabe Kazan (1793–1841) and Takano Chei (1804–50). Another scholar of Western learning, Sakuma Shzan (1811–64), engaged in a wide variety of scientific experimentation and was a student of Chinese philosophy as well; he coined the compromise phrase “Eastern morality and Western technology.” | 3 |
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| 1840 |
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| The bakufu ordered the Dutch to prepare a full report on the Opium War in China. | 4 |
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| 1844 |
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| King William II of Holland warned the shogun by letter of the futility of the seclusion policy. | 5 |
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| 1846, July |
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| U.S. commodore James Biddle visited Edo Bay, but trade was refused him. | 6 |
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| 1849 |
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| Commodore James Glynn succeeded in liberating U.S. castaways held at Nagasaki. | 7 |
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| 1851, June |
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| U.S. commodore John H. Aulick was commissioned to open relations with Japan but was removed from his command (Nov.); Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1794–1858) was appointed as his successor (March 1852). The Perry expedition was sent on a generally peaceful mission to improve treatment in Japan of U.S. castaways and to open one or two ports for trade and supplies, especially coal for the California-Shanghai steamship service. | 8 |
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| 1853, July 8 |
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| PERRY, with four ships, anchored off Uraga in Edo Bay and remained for ten days, delivering a letter from the U.S. president, which was referred to the emperor and the feudal lords. This unprecedented course of action aroused the nation and elicited, for the most part, an antiforeign response. | 9 |
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| 1853–58 |
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| IESADA as shogun. During these years, the feudal domains increasingly criticized the actions of the shogunate in Edo, and the public became effectively divided into two camps: those in favor of the expulsion of the foreigners (ji), led by Tokugawa Nariaki (1800–60), ex-lord of Mito domain and a devotee of the imperial institution; and those who saw that concessions to the foreigners were necessary to avoid destructive war, led by Ii Naosuke (1815–60), a high bakufu official. The two groups also diverged over proposed heirs to the childless Iesada. Naosuke favored Tokugawa Iemochi (1858–66), lord of Kii; Nariaki favored his own son, Hitotsubashi Keiki (Yoshinobu, r. 1866–67), and resorted to the unprecedented stratagem of seeking imperial backing for his candidate. | 10 |
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| 1854, Feb. 13 |
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| Perry returned as promised to Edo Bay with more ships, hastened by fear of Russian and French efforts to acquire treaties, and secured the Treaty of Kanagawa (March 31), which opened two ports, permitted trade under regulations, provided better treatment of U.S. castaways, and included a most-favored-nation clause but omitted extraterritoriality. This was followed by treaties with Great Britain (Oct. 1854), Russia (Feb. 1855), and Holland (Nov. 1855, Jan. 1856), which gave further privileges. Japan was not yet, though, really open to trade. These treaties were all signed by the shogun (often called by foreigners tycoon (taikun), based on one of his titles, and incorrectly regarded by them as the “secular emperor”). | 11 |
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| 1854–55 |
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| The Dutch aided the Japanese in laying the foundations for a future navy. | 12 |
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