Joseph Heco
Joseph Heco, originally named Hikozo Hamada, was born on September 20, 1837, in Japan. His life took a significant turn at the age of thirteen when he survived a shipwreck and was rescued by an American vessel, leading him to San Francisco in 1851. This occurred two years before Commodore Perry's arrival in Japan, positioning Heco at a unique intersection of American and Japanese history. In San Francisco, he developed language skills and cultural knowledge, which eventually led to his employment with local customs and an education opportunity in Baltimore. Notably, he became the first Japanese person to gain U.S. citizenship, a milestone event in American history.
Heco briefly worked for the U.S. Consul in Japan before returning to the United States multiple times, ultimately settling back in Japan in 1861. There, he engaged in various business ventures and founded the first Japanese-language newspaper, Kaigai Shimbun. He chronicled his experiences in two volumes of memoirs, providing insights into both American and Japanese cultures during a pivotal time. Heco passed away on December 12, 1897, and was laid to rest in Tokyo, reflecting his significant contributions and experiences bridging two worlds.
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Subject Terms
Joseph Heco
Japanese-born writer, journalist, and businessman
- Pronunciation: HEH-koh
- Born: September 20, 1837
- Birthplace: Komiya, Harima, Japan
- Died: December 12, 1897
- Place of death: Japan
Joseph Heco was one of the first Japanese people to gain cultural prominence in the United States. In 1858, he also became the first Japanese person to become a US citizen.
Birth name: Hikozo Hamada
Areas of achievement: Journalism, business
Early Life
Hikozo Hamada (later known as Joseph Heco) was born in the village of Komiya in the Harima province of Japan on September 20, 1837. After the death of his father and mother, he was placed in the care of his stepfather. In late October 1850, when he was thirteen years old, a ship on which he was traveling was severely crippled in a storm en route to Hyogo from Edo (now Tokyo). After fifty days adrift at sea, Hikozo Hamada and the others on board were rescued approximately five hundred miles off the coast of Japan by an American ship and taken to San Francisco, California, where they arrived in early 1851.
Although Americans at this time had some rudimentary knowledge of Japan, Hikozo Hamada’s arrival took place two years before Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s historic arrival in Japan. The rescued Japanese were therefore the subjects of considerable curiosity, both locally and in the nation’s capital. In the months that followed, Hikozo Hamada, by then known by the Anglicized version of his name, Heco, sought to gain as much knowledge of American life and culture as possible.
The Japanese remained in San Francisco until March 1852, when they were placed on a warship bound for Macao to join Commodore Perry’s expedition to Japan. However, there were delays in Macao, and Heco and two others parted company with the group and returned to San Francisco, arriving late in the year. This decision marked a turning point not only in Heco’s own life but also in American history.
Life’s Work
Following their return to San Francisco, Heco and his comrades found employment as shipyard workers. By June 1853, Heco’s language skills and other abilities brought him to the attention of the local customs collector Beverley C. Sanders, who offered him a job and an opportunity to further his education. Later in the year, Heco accompanied Sanders to his home in Baltimore, Maryland, and in the process, he visited both New York City and Washington, DC, where he met briefly with President Franklin Pierce. During his time in Baltimore, he attended school and, under the influence of Sanders’s wife, joined the Catholic Church, taking Joseph as his baptismal name.
In 1857, after returning to San Francisco three years earlier, Heco came to the attention of Senator William H. Gwin of California, who offered to take him to Washington and secure a job for him. Heco was introduced to both President James Buchanan and Secretary of State Lewis Cass. Although the employment failed to materialize, another opportunity soon presented itself when Heco was invited to join a naval surveying expedition to the Far East. Before leaving the Washington area, Heco applied for and received US citizenship, becoming the first Japanese person to receive this status.
By late July 1858, Heco was back in San Francisco and departed for Japan two months later. In Honolulu, Hawaii, however, he left the naval expedition and eventually managed to return to Japan on his own, arriving there in June of the following year. There, Heco worked briefly for the United States Consul in Kanagawa but soon left to go into private business in Yokohama. He remained in Japan until 1861, when the political instability of the period caused him to return to the United States for the last time. Arriving in San Francisco in October 1861, Heco again traveled to New York City and Washington, DC, in search of employment. In New York, he met the Swiss scientist Louis Agassiz, and he met Secretary of State William H. Seward in Washington. He also claimed in his later writings to have met President Abraham Lincoln, but there is reason to doubt that this meeting took place.
Disappointed by his lack of success in finding suitable work, Heco returned again to Japan, where he remained until his death in 1897. He engaged in a number of business activities and founded Kaigai Shimbun (Overseas Newspaper), the first Japanese-language newspaper. He also observed the turbulent Japanese political scene of the 1860s and 1870s. In 1892, he published the first volume of his memoirs, entitled The Narrative of a Japanese: What He Has Seen and the People He Has Met in the Course of the Last Forty Years. He published the second volume in 1895. He died on December 12, 1897, and due to his American citizenship, he was buried in the foreigners’ section of Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo.
Significance
During the ten years that Heco lived in the United States, he made several trips to the East Coast, visiting New York City, Washington, and Baltimore and meeting at least two US presidents. He also became the first Japanese person to gain US citizenship, a landmark event in US history. The first volume of his memoir, The Narrative of a Japanese, offers a full account of his experiences in and cultural observations of America.
Bibliography
Heco, Joseph. The Narrative of a Japanese: What He Has Seen and the People He Has Met in the Course of the Last Forty Years. San Francisco, 1892. Print. Heco’s two-volume account of his life until the late 1880s.
Hsu, Hsuan L. “Personality, Race, and Geopolitics in Joseph Heco’s Narrative of a Japanese.” Biography 29.2 (2006): 273–306. Print. An analysis of Heco’s memoirs from a literary and sociological perspective.
Oaks, Robert F. “Golden Gate Castaway: Joseph Heco and San Francisco, 1851–1859.” California History 82.2 (2004): 38+. Print. Offers a summary of Heco’s years in the United States.
Yoshimura, Akira. Storm Rider. Trans. Philip Gabriel. Boston: Harcourt, 2005. Print. A fictionalized account of Heco’s life written by a well-known Japanese author.