Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun by Rhoda Blumberg

First published: 1985; illustrated

Subjects: Explorers, politics and law, and rulers

Type of work: Biography and history

Time of work: 1853-1858

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Shimoda and Hakodate, Japan

Principal Personages:

• Commodore Matthew Perry, a clever and aggressive naval officer determined to break the isolation of Japan
• Kayama, the principal Japanese conduit of negotiations between Commodore Perry and the ruling shogun
• Oliver Perry, the principal American conduit of negotiations
• The Shogun, the real authority in Japan during the Tokugawa Period
• Manjiro, a Japanese fisherman rescued from a desert island by Americans
• Emperor Meiji, the ruler who brought Japan from a feudal past into the modern industrial world

Form and Content

Rhoda Blumberg’s Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun follows the strategies, bluffs, and bullying of Commodore Matthew C. Perry as he arrived off the shores of Shimoda, Japan. He followed in the wake of several unsuccessful European and American attempts to open the feudal society to the outside world, and he was determined to succeed where others had failed; he never imagined that Japan had any right to remain as isolated as it wished. His first intent was to deliver a letter to the emperor from President Millard Fillmore, a letter that asked for ports to be opened to American ships so that they might obtain coal and provisions and for proper and humane treatment of any American sailors shipwrecked off the Japanese coast. After delivering the letter, Perry intended to sail away and return the next spring for his answer.

The arrival of Perry’s ship caused an uproar of fear and confusion in Japan. Mired in a feudal system that existed by maintaining things as they had been for a thousand years, the Japanese people saw the entrance of these foreigners as a potential disaster; by law, they were not allowed to speak with foreigners, and anyone who lived abroad and then returned to Japan was subject to execution. Perry, however, isolating himself so that he might appear as mysterious and remote as the emperor, threatened not only to land but also to march to Edo (modern Tokyo) in order to deliver the letter to the emperor personally. To indicate his adamant position, Perry began to send out survey crews to map the coast. Eager to avoid contact, the Japanese negotiator Kayama brought a letter from the emperor to Perry indicating that the letter from President Fillmore might be delivered to Japanese officials. On July 14, 1853, Americans landed on the sacred soil of Japan for the first time. Three days later, Perry sailed away.

At first, the Japanese people sought simply to refuse all contact, but when Perry arrived the next February with an even larger force, a Treaty House was established and negotiations began. On the one side, there was a solid reluctance to change what had been in place for a millennium; on the other side, there was a blustery, aggressive intent to force the contact. At first, one port was offered, but it would not be opened for five years; this condition Perry would not accept. Thus began a series of elaborate rituals between the Americans and Japanese. The Americans gave fascinating gifts: a miniature railroad, Samuel Morse’s new telegraph system, farm tools, a hose and folding ladder, and books. American clothing caused a special fascination. The Japanese gave rich gifts as well: scrolls, lacquer boxes and trays, silks, swords, and unusual seashells. The commodore, an amateur naturalist, was thrilled with the shells, but he did not perceive the fine quality of the Japanese gifts and was disappointed. Nevertheless, negotiations continued and delegations visited both the shore and the ships, culminating in a grand banquet on board the commodore’s ship.

The Treaty of Kanagawa was finished at the end of March, 1854, and it provided for more than Perry had hoped; it essentially opened up Japan to American trade, opened two ports, and provided for a residence in Shimoda for an American consul. Visits to the two port cities soon showed that cultural differences between them were vast. Although Perry had never entered the capital city, he believed that he had succeeded. It was diplomacy, and not cannons, that brought the two countries into close contact.

Told in a narrative style, Blumberg’s work is structured as a history. It follows closely the negotiations between the two cultures but stresses the narrative line until the end of the work, where Blumberg sets the notes that follow the peripheral stories of several of the minor personages and a series of appendices that translate the principal documents that were exchanged. Her afterword suggests the implications of Perry’s contact, as quite soon after the conclusion of the treaty Americans began to visit Japan and affect its once-isolated world.

This intermixture of cultures is effectively shown by the illustrations that Blumberg gathered. All of these are contemporary, some drawn by American witnesses; these illustrations tend to emphasize the stateliness and order of the American regiments and delegations, as well as the seeming oddity of Japanese ways. Most of the illustrations, however, are Japanese portraits of the American visitors, their Caucasian features exaggerated, their stances and eyes an uneasy mixture of Japanese and American features, their odd customs and behavior prominent. In trying to render this new culture, the Japanese have depicted it as “other,” yet alike as well—a metaphor for the first attempt at two cultures to understand each other.

Critical Context

Rhoda Blumberg’s work lies in the forefront of nonfiction writing in children’s literature. Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun was one of the first books to do effectively for historical studies what historical fiction had done for much of the twentieth century: use the novelist’s form, although without the novelist’s license, to describe and interpret a historical event. It began a series of such books for Blumberg, including The Incredible Journey of Lewis and Clark (1987), The Great American Gold Rush (1989), and The Remarkable Voyage of Captain Cook (1991). Each book is itself remarkable for its narrative handling of historical material and its sensitive and perceptive examination of the large cultural issues that lie behind a single historic moment. A work that combines text with contemporary illustration to produce both an aesthetically pleasing and informative book, Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun stands as one of the field’s best attempts to speak to young readers about complex cultural historic events.