When was japan discovered by europeans

Still, in addition to providing for distressed American ships in Japanese waters, it contained a most-favored-nation clause, so that all future concessions Japan granted to other foreign powers would also be granted to the United States.

The first U. Ultimately, Japanese officials learned of how the British used military action to compel the opening to China, and decided that it was better to open its doors willingly than to be forced to do so. The United States and Japan signed their first true commercial treaty, sometimes called the Harris Treaty, in The European powers soon followed the U. Japan sent its first mission to the West in , when Japanese delegates journeyed to the United States to exchange the ratified Harris Treaty.

Although Japan opened its ports to modern trade only reluctantly, once it did, it took advantage of the new access to modern technological developments. At the same time, the process by which the United States and the Western powers forced Japan into modern commercial intercourse, along with other internal factors, weakened the position of the Tokugawa Shogunate to the point that the shogun fell from power.

The Emperor gained formal control of the country in the Meiji Restoration of , with long-term effects for the rule and modernization of Japan. Menu Menu. Milestones: — For more information, please see the full notice. The United States and the Opening to Japan, On July 8, , American Commodore Matthew Perry led his four ships into the harbor at Tokyo Bay , seeking to re-establish for the first time in over years regular trade and discourse between Japan and the western world.

Commodore Matthew Perry. Townsend Harris. In the Edo Period the Satsuma domain — now Kagoshima — had to deal with foreign vessels sailing close to the region. The Satsuma clan not coincidently was instrumental in the Meiji restoration , which brought an end to samurai culture and introduced Western thought to Japan. The Liefde was last ship left afloat from a five ship convoy that left from Holland two years earlier. The restrained, rational, businesslike and humanist approach of the Dutch was more to the liking of Japanese than the fanatically religious and greedy approach of Spanish and Portuguese.

A Dutch trading post was set up on Hirado Island of Kyushu in From to the Dutch were the only foreigners allowed to trade with Japan. The Dutch at first traded from Hirado and then moved to Deshima, a acre island in the harbor of Nagasaki, in Deshima was a tiny, man-made, fan-shape island in Nagasaki Bay that was about twice the size of a football field.

Here the Dutch traded sugar, spices, sharkskin and sappanwood from Southeast Asia and wool and exotic items like "unicorn tusks" narwhal tusks from Europe for camphor, ceramics and lacquerware from Japan. At that time Nagasaki was an important trade center between Japan and Portugal and the Jesuits established a headquarters there. As was the case with early Buddhist sects, Christianity spread quickly because of political unrest, weak government and lack of central authority.

By , the number of Christians reached , and peaked in the s, when as many as , Japanese, or 10 percent of the population were born in Christian families or had converted to Christianity.

The Portuguese brought primitive muskets called harquebuses. Before the Portuguese arrived, the Japanese had never seen muskets or any other kind of firearm.

After witnessing their power, some daimyo immediately ordered their smiths to copy the Portuguese weapons. The first muskets weren't very well made. Many blew up when they were fired. But the Japanese quickly mastered the technology. Within 30 years the Japanese armies carried more guns than any other armies in the world. Firearms and Christianity complicated the already complicated feudal war between the daimyos.

One daimyo, Oda Nobunaga organized his army into European-style ranks and equipped them with muskets, temporarily de-ritualizing the traditional method of fighting, and blew away his rivals army in a "torrent of fire" in the decisive battle of Nagashino in Page Top.

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If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. If you are the copyright owner and would like this content removed from factsanddetails. By the early s there were an estimated , Japanese Christians. At that time the Imperial Regent of Japan, Toyotomi Hideoshi — 98 , began to sense that an allegiance to God would threaten his own authority and so issued a decree in expelling all Christians.

This edict was never carried out but persecutions and executions of Christians occurred under the later rule of Tokugawa Ieyasu — and his successors. Following a failed Christian uprising in — 38, all Japanese Christians were forced to renounce their religion or be executed.

From , under the sakoku 'closed country' policy all Portuguese were forbidden from entering the country. The Portuguese weren't the only Europeans to establish trade in Japan.

Following the expulsion of the Portuguese in , the Dutch became the only Europeans allowed to remain in Japan. They were forced to move to Dejima, a tiny artificial island in Nagasaki Bay, where they were kept under close scrutiny.

The principal purpose of trade with Japan was to obtain gold, silver and copper, of which the country had valuable deposits. However, the luxury goods produced by Japan's craftsmen also had immediate appeal and soon became a significant part of the goods that were transported back to Europe.

Lacquer was virtually unknown in the West at this time, and the Portuguese, marvelling at its lustre and decorative potential, began to commission lacquer objects designed to appeal to the European market. By Japanese standards, nanban lacquer lacquerware intended for the European market was made with comparatively little time and care.

There are examples though of high-quality objects that were made for the Dutch during the s and early s, such as a document box made for Anton van Diemen, Governor General of the Dutch East Indies from to This piece is distinguished by the use of complex and elaborate lacquer techniques and a decorative theme derived from Japanese classical literature. Lacquer though was always secondary in importance to porcelain.

First made in Japan in and around the town of Arita, in the northern part of Kyushu, in the early 17th century, porcelain differed greatly from ceramics previously made in Japan. Both the use of the material and the way it was decorated owed much to the influence of China and Korea. By the s Dutch traders in Japan were ordering tens of thousands of pieces a year. The decoration on Japanese blue-and-white export porcelain of the 17th century closely followed Chinese models, with some pieces also incorporating the initials VOC, the monogram of the Dutch East India Company.

Shapes were often European in form, the tankard being the most popular.