How the Japanese of the Edo
Period
Perceived the Ogasawara
Islands[1]
Tanaka Hiroyuki (Komazawa University)
translation and annotations by Stephen Wright Horn
1. FOREWORD
Because the country of Japan is surrounded on all four sides by the sea, without a land border, the Japanese had no occasion for concern about borders with other countries, nor for territorial questions, until Russiafs approaches on the land of Ezo (later renamed Hokkaido) in the late 18th century. Accordingly it may be imagined that the Japanese people of that age had but a faint awareness of territory as an international issue. It is in this light that we ask how the people of Edo-period Japan perceived the Bonin Islands (the deserted islands that were to become the Ogasawaras)[2] discovered in the late 17th century.
The Bonin Islands were discovered in the tenth year of the Kanbun Era[3] (1670) when a ship carrying oranges from Ki-shuu to Edo was blown off course and drifted ashore there.[4] Five years later, in 1675 (Enpou 3), Shimaya Ichizaemon[5] explored them under orders from the shogunate, and they were confirmed as a territory of Japan.[6] After this, however, the islands were left virtually abandoned for over 180 years until after the opening of relations with the West, when the feudal government dispatched a repossession party with foreign magistrate Mizuno Chikugo no Kami Tadanori at its head in the twelfth month of the first year of the Bunkyuu Era (January 1862). Nevertheless, the deep interest that private citizens showed for the Bonin Islands did not abate throughout the Edo period. Down the ages, both sides shifted positions to match the times, the feudal government actually seeming as if it would rather distance itself from the islands at points, while a part of the general public held an avid interest for them standing in contrast to such a position. These changes give us a glimpse of the way that Japanese people perceived their frontier territories in the Edo period.
2. RUMORS OF AN
ISLAND PARADISE
After a ship laden with oranges washed ashore on a deserted island in the tenth year of the Kanbun Era, news of the discovery of fertile islands with a warm climate far to the south of Izu was written up as an item in the Yuuken Shouroku (gReports from the Couriersf Coachesh).[7] It seems to have been considered news of great moment at the time.
In the years following Shimayafs crossing to the islands in 1675 (Enpou 3), it was almost as if these deserted islands had been forgotten, but in 1727 (Kyouhou 12), a masterless samurai calling himself Ogasawara Kunai Sadatou made a petition to the feudal government for passage to the islands on the claim that he had an ancestor from the ruling family of Shinshuu Fukashi Castle,[8] that this ancestorfs name was Ogasawara Sadayori,[9] and that Sadayori had discovered the deserted islands in 1593 (Bunroku 2). This petition for passage was initially granted, but eight years later in the year Kyouhou 20 (1735) the claim that there was someone named Ogasawara Sadayori who had discovered the Bonin Islands was exposed as having no basis in fact,[10] and its author, Sadatou, was put into strict exile.[11]
Incidentally, while Sadatou recorded not a few groundless imaginings in his Tatsumi Bunin Tou Sojou narabi ni Koujou Tomegaki (gDictated Petition for the Deserted Islands to the Southeasth), which he submitted to the magistratefs office, the following description of the islandsf dimensions is a particularly noteworthy example.
Item. Chichi Jima: 26 ri in width, 90 ri in length.
Item. Haha Jima: 10 ri in width, 27 ri in length.[12]
Sadatou notwithstanding, when we look at the actual size of the islands, even the largest of them (Chichi Jima) has a width of about 5 kilometers (1 ri plus) and a length of 9 kilometers (2 ri plus) to give an area of 23.8 square kilometers, no more than one fourth the area of Izu Ooshimafs 91 square kilometers. Haha Jima is roughly 4 kilometers (about 1 ri) at its widest, with a length of 12 kilometers (3 ri plus). It can be seen that the Chichi Jima of Sadatoufs description would be as large as Taiwan. In addition to this he describes many other fanciful items, such as the availability of gold dust.
Judging from the numerous popular articles about the Bonin Islands which appeared after Sadatoufs claim and which apparently draw from a common source, it seems that the gDictated Petition for the Deserted Islands to the Southeasth and the other falsified documents that Sadatou left behind were later copied and widely circulated. One such example can be seen in the map in Figure 1.
Figure 1. One of the maps based on that by Shimaya Ichizaemon (Tanaka Archives).
In 1752 (Houreki 2), Mori Kinsai (Kouan) drew the Ogasawara Tou Chizu Ichimei Bunin Tou (gMap of the Ogasawara Islands, alias the Bonin Islandsh; 78cm by 104cm, kept in the Japanese National Library of Public Documents, Cabinet Archives).[13] In this map (Figure 2) there is a rather extensive explanation of the history of the islands and the products found there, but the information closely follows the falsified documents that the masterless samurai Sadatou trumped up 25 years earlier.
According to this map, the position of Chichi Jima is gat a point where the North Star is somewhat greater than 32 and one half degrees up from the ground,h which puts it on the same latitude as Aogashima, to the south of Hachijou Jima. On top of this, Chichi Jimafs size is quoted to be g30 ri in length and more than 100 ri in circumference, with an area the size of the province of Oomi.h[14] Haha Jima is given an area comparable to the province of Wakasa, while Ani Jima is said to be as large as Awaji Shima. In each case the area is exaggerated to an extreme. Moreover, while it is only natural that the shapes attributed to the islands on the map should differ from their actual forms, they also conflict with the maps that Shimaya brought back in 1675 (Enpou 3). From this it may be understood that they are the products of imagination. Furthermore, descriptions recorded on the map claim that gfur seals are present in the seas throughout the islands.h There are other such claims that would be impossible on a tropical island.
Figure 2. Mori Kinsai (1752) Map of the Ogasawara Islands, alias the Bonin Islands. (Japanese National Library of Public Documents).
The appearance of such a map as this can be taken to indicate that the fanciful image of deserted islands fabricated by a masterless samurai named Sadatou had, in less than thirty years, come to assume the status of established fact.
In the third month of the third year of the Anfei era (1774), two men holding easements in Hachijou Jima (named Hattori Genroku and Yamashita Yoshifusa), set off for the Bonin Islands on a survey expedition under orders from the feudal government, but when they reached the vicinity they met with a typhoon which blew them all the way back to the waters near Tosa. The expedition ended in failure.[15]
In the Edo period Hachijou Jima was frequently visited by famine, but the great crop failure of 1766 (Meiwa 3), which is said to have been the worst blow to the inhabitants since the opening of the island to settlement, was soon followed by other famines in 1768 (Meiwa 5) and 1773 (Anfei 2).[16] This gives reason to suspect that the survey expedition was attempted for the purpose of gdebyakushou,h (exploitation and relocation).[17]
It is said that, along with the Inba Swamp Development debacle, one of the things that led to Tanuma Okitsugufs dismissal from the Shogunfs Council of Elders in 1786 (Tenmei 6) was his handling of the Bonin Islands.[18] Although the truth of this claim is uncertain, given the fact that the Tanuma administration was actively pursuing policies for the development of lands in Ezo (Hokkaido) and the swamp in Inba, the possibility that plans for the development of the Bonin Islands were also made is conceivable.
The first printed book about the Bonin Islands to be written in Japan was the Sangoku Tsuurann Zusetu (gIllustrated General Survey of Three Countriesh), which Hayashi Shihei put to press in 1785 (Tenmei 5).[19] The gthree countriesh referred to are Ezo (Hokkaido), Chousen (the Korean peninsula), and Ryukyu (present-day Okinawa Prefecture). The text was intended to raise peoplefs awareness about the geography surrounding Japan, and in it Shihei warns against Russiafs southward encroachment, and encourages the development of land in Ezo. His inclusion of discussion about the Bonin Islands in his study of the three countries was apparently prompted when he heard a Hollanderfs views on colonization during his studies in Nagasaki in 1777 (Anfei 6). It is said that this is what led him to emphasize the importance of the Bonin Islands as he did. In the opening lines of his gIllustrated General Surveyh he states the following:
Although the actual name of these islands is the Ogasawara Islands, they are commonly called the gBunin Islands,h which name indicates that they are unpeopled (bunin). The reason why they are named the Ogasawara Islands is that in olden times a certain person named Ogasawara found these islands, brought back maps of them, and the name stuck.[20]
This passage forwards the claim that some Ogasawara Sadayori discovered the Bonin Islands, the very same claim as that given by the man who falsely assumed the name of Ogasawara and was subsequently exiled: Ogasawara Kunai Sadatou. It is likely that Shihei took as his source a copy of the Tatsumi Bunin Tou-ki (gChronicle of Deserted Islands to the Southeasth)[21] concocted by Sadatou.
In his gIllustrated General Survey,h Shihei states that gthe Bonin Islands are 370 ri to the southeast of Izu,h and he itemizes the geographical features and natural resources of the islands, emphasizing that useful products can be had there in abundance. These items are said to have as their source the records of the 1675 (Enpou 3) expedition by Shimaya. However, in the following descriptions can be seen imaginative exaggerations bearing no relation to Shimayafs records.
All of the ten islands have harbors and flat lands suitable for dwellings and the cultivation of grains. In addition, because of the warm climate of the surroundings, unusual things can also be grown. . . . Once people are introduced to the island and trees are cultivated, and when villages are built and forestry and fishery are developed to the point where a productive province has been built up,[22] a packet should be built to cross over to the island once a year for collecting the things produced. One passage should be enough to make up the shipbuilding costs. Because there is no way for regular merchants to know of these things, I write this for the sake of later business. It is to be hoped that merchants who are interested in new things will rise to the occasion, and if only such enterprises are developed, we could behold a myriad of advantages before our very eyes. Every effort should be made.[23]
This section is a rather optimistic appeal for development, but it is conceivable that thanks to such urging, a hitherto attractive though vague image of a desert island assumed an even greater aura of reality. Incidentally, when Shihei was punished on the grounds of criticizing the feudal government in 1792 (Kansei 4), the publication of the gIllustrated General Survey of Three Countriesh was suppressed along with that of his Kaikoku Heidan (gArguments for an Armed Maritime Nationh).
In spite of this, even into the nineteenth century this deserted islandfs image with its dash of fiction did not wane. In the Kasshi Yawa (gTales from the (1st) Day of the Shining Wood and the Rath), thought to be written in the Bunsei Era (1818-1830), there is included a curious story about Japanese living in hiding on an island off the coast of Izu which seems to be one of the Ogasawaras.
This is a story told by a certain person who was able to hear in detail an account from a man who had recently come back after being marooned for several years on a deserted island off the coast of Izu. According to the story, about 50 or 60 ri to the east of the deserted island there is yet another island. When the man sailed out to that area and looked around, he found that island. Not only were there signs of people living there, but when seen from afar, they appeared to be Japanese. When he drew the ship nearer, they beckoned to him, and so he went ashore and questioned them to find that the name of the place was Meppou Island. The people have recently moved to the island to live, but there is no need to pay tribute to Japan. The grain grows well every year and there is no want of food. Gardens have been dug, and cotton and flax are planted, and there is no lack of these for clothing. While fish and birds go without mention, there are also grasses and trees in plenty, and people build dwellings here and there as they please and all are providing for their wives and children. It seems the man said that when he asked them since what year and season they had been living there, they answered that they had come quite recently from a certain village near the town of Choushi in Jou-shuu Province, where in the space of one night the villagers came to a decision, put out ships and came to the island, taking everyone along. While there is no one owner of the islands, the first person who sees a parcel of land can say that he has taken ownership of it, if he but comes back and informs those around him beforehand. When the man went home and spoke of this, around that same time (It seems he says it was about twenty years or more ago) there was indeed an occurrence at Choushi near the coast where the dwellings and people of one whole village disappeared overnight without a trace, down to the last man and woman. The townspeople of Choushi insist that this is the place. gWhen I asked persistently about the name of that village, it seemed that there are people who know, but I asked no further. Those villagers at the island call their home Meppou Island, but it seems that this is merely a name that they gave it.h[24]
No Japanese had made passage to the Ogasawara Islands since Shimayafs expedition at the end of the 17th century, so there was no recourse but to imagine what they were like. In this way such fictions went on escalating, and it is not hard to imagine the furtive whispers of people exchanging stories about this island paradise to which Japanese had escaped and where they were living with no rulers and no tribute to pay.
3. THWARTED PLANS
As the 19th century began and the appearance of foreign ships in the waters surrounding Japan became more frequent, Maritime Defense Edicts urging caution against these intruding vessels were issued from time to time. Diplomatic tensions would increase every time a foreign ship appeared without warning in the ports of Ezo or Nagasaki. It was around this time that, among those versed in gDutch studiesh[25] there appeared individuals who were not only taking greater interest in the West itself, but also who were looking to the Bonin Islands as being, geographically, a likely place to make contact with foreign countries.
In the Bunsei Era (1818-1830), Satou Nobuhiro wrote the following passage in his Kondou Hisaku (gPlan for Assimilation and Conquesth), a fanciful work outlining strategies for domination overseas:
Putting out still further from Aogashima, one will find the so-called Ogasawara Islands, the deserted islands of the southern seas. To the south of these islands are the Ladrones Islands[26] and the gPilipinah Islands. In effect, there are one hundred islands big and small, scattered throughout the seas in an area stretching east to west for five or six hundred ri. As for the exploitation of the gPilipinah Islands . . . [27]
The starting point taken in this work is the development of the Bonin Islands, but in it the reality of the gclosed countryh policy is turned inside out. It should be put down as a pipe-dream of overseas expansion based on an understanding of the world outside Japan that is no better than a childfs.
Sometime in the Tenpou Era (1830-1844), a chief retainer for the Tahara fief named Watanabe Kazan[28] developed a strong interest in making the passage to the Bonin Islands. Although he was not a specialist in gDutch studiesh himself, from childhood Kazan did maintain close relationships with friends who were, while he pursued his own studies of Western history and geography through works in translation. Gradually, Kazanfs interest in the organization of Western politics and society increased, and when he had grasped the virtues of Western political systems, he began to take a critical view of the reality of Japan under the feudal system. In particular he began to feel doubts about the gclosed countryh system and the policy of driving away foreign ships.
Kazan had seen through to the truth of the matter: The Maritime Defense Edicts and the practice of fending off alien vessels were not for the sake of the nationfs defense, but were merely a move for self-preservation by the feudal government wishing to maintain its gclosed countryh policy. Secretly, Kazan thought that the gclosed countryh policy should be changed, and suspected that it was the continuation of these very policies of keeping the country closed and of driving away foreign ships which would provide the excuse the West needed for invasion. However, as far as the shogunate was concerned, any plea for opening up foreign relations was seditious thinking, so Kazan had to be cautious in what he said and did.
It was for this reason that, much against his own inclinations, Kazan assumed the voice of a conservative proponent of Maritime Defense, so whenever in public he would stress the need for guarding the coast.[29] Ironically enough, he played out this routine to the point of being singled out from among the chief retainers and praised as an outstandingly earnest proponent of maritime defense by Tokugawa Nariaki, who was the lord of Mito fief [30] and arguably the greatest voice for anti-alienism of the age.[31] But of course Kazan put up this guise as his camouflage, while his real wish was to see the opening of Japan to foreign relations and free exchange with the West.[32]
In his Gaikoku Jijou-sho (gState of Affairs Overseash), Kazan wrote the following about the Bonin Islands:
It seems that the British found islands in Japanfs adjacent seas, and have tarried there. This rumor came to me from an account by a Hollander named Wolf who came here the year before last in 1837 (Tenpou 8).[33]
The Hollander was one J.W. Wolf, a trader at the Dutch gfactoryh (or trading outpost) at Dejima who had indeed come to Japan in 1837. It is conceivable that the gislands in Japanfs adjacent seash are the Bonin Islands (the Ogasawara Islands), and that the passage refers to the Europeans and Americans who left Honolulu to form a colony there in 1830 (Tenpou 1).
By all accounts Kazan was already privy to the fact that Westerners had settled on the islands, but he wasnft alone in this. Apparently this was common knowledge among the interpreters of Dutch in Nagasaki as well. Some years later in 1853 (Kaei 6), when Putyatinfs[34] fleet entered the port of Nagasaki via the Ogasawaras, the novelist Goncharov, who was aboard the flagship Pallada acting as secretary to the admiral, described in the following way a conversation with interpreters who came aboard the flagship just after it entered the harbor.
The Japanese whispered their impressions to each other in their language full of vowels, with expressions of satisfaction and wonder on their faces. Several among them, and particularly young Narabayashi the interpreter. . . were young men of twenty-five or so who speak some English. Narabayashi sighed and confessed to me how impressed he was with everything he saw on board, and how much he would like to travel as a European or a Russian, to any place at all, or at the very least to see the Ogasawaras.[35]
Ever since he was young, the intellectually curious Kazan had also longed to see the West, to deepen his knowledge of things occidental. In the twelfth month of Tenpou 8 (late 1837 or early 1838), Kazan heard a rumor that Secretary and Chief Magistrate Hagura Geki Mochihisa[36] would be sent under orders of the shogunate on an inspection tour of the Bonin Islands, and Kazan submitted a request to the Tahara fief for leave of absence from his post so that he might accompany the expedition.
In the understanding that the honorable Hagura Geki is to update certain maps of Hachijou Jimafs Aogashima and the other deserted islands found among the islands of Izu, and having been interested in this great enterprise for an accumulation of years, I respectfully request that the everlasting honor of being ordered to make passage be bestowed upon me as well.[37]
Kazan does not specify his reasons for making the journey in the petition he submitted. It has been generally assumed that he wanted to go to the Bonin Islands for the sake of maritime defense. However, an island group as far removed from mainland Japan as the Bonin Islands are had little to do with maritime defense. What is more, it is difficult to imagine that Kazan, who was secretly opposed to maritime defense policies, would wish to make such a journey for the sake of furthering them.
In a separate statement attached to his
petition to the Tahara fief, Kazan writes the following:
As I am entrusted with an important office, to resign lightly casts doubts on my merit, but even so, while remembering that my duty to your noble family and my duty to my country are one and the same, I have made my decision, although I fear that in this I do something unworthy. . . . Even if I die on the way, if it be considered that I die for my country, I dare submit that this would not conflict with the wishes of you, my immediate superiors. Please consider that it is with a resolve as firm as to forsake my own mother that I humbly request you to bestow your benevolent blessing upon me.[38]
Kazan was apparently at quite a loss for a justification of his request, as can be seen from his overzealousness and the hollow and exaggerated expressions to which he resorts. Might it not be the case that Kazan, who already knew that there were Westerners living on the Bonin Islands, thought that by taking part in Hagurafs inspection tour he would have a chance to meet them on their own ground and learn of their ways of life? We see the same impulse in Narabayashi, the Nagasaki interpreter.
Whatever the case, in spite of Kazanfs earnest requests, Tahara fief withheld permission, issuing the following decision: gThat someone engaged in a position as senior statesman should submit a petition such as that above is an unthinkable act of indiscretion.h And, for some reason or other, Hagurafs inspection tour was never undertaken.
Around the same time there was another group in Edo planning a passage to the Bonin Islands. The central figures in the group were the head priest of the temple Muryouju-ji in Jou-shuu, Kashima-gun, Tori no Su-mura (present-day Hokota-chou in Ibaraki Prefecture), named Junsen and his son Jundou. Also in league with them were the trustee of the gYamaguchi-yah (an inn in Edo were the two regularly stayed) named Kinjirou, a low-ranking samurai named Saitou Jiroubee, and an artisan in gilded lacquer-work named Yamazaki Hidesaburou. Junsen submitted an intra-fiefdom petition for passage to the Bonin Islands to the Mito fief, but at that level it was rejected as being a matter for the shogunate to decide. Junsen began in turn to prepare to petition the feudal government for passage. It can be seen that Junsenfs group was pursuing plans for passage to the Bonin Islands according to the dictates of the law.
Meanwhile, on the fourteenth day of the fifth month of the tenth year of the Tenpou era (1839), Kazan received a summons to appear at the magistratefs office in Kitamachi and was imprisoned on the spot. Members of the group planning passage to the Bonin Islands from Junsenfs temple Muryouju-ji were arrested on the same day.[39] It was the beginning of the so-called gBansha no Gokuh[40] persecution incident.
Among the many charges brought against Kazan, the main ones are as follows:
1. Kazan was involved in the plan by Junsen the priestfs group to undertake a passage to the Bonin Islands.
2. Independent of Junsenfs group, Kazan plotted a crossing to the Bonin Islands, and under the guise of being adrift at sea, planned to cross over to America via Luzon and the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii).
3. Kazan wrote the Bojutsu Yume Monogatari (gDream-tale in the Year of the Shining Earth and the Dogh) based on translations provided by Takano Chouei.[41]
4. Ooshio Heihachirou[42] was one of the people with whom Kazan had been keeping up a correspondence.[43]
Kazan was innocent of each and every one of these groundless accusations, said as much in his own defense, and was exculpated. Nevertheless, he was censured for criticizing the feudal government in his Shinki Ron (gDonft Waste Opportunityh),[44] the draft of which had been confiscated during a house-search of his premises. On the eighteenth day of the twelfth month of that year he was sentenced to return to his home province and remain under one-room house arrest. Kazan grew ill at some point during his confinement and was released from imprisonment in serious condition, but in the second month of the year after his sentencing he was sent to Tahara fief, where two years later on the eleventh day of the tenth month in Tenpou 12 (1848), he committed suicide.
As for the five people in Junsenfs group, while their plan was acknowledged as having been pursued according to the law, Junsen himself was found guilty of executing the office of priest and engaging in speculation simultaneously, and he received a heavy sentence of strict confinement. The remaining four died during interrogation. Such was the pathetic outcome of their plan.
This bizarre incident, in which Kazan and the others, almost all of whom were innocent of any crime, were set up as criminals and falsely arrested for merely planning to make passage to the Bonin Islands, is a well known intrigue with strong political overtones orchestrated by Superintendent Torii Kai no Kami Youzou. It is said that Toriifs objective was to remove from office bureaucrats propounding enlightenment and taking interest in the West, such as Kawaji Toshiakira and Egawa Tanfan.[45] Whatever the case, Kazan and the group from the temple Muryouju-ji, each of whom had set their hopes on the Bonin Islands, were made pawns in a political scandal and came to a tragic end.
In a sense, with this single incident the deserted islands which until then had been the object of fantasy and hope for so many private citizens had suddenly become a taboo topic and a prohibited ground. Furthermore, in the wave of concern about the series of crises in overseas relations, the Bonin Islands had come to be discussed in connection with foreign powers.
On the fourth day of the first month of Tenpou 11 (February 6, 1840), a boat owned by a person named Shoubee went adrift and managed to make a landing at the Bonin Islands. There had not been a single Japanese to make the passage since 1675 (Enpou 3). The boat was the Chuukichi-maru hailing from Mutsu no Kuni, Kesen-gun, Otomo-ura (present-day Otomo-chou, Rikuzen, Takata-shi, in Iwate Prefecture) and it drifted to the Bonin Islands with the captain, one Sanfnojou, and his crew, in all seven people aboard.
The seven castaways were rescued by Westerners who had settled on the islands ten years earlier. The particulars of the incident were recorded in the Tsuukou Ichiran Zokushuu (gCompilation of Documents concerning Relations with Foreign Countries, Continuedh) but its being filed under the rubric of gIkokubu, Yon, Hyouryuuh (gForeign Waters, Section Four, Disablingsh)[46] suggests that the feudal government did not register the fact that the place where these men had been stranded was indeed the Bonin Islands.
In the fourth month of Kouka 3 (1846), the director of the Dutch factory at Dejima gave a caution to the Nagasaki magistratefs office to the effect that, although the Dutch government was already aware that the Bonin Islands were a territory of Japan, it was suspicious of Japanfs policy of standing idly by while English and Americans colonized the islands. To abandon this territory, a crucial base of operations midway between America and China, would be to invite disaster at some later date, it said.[47] The Nagasaki magistratefs office forwarded the warning to the Cabinet of the shogunate, but the feudal government took no action whatsoever.
In 1848 (Kaei 1), a Confucianist named Toujou Shinkou (Kindai) from Takada fief in Echigo[48] wrote the Izu Shichi Tou Zukou (gAn Illustrated Discussion of the Seven Islands of Izuh),[49] in which he warned that, if the Bonin Islands were left neglected, foreigners would use them as a foothold to threaten the Izu Islands. By this he incurred the wrath of the feudal government, and was placed under house arrest in Takada fief in September of that year.[50]
4. RETAKING
POSSESSION
After the opening of the country to foreign relations in 1854 (Kaei 7), news of the Bonin Islands began to reach Japan little by little. In every case the news only underscored the warnings that the director of the Dutch factory had once given to the Nagasaki magistratefs office.
In order to address Americafs demand (voiced through the arrival of Perryfs squadron) that Japan open the way for international diplomatic relations, the feudal government referred the question in the sixth month of Kaei 6 (1853) to the daimyos (feudal high-lords) and other sympathetic people whose interests were concerned. In the opinion paper that he submitted at that time, Kuroda Narihiro,[51] the lord of Fukuoka fief, wrote the following comment about the Bonin Islands:
Furthermore, while their request to borrow some parcel of land to the south is all well and good, it is only natural that a loan of the deserted islands be granted. Although the provenance of said islands is Japanfs, due to the fact that all passage to them has been completely terminated, they are Japanfs islands only in name, and are of next to no use. In fact, I suspect that in recent years Americans have come to settle in these very islands.[52]
Kuroda Narihiro was one of the few daimyos to propose opening the country to foreign relations in their opinion papers, and he was also well-known as an enlightened fief-lord, but his opinion that the Bonin Islands were gJapanfs islands only in name, and are of next to no use,h and that therefore git is only natural that a loan of the deserted islands be granted,h typifies the perception of the Bonin Islands that led Japan to totally neglect them for years on end.
Once the country had been opened to foreign relations, the Kanagawa Treaty [53] called for the port in Hakodate to be opened to foreign vessels in the third month of Ansei 2 (1855). However, there were already three whaling ships putting in there in the second month of that same year, in anticipation of the opening of the port. These ships had anchored at Futami-ko in Chichi Jima[54] before continuing north to Japan. When the first magistrate of Hakodate, Takeuchi Shimotsuke no Kami Yasunori, heard about the latest developments in the Bonin Islands from the captains of these vessels, he recorded them as gA Written Statement of the Information Privy to Myself Concerning the Bonin Islands,h[55] reporting to Council Elder Abe Ise no Kami Masahiro in the following way:
When, in the course of his interpreting, I took the chance to have Iwase Yashirou ask for news of the deserted islands, it came out that there are eleven islands in all, that in the American tongue they are called as a group the Bonin Islands, that of them five are approximately on a par with Hakodate, that there are as many as eighty people in twenty dwellings, Americans, French, English and others living mixed together, that there are secure anchorages, and that there are facilities for the transport and storage of coal for sea-faring ships of all nationalities, and also facilities for reprovisioning[56]
Although this was soon after the country had been opened to foreign relations, it is possible that Takeuchi already knew the fact that the deserted island group known as the Ogasawara Islands was referred to in Western parlance as the Bonin Islands as he collected and reported his information to the Council of Elders. Whatever the case, it may be said that the depth of interest Takeuchi showed in the Bonin Islands and territorial issues was exceptional at the time.
Four years later in the tenth month of Ansei 6 (1859), Sir Rutherford Alcook, minister plenipotentiary to the British foreign mission in Japan, submitted a request to the feudal government for permission to purchase and take on 300 tons of coal per month free of customs in exchange for carrying the shogunatefs mail from Nagasaki to Edo each month. Alcook had been making the circuit between Yokohama and Shanghai via Nagasaki several times each month. The Council of Elders referred this proposal to the superintendent and the chief superintendent in charge of foreign countries, with the result that it was respectfully declined. However, in the process of deliberating the request, the point came up that the British might carry the coal to the Bonin Islands and use it to further development there. The superintendent in charge of foreign countries voiced his concern in the following way:
In recent years we have seen news of developments on the Bonin Islands in the Nihon Kikou,[57] and there have been allegations from the Dutch as well. It seems that people of the English race have moved to said islands and have made a coal depot there. At present commerce is flourishing, with shipping between China and America increasing one hundred fold as compared to 50 years ago. On top of this, with the advent of steam ships and their gradual increase, coal has become precious, as have food and provisions for sea-travel, particularly as it is at just this moment that the coal production of many countries is approaching near-exhaustion. Because the deserted islands are approximately midway between China and America they are most conveniently situated for the taking on of provisions. . . . Accordingly if we were to grant Alcookfs request and hand over large quantities of coal virtually without any customs levied, it is certain that he would take it to said islands and use it to support their development. If we would but increase the naval capabilities of our own country, we would be able to develop the place with the sole commodity of coal, and there would be a prospect for making it a territory of Japan. To put it another way, by handing over large quantities of coal we would, so to speak, be doing something tantamount to lending soldiers to our enemies, and English rascals could become our enemies in a momentfs time. Were we to do this, it is arguable that the damage could extend to the seven islands of Izu. If we take all the above into consideration, the infinitesimal profits are hardly worth risking a conflict. . . .[58]
This much concern about the Bonin Islands from the superintendent in charge of foreign countries was something unheard of in the age before the opening of the country to foreign relations. Judging from the lines in the recommendation stating that, gin recent years we have seen news of developments on the Bonin Islands in the Nihon Kikou, and there have been allegations from the Dutch as well,h the feudal government had already gotten access to the information about the Bonin Islands to be had from the gNarrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japanh[59] published in 1856 (Ansei 3), and the warning from the director of the Dutch factory in 1846 (Kouka 3) had been brought back into their awareness. It can be seen that high government officialsf interest in the Bonin Islands had been raised to new heights.
In the first month of the seventh year of the Ansei era (1860), the feudal government dispatched Shinmi Buzen no Kami Masaoki and fellow envoys to America to exchange ratification documents for the previously concluded Friendly Trade Agreement. There, President Buchanan presented them with five copies of the gNarrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan.h It had long been thought that these were the first copies to be brought to Japan,[60] but it can be seen that the book had already been brought to Japan before this, and its contents were already known to high government officials.
Needless to say, the gNarrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japanh is the account of an expedition of a squadron of ships under the command of Commodore Perry, who was dispatched with the mission of opening Japan to foreign relations. In the gNarrativeh are descriptions of the negotiations with the feudal government, and of behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the United States, all of which was, no doubt, of great interest to the officials of the feudal government at the time.
In the part of the book concerning the Bonin Islands were recorded in detail Perryfs purchase of land for a coal depot from the people of the islands, and his exchanges with the British superintendent for trade at Hong Kong, Samuel George Bonham, over sovereignty of the islands. In particular this latter caught the attention of the high officials of the feudal government, for the view that Perry took denied Britainfs claim to territorial rights and brought out in clear relief the justifications for Japanfs sovereignty. In addition, it could be expected that the great value Perry placed on the Bonin Islandsf prospects as a site for whaling outposts and agricultural colonies in his gNotes with Respect to the Bonin Islandsh[61] also served to excite the interest of people at the top of government with respect to the Bonin Islands.[62]
Along with informing the chief executives of the feudal government about the latest developments in these islands that they had hitherto ignored, the gNarrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japanh must have also made them aware of the necessity of having the Bonin Islands internationally acknowledged as a territory of Japan. And so the feudal government stirred itself to action and began gathering information about the Bonin Islands.
When the feudal government dispatched the ship Kanrin-maru as an escort to the first envoys to America in the first month of the seventh year of the Ansei era (1860), they also ordered naval magistrate Kimura Settsu no Kami Yoshitake to call at the Bonin Islands, either on the way to America or on the way back. The purpose was to make observations about the state of the islands, but the mission was never carried out.
According to the report that Kimura submitted on his return, the reason why he had failed to call at the Bonin Islands was that, on the way to America he had gone north on the great circle route and sailed directly to San Francisco without passing the islands, while on the way back, ganchoring at the Sandwich Islands, we took on coal, water, and provisions, etc., and after that set sail for the Bonin Islands, but on the way we sustained a leak in the boiler.h So Kimura pleads in defense, gand on top of this, there was no wind for several days, so we had no choice but to stoke our fires again and again, but our store of coal grew low.h[63] But to say that they had to gstoke our fires again and again,h in spite of the fact that the boiler had a leak, is self-contradictory.
Kimura notwithstanding, according to the Kanrin-maru Koubei Nisshi (gDiary of the Passage to America by the Kanrin-maruh)[64] from the pen of commissioned naval officer Ono Tomogorou, not only did the ship leave port from Honolulu under steam on the 7th of the fourth month, but it subsequently fired its boilers again from the 25th to the 29th of that month, once more upon entering Japanese waters from the 3rd of the fifth month until entering the harbor at Uraga on the 5th day, and finally on the following 6th when it steamed from Uraga to arrive off of Shinagawa, for a total of four firings. There is no record of a malfunction in the boiler.
It is not difficult to imagine how, on this long Pacific cruise, every one of the crew of the Kanrin-maru would be eager to fly home as an arrow flies to its mark. Nevertheless, the true reason why they failed to call at the Bonin Islands remains unclear. If the commanding officer Kimura or the captain Katsu Rintarou[65] had had a concern for territorial issues anything like that of Hakodate magistrate Takeuchifs, the observational tour of the Bonin Islands could have been carried out with ease.
In the twelfth month of the first year of the Bunkyuu Era (January, 1862), the feudal government dispatched the Kanrin-maru to the Ogasawara Islands. On board there was a repossession party with foreign magistrate Mizuno Tadanori at its head. When they arrived at their objective, they induced all fifty-five residents, Westerners included, to pledge their fealty. Then they issued title deeds against the residentfs landholdings, they surveyed the islands, and did whatever else was necessary to consolidate the repossession of the islands.
The following year (1863) the government sent colonists from Hachijou Jima and set about developing the territory, but the year after that (1864), a crisis in relations between Japan and Britain broke out over the question of compensation for the gIncident at Namamugi.h Fearful of an attack on the Ogasawara Islands by British warships, the feudal government withdrew all of the Japanese colonists. The result was that the Ogasawara Islands were again left abandoned until the new Meiji government retook possession of them in 1876 (Meiji 9). The commonly used appellation of gBunin Touh (Bonin Islands) had been formally renamed gOgasawara Shotouh (Ogasawara Island-group) upon the initial repossession of the island in 1862.
5. CONCLUDING REMARKS
A Japanese ship adrift with a load of oranges landed at the Bonin Islands in 1670 (Kanbun 10), but they had actually already been discovered by the Dutch thirty-one years earlier.[66]
In 1639 (Kanfei 16) the governor-general of the Dutch East India Company, Antonio van Diemen, dispatched Hendricken Mathys Quast and Abel Janszoon Tasman on the ships Engel and Graft to search for the islands of gold and silver fabled to be far to the east of Japan.
Setting sail from Batavia, Quast found on July 21st. the island that is now known as Haha Jima of the Ogasawaras. However it seems that news of this discovery did not find wide circulation in Europe. It can be guessed that, because the two explorers had as their objective the islands of gold and silver, they did not show much interest in the tiny deserted islands they found along the way. And perhaps this is also why they evidently did not see fit to land on the islands, but simply passed them by. The lack of interest shown for a few tiny islands in the Pacific insofar as they produced no valuable stuff such as gold or silver or spices was quite different from the attitudes of the nineteenth century, when for example the British exploration vessel Blossam sailed to Chichi Jima in 1827 and highhandedly proclaimed the islands a territory of the empire.
Looked at in this light, the feudal governmentfs dispatching of Shimayafs exploration vessel to a group of islands whose exact position was not even known, simply to confirm them as a possession of Japan, was arguably an epoch-making event, particularly when compared to the shogunatefs unenthusiastic stance of later years. The exploration vessel used on this occasion was built by shogunate order in 1668 (Kanbun 8) at Nagasaki, patterned after the Chinese ships that frequented that port.[67]
At the time this ocean-going vessel was built by the feudal government, more than thirty years had already passed since 1635 (Kanfei 12), the year that trade by the Red Stamp Ships[68] was strictly forbidden; it had been even longer since regular foreign travel had been prohibited. The exploration of the deserted islands was only possible because there was someone who had received the sea-faring know-how handed down from that age of special trade permits and could take the ship under command, in the person of Shimaya. Shimaya drew a portolan chart[69] of the route from the Izu peninsula to the deserted islands, measuring their position at 27 degrees latitude (which is the latitude of Yome Shima).[70] But Shimayafs passage was the last one that the feudal government managed until they succeeded in sending another ship there after the country had been opened to foreign relations in the first year of the Bunkyuu era (1861).
Both in the case of Shimayafs exploration of 1675 (Enpou 3) and in that of the failed crossing by servitude holders from Hachijou Jima in 1774 (Anfei 3), there were no shogunate officials to accompany the expeditions. This is a far cry from the government clerks personally scouting the wildernesses of Ezo in the early 18th century. But perhaps it is only natural that there should be a difference between the governmentfs perception of Ezo in the face of Russiafs imminent southern advance and its perception of a handful of far-off islands with no Japanese living there and no reliable means of getting there. The sheer distance described in Shimayafs report that git is 350 ri from Shimoda to the deserted islandsh[71] must have been beyond imagining, even more so since the mid-Edo period when the navigating skills of the Red Stamp Ship days had lapsed and there were no ocean-crossing vessels available.
By the early 19th century Ezo was under the direct jurisdiction of the feudal government and its containment was underway. But in the case of the Ogasawara Islands, the lack of Japanese inhabitants and the geographical restriction of long distance, when added to the gclosed countryh policy, made these deserted islands seem half-way to being a foreign land, so their presence gradually waned in the perception of the feudal government. Moreover, the heightening sense of crisis in foreign relations could only have hardened the shogunatefs position with regard to the islands.
The feudal government maintained a policy of ignoring the Bonin Islands that could well be called half-intentional. In contrast to this, the fascination private citizens felt for these deserted islands outlasted the Edo period. The orange-laden ship gone adrift and the expedition by Shimaya yielded but scant information, but the exaggerations in the documents falsified by Ogasawara Kunai Sadatou made in the minds of private citizens a lasting impression which grew into a tall tale of a whole village escaping to a fertile island where there were no rulers to be obeyed and no tribute levied. In the end this gap between the perceptions of public administrators and private citizens made the priest Junsenfs group into fodder for the gBansha no Gokuh persecution incident.
Private citizen Hayashi Shihei leads the names of people, Satou Nobuhiro and Toujou Kindai among them, who speculated about the Bonin islands in their writings and were punished, each in their turn, as a consequence. While the reasons why these people were punished were not limited to the issue of the Bonin Islands, in the end result their enterprising optimism with regard to these deserted islands was, no less for being fanciful, still a criticism of the feudal governmentfs policies. Ironically, it can also be said that the concerns they felt only anticipated the apprehension that the superintendent of foreign affairs was to harbor after the opening of the country to international relations.
Since early times there has been in Japan a concept of the country as being composed of the gsixty-plus provincesh (grokujuu-yo shuuh) extending north only as far as Mutsu.[72] The Japanese had maintained this sense of their territory, basically without change, even through the Edo period. It would follow from such a perspective that the undeveloped ground outlying the gsixty-plus provincesh would have been viewed as glands without a sovereignh (gkegai no chih). This kind of thinking is reflected in the attitude of Matsudaira Sadanobu,[73] who writes, gFor example, as the land known as Ezo is spacious, there are many people who say that it should be developed and that rice should be planted, but it is precisely in not having done this that the interests of the kingdom have best been served. If we introduced rice cultivation to Ezo now, we would be opening ourselves to immediate danger. I told such people that to do this was dangerous, and made them give up the idea.h[74] He also writes that gThe land of Ezo has been entrusted to Matsumae, while the land of Japan, the safety of which must be protected, is that extending south from Tsugaru. There should be a foreign magistratefs office built at the sea-crossing.h[75] Thus, Matsudaira would go so far as to leave Ezo undeveloped, relegating to it the status of a buffer-zone for the defense of gthe land of Japan.h
Around the same period, Hayashi Shihei would write in his gIllustrated General Survey of Three Countriesh the following remarks: gMoreover, if I may be so bold, I think that we should set the limits of the lands of Japan at the northernmost point of Ezo, including Souya and Shiranushi, etc.[76] and it is my contention that we should make this country of Ezo into part of the homeland.h[77] This suggests that Ezo be seen as part of the sovereign lands, contrasting with Matsudaira Sadanobufs ideas. Here again we see a divergence from the views taken by public administrators. This gap between the perceptions of the overseers and the citizenry with respect to Japanfs adjacent territories, particularly the Bonin Islands, is, in other words, a rift between the feudal government and the average Japanese citizen over how to view the gclosed countryh policy.
With the opening of the country the feudal government found itself squared off against the great powers of the West, every one of which, in the nineteenth century, embraced an active interest in the question of territory. As a result, the feudal government was pressured to change its isolationist perceptions of territory, but as for actual territorial negotiations, the clumsy handling of the border confirmation of Karafuto due to the feudal governmentfs lack of awareness for territorial issues led to a break-down in negotiations, and while there were initially some successes with problem of repossessing the Ogasawara Islands, each of these territorial questions had to be carried over into the new era for a final resolution by the Meiji government.
Original and Translatorfs Notes