Kanagawa, Treaty of

(1854)

   The treaty of amity and friendship between the United States and Japan, signed at Kanagawa, now Yokohama, Japan, on March 31, 1854, shortly after the arrival of the American Commodore Mathew C. Perry. The treaty stipulated which Japanese ports were to be opened to American trading vessels and set forth policies regarding the provisioning of American ships and the treatment of shipwrecked sailors. Finally, the treaty established an American consulate in Shikoda.

   The Treaty of Kanagawa symbolized the end to Japan’s two-century policy of national isolation, or sakoku, “closed country,” and the opening of the country to foreign intercourse. It was soon followed by similar agreements between Japan and other foreign powers. The rapid and radical changes soon fostered in Japan as a result of its opening resulted in the overthrow of the country’s Tokugawa Shōgunate in 1868 and Japan’s embarkation on a path of modernizing reforms.

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   FURTHER READING:

    Beasley, William G. The Meiji Restoration. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972;

    Jansen, Marius, ed. The Emergence of Meiji Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

   DANIEL C. KANE