Okinawa by George Kerr

Author:George Kerr
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8048-2087-5
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Footnote

* After the Tokugawa had been overthrown, the clan was well rewarded, numbering in the Shimazu family alone two princes, one count, and eight barons in the imperial court hierarchy.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE MOUSE AND THE EAGLE: PERRY IN OKINAWA

1853-1854

AMERICAN PRESSURE ON JAPAN: COMMODORE PERRY'S PLANS FOR OKINAWA

Perry's official Narrative oj the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan was prepared under his close supervision by an admiring friend, the Reverend Francis L. Hawks. The commodore was the most noted and perhaps the most accomplished officer in the United States naval service in his day. He had been born during George Washington's first administration, matured during the exciting years of the second war with England (in which his elder brother became a great naval hero), and distinguished himself in the Mexican Wars. He had much to do with policy guiding the United States Navy in transition from sail to steam, which is to say that he was acutely aware of the technological revolution overtaking mankind, of which he himself was destined to be a most remarkable agent in the Far East.

He was a statesman of high measure in the sense that he explored the meaning of technological change and economic expansion in terms of fundamental, long-range national policies and the continuing military needs of the United States. He foresaw, accurately, that Britain and Russia would become rivals to American interests and influence in the northern Pacific and Far East and, with this in view, shaped his policies in forcing Japan to come to terms.

Perry was humorless, immensely vain, and a hard disciplinarian, but his pomposity and his qualities of command well fitted him for the difficult task to which he was assigned—a diplomatic assault upon Japan, backed by a powerful military striking force.

The Narrative cannot be taken altogether at its face value. The Reverend Dr. Hawks was not a member of the expedition. At numerous points the Narrative glosses over discrepancies between Perry's official orders and his actions. The ultimate success of the expedition was so great that the questionable details were completely overshadowed. Hawks was not discouraged if he sought to present all Perry's actions in the best possible light, and Perry saw to it that it had the widest possible circulation among members of Congress and the administration.*

Perry supposed that he had under firm control all diaries, journals, logbooks, and other reports compiled by members of the expedition, who had been ordered to submit all written materials to the commodore. Ostensibly this was to ensure that all relevant data would be incorporated in the official Narrative. In studying the first American occupation of Okinawa, that voluminous document must be supplemented by reference to official correspondence which passed between the commodore and Washington, to the candid, uncensored, and sometimes critical journals of S. Wells Williams, Chief Interpreter; Acting Master Edward Yorke McCauley; Bayard Taylor, journalist; J.W. Spalding, clerk aboard the "Mississippi"; and to Okinawan sources. These did not pass through the commodore's hands.

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