Person1794 – 1858

Matthew C. Perry

Also called: Commodore Perry

US Navy commodore who sailed into Uraga in 1853 to demand that Japan open its ports, and concluded the Treaty of Kanagawa the next year

Born into a US naval family, he championed a steam-powered navy and was called "the father of the steam navy"; he also served in the Mexican–American War. Appointed commander of the East India Squadron in 1852, he arrived at Uraga the next year with President Fillmore’s letter and returned in 1854 to sign the Treaty of Kanagawa. On the way back he called at Naha and concluded a compact with Ryukyu as well, and at home he published an account of the expedition.

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1853 – 1854Perry Expedition and Treaty of Kanagawadiplomat
Commodore Perry of the United States arrived with warships to demand that Japan open its ports. The next year the Tokugawa shogunate signed the Treaty of Kanagawa, opening Shimoda and Hakodate and ending more than two centuries of seclusion.

Themes this person appears in

The Opening of East Asia1839 – 1901
From the Opium War to the Boxer Protocol — sixty years in which China, Japan and Korea, forced open by Western gunboats, each tried to reform and went separate ways