6/29/2019 odo 396
I stopped at a park along the Kurihama seashore in Kanagawa. It turned out to be the place where Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the U.S. Navy first set foot on land here in Japan. The park was built to commemorate Perry’s landing. There is a stone monument and a small museum exhibiting artifacts related to Perry’s fleet of ships.
The park also has a playground
It was a little before 8 in the morning on July 14,1853 when two huge black vessels anchored within effective range of cannon fire off Kurihama’s shore. One and a half years before, in 1852, Perry was assigned a mission by American President Millard Fillmore to force the opening of Japanese ports to American trade, through the use of gunboat diplomacy if necessary.
Perry Park is the place where Perry accomplished his first important step. A big stone monument erected to the memory of Perry’s first landing, stands in the middle of the park. On this stone, details of Perry’s landing are inscribed both in Japanese and English. And there is a little museum in the corner of the grounds. It displays historical records related to the coming of Perry’s fleet, a Perry letter to his daughter, several paintings showing warships and crew members, and a three-dimensional model of the Perry’s famous “black ships”.
The following year, at 3 p.m. on February 13th 1854, Perry anchored offshore once again. He had come back to Japan to receive an official response from the Tokugawa Shogunate. He pushed the Shogunate to have the important meeting near Edo, but Japan insisted on holding it near Kamakura or Uraga. Japan wanted to keep Perry’s fleet at a distance. The negotiation over the location of the meeting had come to a standstill. After tense backdoor discussions continued for one month, Japan finally consented to holding a diplomatic meeting at Yokohama.
Since Perry came on shore in 1853, the history of Japan suddenly and forever changed. Perry Park is the starting point where modern day Japan was born.
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