For over 200 years, Japan existed in self-imposed isolation from the world. Starting in 1603, the Shoguns ruled Japan and prevented intervention from outsiders.
Commodore Matthew Perry set out on a mission to sail to Japan and open the island nation to trade with the US. President Millard Fillmore and his Secretary of State Daniel Webster, the renowned American statesman, pressed the reluctant Perry into service.
Statue of Commodore Matthew Perry in Touro Park on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, RI. Image Credit: Ahodges7, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Perry, commanding four steam-powered ships, arrived in the harbor of Edo (present-day Tokyo) on July 8, 1853. Perry used the impressive power of his naval warships to impress upon the Japanese the strength of the US Navy to persuade (or convince) the Shoguns to open their harbors.
In the Spring of 1854, Perry returned to Edo with an even larger squadron of ships, and the Shoguns signed an agreement in March 1854 to open trade with the US.
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