Matthew C. Perry

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Matthew C. Perry bigraphy, stories - American admiral

Matthew C. Perry : biography

April 10, 1794 – March 4, 1858

Matthew Calbraith Perry (April 10, 1794 – March 4, 1858) was a Commodore of the U.S. Navy and commanded a number of ships. He served in several wars, most notably in the Mexican-American War and the War of 1812. He played a leading role in the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854 and is often associated with the Open Door Policy. Perry was very concerned with the education of naval officers and helped develop an apprentice system that helped establish the curriculum at the United States Naval Academy. With the advent of the steam engine, he became a leading advocate of modernizing the U.S. Navy and came to be considered The Father of the Steam Navy in the US.

Memorials

Perry’s Statue in Touro Park

  • In his birthplace, Newport, Rhode Island, there is a memorial plaque in Trinity Church, Newport, and a statue of Perry in Touro Park designed by John Quincy Adams Ward erected in 1869 and dedicated by his daughter. He was buried in Newport’s Island Cemetery, near his parents and brother. There are also exhibits and research collections concerning his life at the Naval War College Museum and at the Newport Historical Society.
  • There is a Perry Park in Kurihama, Japan which has a monolith monument (dedicated July 14, 1901) to the landing of Perry’s forces.Sewall, pp. 197–198. Within the park there is a small museum dedicated to the events of 1854. Admission is free, and the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., seven days a week.
  • Matthew C. Perry Elementary and High School can be found on Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni, Japan.
  • The U.S. Navy’s Perry-class frigates (purchased in the 1970s and 1980s) were named after Perry’s brother, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry.
  • On December 2, 2008, Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter announced that the ninth ship of the Lewis and Clark class of dry-cargo-ammunition vessels would be named USNS Matthew Perry (T-AKE-9) for Commodore Perry.

The Perry Expedition: Opening of Japan, 1852-1854

In advance of his voyage to the Far East, Commodore Perry read widely amongst available books about Tokugawa-era Japan. His research even included consultation with the increasingly well-known German Japanologist Philipp Franz von Siebold, who had lived in Japan at the Dutch trading post of Dejima for eight years before retiring to Leiden in the Netherlands.Sewall, p. xxxviii.

Precedents

Perry’s expedition to Japan was preceded by several naval expeditions by American ships:

  • From 1797 to 1809, several American ships traded in Nagasaki under the Dutch flag, upon the request of the Dutch, who were not able to send their own ships because of their conflict against Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. Japan limited foreign trade to the Dutch and Chinese at that time, under the policy of sakoku (closed country).
  • In 1837, an American businessman in Canton named Charles W. King saw an opportunity to open trade by trying to return to Japan three Japanese sailors (among them, Otokichi) who had been shipwrecked a few years before on the coast of Washington. He went to Uraga Channel, near Tokyo, with Morrison, an unarmed American merchant ship. The ship was attacked several times, and sailed back without completing its mission.
  • In 1846, Commander James Biddle, sent by the United States Government to open trade, anchored in Tokyo Bay with two ships, including one warship armed with 72 cannons, but his requests for a trade agreement remained unsuccessful.Sewell, pp. xxxiv-xxxv, xlix, lvi.
  • In 1849, Captain James Glynn sailed to Nagasaki, leading at last to a successful negotiation by an American with "Closed Country" Japan. James Glynn recommended to the United States Congress that negotiations to open Japan be backed up by a demonstration of force, thus paving the way for Perry’s expedition.English Wikipedia on Preble Logbook

First visit, 1852-1853