Matthew Calbraith Perry

The American naval officer Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794-1858) is best known for the treaty he negotiated with Japan, which first opened that country to the Western world.

Matthew C. Perry was born on April 10, 1794, in Newport, R.I. After being educated in local schools, he entered the navy as a midshipman in 1809. His first duty was aboard a vessel commanded by his elder brother, Oliver Hazard Perry. He next served aboard a powerful 44-gun frigate, taking part in encounters with two British ships and in a commerce-raiding expedition in northern European waters. In 1813 he was transferred to the frigate United States, which was marooned in New London, Conn., then under blockade by the British navy. He took advantage of the period of inactivity by journeying to New York, where he courted and married Jane Slidell in 1814.

Years of Varied Activity

For the next 17 years Perry was engaged in duties at sea of the widest variety: fighting Algerian pirates in the Mediterranean; carrying American Negroes to Liberia, where a colony of repatriated slaves was being established; transporting (in the schooner Shark, his first command) the American commissioner to the new colony; and hunting down slave traders and pirates. In 1830 he was given command of the sloop Concord and charged with carrying to Russia the new American minister, John Randolph. There Perry was received by the Czar, who offered him the rank of flag officer if he would join the Russian navy. That offer, in the words of Perry's biographer, he "politely but firmly declined."

In 1833 Perry began a decade of shore duty in the New York Navy Yard as second officer, later becoming commander. During those years he made significant contributions to the technological and educational development of the Navy. In 1833 he led in establishing the Naval Lyceum at the yard, which included a museum, reading room, and lectures "to promote the diffusion of useful knowledge" among the officers. He also helped found the Naval Magazine. Some years later he was a member of a board of examiners that prepared the first course for the soon to be established Naval Academy at Annapolis.

If he deserved the title "chief educator of the navy, " Perry also earned the appelation "father of the steam navy, " for it was he who pushed the replacement of sail by steam in the propulsion of war vessels, who helped design both hulls and engine of the new steamships, and who was given command of the first of the Navy's steam warships, Fulton II. It was in that ship that he set up the first naval school of gun practice.

In 1843 Perry took command of the Africa Squadron, newly organized to hunt for slave traders. Three years later, in the war with Mexico, Perry played an important role, leading an expedition in the capture of several coastal cities (using sailors as infantry) and, as commander of the Gulf Squadron, supporting Gen. Winfield Scott's storming of Veracruz. When the war ended in 1848, Perry was put on special duty in New York supervising the construction of ocean mail steamships. Then came the capstone of his career: the mission to Japan.

Opening Japan

Americans had been trading with China since 1844, so a way station in the Japanese islands for purchasing coal and supplies now became imperative. Protection for American seamen engaged in whaling in the northern Pacific Ocean was also needed. Perry carried a letter to the Japanese emperor from the American president requesting a treaty covering those matters as well as the right of Americans to trade in Japanese ports.

Perry set out from Norfolk, Va., on Nov. 24, 1852, with four ships and arrived at Edo (modern Tokyo) on July 2, 1853. He demanded of the Japanese officers who came out to meet his vessel the right to take the President's letter to the Emperor, but he was told he must go to Nagasaki, the only place open to foreigners. Perry refused, and when the Japanese saw his decks cleared for action, they relented. So Perry went onshore and, in an elaborate ceremony, delivered the letter to two princes representing the Emperor and promised to return in 12 months for the answer.

Rumors of French and Russian naval activity in Japanese waters brought Perry back in February 1854 (he had gone only to Hong Kong). This time, his reception was friendly (chiefly because he had seven well-armed ships in his squadron), and the Emperor appointed five commissioners to treat with him. At Yokohama the representatives of the two nations began negotiations and, on March 31, 1854, concluded a treaty which opened two ports, Hakodate and Shimoda, for trade and supplies and guaranteed fair treatment for shipwrecked American sailors.

His mission completed, Perry returned to New York in January 1855, a hero receiving "warm congratulations" from the secretary of the Navy, $20, 000 from Congress, gifts from several cities, and acclaim on all sides. The parties and receptions over, Perry turned his attention to preparing the report of his expedition, which he completed in late December 1857. He died on March 4, 1858.

Further Reading

Samuel Eliot Morison, "Old Bruin": Commodore Matthew C. Perry, 1794-1858 (1967), is the best biography. Arthur Walworth, Black Ships off Japan: The Story of Commodore Perry's Expedition (1946; rev. ed. 1966), is excellent on the Japanese phase. □

Perry, Matthew Calbraith (1794–1858), American naval officer and diplomat, born at Newport, RI. He joined the navy in 1809, seeing action in the war of 1812. However, his chief claim to fame rests on his success in ‘opening’ Japan to the rest of the world after he was selected to command the US Navy's East India Squadron specially to make overtures to that isolated country. In 1852 he made his first visit there to persuade the Japanese to permit limited foreign trade and to repatriate shipwrecked seamen. With the steam frigates Mississippi and Susquehanna he called first at Okinawa where, much against the will of the local authorities, he made a state visit to the regent. He reached Sagami Bay, Japan, in June 1853 bearing a letter from the American president to the emperor, and refused to leave until the letter had been properly received and acknowledged.

After five weeks of discussion, it was agreed that two high officials would receive the letter in a specially erected building near the village of Kurihama. On 14 July the two frigates anchored off the beach and trained their guns ashore, while Perry with some 250 marines and sailors landed from the ships' boats. They were outnumbered on the spot by about forty to one, as the shogun had ordered mobilization, and the Americans were confronted by archers, pikemen, cavalry, musketeers, and earthworks armed with Dutch cannon. Excellent discipline on both sides prevented an outbreak of fighting which might have touched off a war instead of a treaty. In silence Perry presented the engrossed presidential letter in its gold casket and remarked that he would be back the following year.

On his return in February 1854, Perry anchored his squadron off Yokosuka. This time, satisfied that Perry's declarations of peaceable intentions were sincere, the shogunate did not mobilize. It persuaded Perry to negotiate at the village of Yokohama instead of at the capital and after a ceremonious landing the negotiations began through a Dutch interpreter. In the meantime the Americans set up and operated their presents for the emperor, of which a quarter-size steam railway and a telegraph instrument made the greatest impression.

On 31 March the Treaty of Kanagawa was signed. It opened Shimoda and Hakodate to the reciprocal return of shipwrecked seamen, and gave permission to set up an American consulate. Perry was careful to insist on nothing which might humiliate Japan, the commissioners felt that they had preserved national honour, and the proceedings concluded with banquets on board and ashore.

The rest of Perry's life was largely devoted to preparing the official narrative of the expedition in three volumes, edited by F. L. Hawks, which became a classic.

Bibliography

Schroder, J. , Mathew Calbraith Perry: Antebellum Sailor and Diplomat (2001).

Matthew Calbraith Perry 1794–1858, American naval officer, b. South Kingstown, R.I.; brother of Oliver Hazard Perry . Appointed a midshipman in 1809, he first served under his brother on the Revenge and then was aide to Commodore John Rodgers on the President, which defeated the British ship Little Belt before the War of 1812 had been formally declared. Perry saw little action in that war because he was assigned to the United States, which the British bottled up at New London. He received his first command in 1821.

From 1833 to 1843 Perry was assigned to the New York (later Brooklyn) navy yard, where he pioneered in the application of steam power to warships, commanding (1837) the Fulton, first steam vessel in the U.S. navy, and encouraged the broadening of naval education. Promoted to captain in 1837, Perry received the title of commodore in 1841 and in the same year became commandant of the New York navy yard. In 1843–44 he commanded the African squadron, which was engaged in suppressing the slave trade. In the Mexican War , as commander of the Gulf Fleet, he supported Gen. Winfield Scott in taking Veracruz.

In Mar., 1852, Perry was ordered to command the East India squadron and charged with the delicate task of penetrating isolationist Japan. On July 8, 1853, he anchored his four ships, including the powerful steam frigates Mississippi and Susquehanna, in lower Tokyo (then Yedo) Bay. The Japanese ordered him to go to Nagasaki, the only port open to foreigners, where the Dutch operated a limited trading concession, but Perry firmly declined. On July 14 he presented his papers, including a letter from President Millard Fillmore to the Japanese emperor, requesting protection for shipwrecked American seamen, the right to buy coal, and the opening of one or more ports to trade.

The expedition then retired to the China coast, but returned, with an increased fleet, in Feb., 1854. Perry's show of pomp (at which he was expert) and power obviously impressed the insecure Tokugawa shogunate, and on Mar. 31, 1854, near Yokohama a treaty was concluded that acceded to American requests, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to U.S. trade. For his successful expedition Perry was awarded $20,000 by Congress, which also paid for publication of the official Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan (3 vol., 1856), compiled under Perry's supervision.

Bibliography: See E. M. Barrows, The Great Commodore (1935); A. Walworth, Black Ships off Japan (1946, repr. 1966); Bluejackets with Perry in Japan (ed. by H. F. Graff, 1952); S. E. Morison, Old Bruin (1967).

Perry, Matthew Calbraith (1794–1858) naval officer and diplomat, born in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1833 he became second officer at the New York Navy Yard and an exponent of educational reform and technological innovation; in 1841 he became commandant of the Yard. The high point of his military career was the Mexican War (1846–48), when with Gen. Winfield Scott he succeeded in capturing the city of Veracruz (1847). In 1852 he began negotiations with Japan and opened that formerly closed nation to the West, making Japanese ports accessible to U.S. ships for provisioning, establishing a U.S. consulate, and eventually seeing the beginning of trade relations between the two countries.

Perry, Matthew Calbraith (1794–1858), brother of Oliver Hazard Perry, was also a naval officer and had a distinguished career before 1852, when he was commissioned by Fillmore to negotiate a treaty with Japan, a country then closed to all intercourse with the Occident. The following year he arrived at Yedo, impressed the Japanese by his armed strength, and delivered the President's request. After a trip to China, he returned to Yokohama (1854) to negotiate a treaty opening Japan to Western trade and providing for a U.S. consul in Japan. He wrote Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan (3 vols., 1856).

Perry, Matthew Calbraith (1794–1858) US naval officer and pioneer of Western contact with Japan. Perry served under his brother Oliver Perry during the WAR OF 1812. He headed an expedition to Japan entering the fortified port of Uraga in 1853, and Edo (modern Tokyo) Bay in 1854. His display of Western technology, both military and civil, forced the SHOGUNATE to open two Japanese ports to US trade in the Treaty of KANAGAWA. Perry's mission initiated the process which, within half a century, would transform Japan from an isolated feudal country to a highly industrialized world power.

Perry, Matthew Calbraith (1794–1858) US naval officer. In 1837, he commanded the first steam vessel in the US Navy, the Fulton. He also established the Navy's apprentice system in 1837, and organized the first naval engineer corps. He was responsible for opening up Japan to the West (1853–54).