"Dwarf Trees" from Com. M.C. Perry's Narrative


       Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794-1858) arrived in Edo Bay on July 8, 1853 with 1,600 men aboard seven black ships.  He had been dispatched in November by President Fillmore with a request for a treaty that would guarantee protection for American sailors shipwrecked off Japan; permit American ships to put into Japanese harbors for supplies; set up coaling stations in the islands; provide for the opening of ports for trade; and begin the regular exchange of consuls between the two nations.  Part of the reason for his bringing troops and weapons was because there was a civil war going on in China, and American merchants along the coast had pressured their diplomatic officials into demanding that the Navy use the warship for their protection.  In Japan communication was done via the Dutch language.  Amid posturing by both the Japanese and the Americans, the request was made and letter to the emperor from the President was delivered.  Perry departed on July 17, leaving word that he would return in the spring for a favorable reply and, if possible, negotiate a treaty.  The fleet stopped briefly at the Ryukyus again to secure a base, then went to China where much of Perry's force spent the next five months engaged in protecting American traders from Chinese pirates.  Not intending to go to Japan until April or May , Perry decided to move early when French and Russian ships headed for Japan, suspected of taking advantage of the wedge he had driven. 
       Returning in late February with ten ships and 1,800 men, Perry's form of "gunboat diplomacy"and modern gifts from the U.S. resulted in the series of negotiations and dinners which culminated with the Treaty of Kanagawa being signed on March 31.  The Japanese ports of Hakodate and Shimoda were thus opened to U.S. trade, provision was made for shipwrecked sailors, and friendly relations were established.  Perry arrived in the U.S. in the middle of January, 1855 to much congratulations and, perhaps, over-optimistic celebration of the new trading partner.  The Commodore's first step was followed by Townsend Harris -- formerly a New York  merchant and shipowner -- being the first American consul at Shimoda.  Possibly the most influential diplomat since Benjamin Franklin in Paris on the eve of the American Revolution, Harris virutally taught economics to the ministers of the shōgun, helping them to set up a schedule of export and import duties, and with them he hammered out a mutually satisfatory trade treaty.   This was done despite the shōgunate being two-faced: high-level realization that the opening of the country could not be postponed, yet maintaining a public stance that the government was as opposed to admitting "barbarians" as it had ever been.
       It should be noted that even before Perry's first appearance, the Japanese who had favored opening the door to the outside world had grown almost as influential in the capital as the reactionaries who clung to the old ways.  The liberals wanted to overthrow the shōgun and restore the powers of the emperor.  Between Perry's visits, the insecure shōgun and his councilors for the first time in almost four hundred years called upon all the nobles of the realm, including those of the emperor's retinue, to seek their advice on what the government should do when Perry returned: fight or flight?  Most of the nobles were determined to fight, but the time of their samurai ways had passed and a hastily conceived rearmament program ended in utter failure.  The old shōgun also happened to die during this period, and his new Tokugawa successor realized his own weakness and had no choice but to negotitate with the Americans.  The new shōgun later signed Harris' treaty without the approval of the emperor, adding impetus to the movement to restore the emperor to the throne.  In 1866 civil war broke out in Japan and the shōgun just happened to die that same year.  His successor inherited a government stripped of power, an empty treasury and the shattering effects of internal rebellion.  He resigned after ten months.  It was then ordered that Japan would be ruled only in the name of the emperor.  To signal the change, the capital of Edo was given the name of Tokyo, and there, following his ascension to power in 1868, Emperor Meiji was installed in the palace of the shōgun.

       The Narrative of the Expedition was actually written under Perry's supervision by Rev. Francis L. Hawks and Dr. Robert Townes from the official records and journals of Perry and other officers.  

       German Heine (1827-1885) was born and trained as an artist in Dresden and then Paris.  He moved in 1849 to NewYork, and traveled to Latin America before joining Perry's expedition the following year.  In 1860 he took part in the Prussian expedition to eastern Asia.  In the American civil war Heine was an engineer captain of the Potomac army in the Union Army.  After the war he became consul in Paris, and later in Liverpool.  Finally he returned to Dresden. 1
       Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, Performed in the Years 1852, 1853, and 1854, under the Command of Commodore M.C. Perry, United States Navy (1856):

       " Horticulture.-- In this department the Japanese are very skillful.  They possess the art, in a wonderful degree, either of dwarfing, or of unnaturally enlarging all natural productions.  As an evidence of the first, may be seen, in the miniature gardens of the towns, perfectly mature trees, of various kinds, not more than three feet high, and with heads about three feet in diameter.  These dwarfed trees are often placed in flower pots.  Fischer says that he saw in a box four inches long, one and a half wide, and six in height, a bamboo, a fir, and a plum tree, all thriving, and the latter in full blossom...  2


German Wilhelm Heine, the expedition's official artist, drew this scene [center of the right half shown above] of the American procession leaving the regent's palace near the port of Naha, the principal port and on the southern tip of Okinawa, the largest island of the Ryukyus, almost 350 miles south of Japan, c.June 6, 1853.  Perry first stopped at the Ryukyu or Loochoo ("Lew Chews") Islands since they were a dependency of Japan and Perry might get a hint there of how he would be received on the mainland.  He was there from May 26 to July 2.  During that time he also made a visit to the east to chart the nearby Bonin Islands (which include a place called Iwo Jima, although that wasn't visited by the Commodore).

What we see in the center of this scene -- we can assume it to be a truthful eyewitness depiction, as opposed to a fanciful reconstruction from secondary accounts -- is a rock garden planted with some cyads and other specimens, in addition to at least five dwarf potted trees, mostly in deeper containers.  Other than an unknown but certainly small number of dwarf potted tree-portraying woodblock prints which might have been smuggled out of Japan earlier by the Dutch, this is the first known depiction of Japanese bonsai that Westerners saw.  It is not known how widespread this particular picture was reproduced and circulated. 3

NOTES

1      Trager, James  The People's Chronology (New York: Henry Holt and Company; 1992, 1994), pp. 461, 464. 

"1856 Narrative, Three Volume Set Original Narrative of the Expedition," http://www.baxleystamps.com/litho/ry_litho_narrative.shtml ;

Editors of American Heritage  Commodore Perry in Japan (NY: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc.), pp. 54, 58, 61, 64, 83, 86-87, 92-92, 130, 132-133, 137, 139;

Heine biography translated from German Wikipedia entry, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Heine ;

For additional background, see "General Information The Perry Expedition Japan - Lew Chew (Ryukyus)," http://www.baxleystamps.com/litho/ry_litho_main.shtml. 

For some atmosphere of this time, see the 1958 John Huston film "The Barbarian and the Geisha."  Shot entirely in Japan, it stars John Wayne as Townsend Harris, Sam Jaffe as his interpreter, and Eiko Ando as the geisha who, as a spy, reports on Harris' activities.

2      Perry,  Commodore Matthew Calbraith  Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, Performed in the Years 1852, 1853, and 1854, under the Command of Commodore M.C. Perry, United States Navy (Washington, D.C.;1856), pg. 53.  Three volumes.  Compiled by Francis L. Hawks.  The Introduction (to page 73) includes a detailed recap of the various Western nations' dealings with the Japanese.  A poor quality microfilm copy was searched for this quote -- there could be others in this work and the numerous illustrations were not reviewed for potential dwarf trees.  The above quote is also mostly reproduced in Long, Charles R.  "An Informal History of Bonsai," Arnoldia, 1971, 31:268.  It appears that most accounts from this time included mention of Fischer.

3       Editors of American Heritage  Commodore Perry in Japan, illustration from pg. 59, text from pp. 58, 61, 63-64.

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