WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -These were leaders of military clans who ruled in the Emperor’s name. Then, in 1853, a small fleet of American warships commanded by Commodore Matthew Perry steamed into the bay at Edo (now Tokyo). The “black ships, ” as the Japanese described them at the time, had come to open trade with other nations.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Perry Expedition (Japanese: , kurofune raikō, “Arrival of the Black Ships") was a diplomatic and military expedition during 1853–1854 to the Tokugawa Shogunate involving two separate voyages by warships of the United States Navy.

Detailed explanation-3: -The Black Ships (in Japanese: , romanized: kurofune, Edo period term) was the name given to Western vessels arriving in Japan in the 16th and 19th centuries.

Detailed explanation-4: -In the summer of 1853, the Japanese people watched apprehensively as large black ships from the United States entered the port of Uraga in Japan. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, known to his men as “Old Bruin, ” commanded the fleet that was to break the longstanding isolation of Japan from the outside world.

Detailed explanation-5: -By 1889, Japan was a completely different country than it was in 1853, when Perry’s black ships arrived off the Japanese coast. The artist of this print portrayed not only the arrival of Perry, but the official marker of change to Japanese society.