Category: Japanese History
The first Westerner to visit Izu was most likely Englishman William Adams, known in Japan as Miura Anjin. Adams had shipwrecked near Nagasaki, in western Japan, years earlier, and had eventually gained favor with the great Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa. Having been appointed to a rank of Samurai, Adams was given the task of building Japan’s first western style ship in Ito, on Izu’s east coast.
Some 250 years later, after signing the Convention of Kanagawa at Yokohama in 1854, US Admiral Matthew Perry and his fleet landed at Shimoda, southern Izu, to survey a site for America’s first diplomatic consulate. Pictured here is the gravestone of crew member James Hamilton. One of five crew from that historic expedition resting peacefully above the bay at Shimoda.