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The Black Ships (in Japanese, 黒船, kurofune, Edo Period term) was the name given to Western vessels arriving in Japan in the 16th and 19th centuries. In 1543 Portuguese initiated the first contacts, establishing a trade route linking Goa to Nagasaki. The large carracks engaged in this trade had the hull painted black with pitch, and the term came to represent all western vessels. In 1639, after suppressing a rebellion blamed on the Christian influence, the ruling Tokugawa shogunate retreated into an isolationist policy, the Sakoku. During this “locked state,” contact with Japan by Westerners was restricted to Dejima island at Nagasaki. In 1844, William II of the Netherlands urged Japan to open, but was rejected. On July 8, 1853, the U.S. Navy steamed four warships into the bay at Edo and under threat of attack demanded that Japan open to trade with the West. Their arrival marked the 'reopening' of the country to political dialogue after more than two hundred years of self-imposed isolation. Trade with Western nations would not come until the Treaty of Amity and Commerce more than five years later. In particular, Kurofune refers to ''Mississippi'', ''Plymouth'', ''Saratoga'', and ''Susquehanna'' of the Perry Expedition for the opening of Japan, 1852-1854, that arrived on July 14, 1853 at Uraga Harbor (part of present-day Yokosuka) in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan under the command of United States Commodore Matthew Perry. ''Black'' refers to the black color of the older sailing vessels, and the black smoke from the coal-fired steam engines of the American ships. In this sense, the Kurofune became a symbol of the ending of isolation. ==First kurofune ships: nau do trato== In 1543 Portuguese traders arrived in Japan initiating the first contacts with the West. Soon they established a trade route linking their headquarters in Goa, via Malacca to Nagasaki. Large carracks engaged in the flourishing "Nanban trade", introducing modern inventions from the European traders, such as refined sugar, optics, and firearms; it was the firearms, arquebuses, which became a major innovation of the Sengoku period — a time of intense internal warfare — when the matchlocks were replicated. Later, they engaged in triangular trade, exchanging silver from Japan with silk from China via Macau. Carracks of 1200 to 1600 tons, named ''nau do trato'' ("treaty ship") or ''nau da China'' by the Portuguese, engaged in this trade had the hull painted black with pitch, and the term came to apply for all western vessels. The name was inscribed in the Nippo Jisho, the first western Japanese dictionary compiled in 1603. In 1549 Spanish missionary Francis Xavier started a Jesuit mission in Japan. Christianity spread, mingled with the new trade, making 300,000 converts among peasants and some daimyō (warlords). In 1637 the Shimabara Rebellion blamed on the Christian influence was suppressed. Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries faced progressively tighter restrictions, and were confined to the island of Dejima before being expelled in 1639. The Tokugawa shogunate retreated back into a policy of isolationism identified as , forbidding contact with most outside countries. Only a limited-scale trade and diplomatic relations with China, Korea, the Ryukyu Islands, and the Netherlands was maintained.〔Ronald P. Toby, ''State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu'', Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, (1984) 1991.〕 The Sakoku policy remained in effect until 1853 with the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry and the opening of Japan. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Black Ships」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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