A Japanese who Met Abraham Lincoln
In 1851 Hikozo, a 13-year old Japanese mariner, encountered a tempest while a ship where he served was sailing along the Pacific coast lines of Japan to Edo (presently Tokyo) from west Japan.
However, after two months of drifting in the Ocean, he and other mariners were rescued by an American commercial ship. They got to San Francisco, but the US Government decided to return them to Japan as the then Japanese samurai government closed the nation. Hikozo and his company were sent to Hong Kong. They were expected to be taken on board a ship of an American naval fleet led by Commodore Perry who planned to visit Edo and request the Tokugawa shogun to establish a diplomatic tie with the US. At the Time, as Herman Melville wrote, whaling by American ships in the Pacific Ocean was very thriving. They needed help from Japan to secure water, foods, and other services needed by American ships whaling around Japanese seas.
Perry's fleet arrival was delayed. Except one Japanese marine, other Japanese decided not to be involved in the difficult diplomatic movement, thus running away from the American control. Most of the Japanese mariners left for a Japanese who happened to live in Hong Kong, though he was aslo an ex-mariner of a Japanese ship that had been wrecked. But Hikozo and another Japanese got on a ship heading for San Francisco.
So, Hikozo did not become part of the historic incident of Commodore Perry's arrival at Edo Bay (Tokyo Bay) in 1853. However he received a favor from an American custom chief in San Francisco, named Saunders. With Saunders, Hikozo moved to New York and then attended a mission school in Baltimore. On September 15, 1853, Hikozo met US President Franklin Pierce.
In 1858, the Treaty of Amity and Commerce was concluded between the shogun government at Edo and the US. As the samurai regime forbade Christianity at the time, Hikozo who became a Chrstian in America abandoned Japanese nationality to become a naturalized citizen of the US. Then he was employed by Townsend Harris, the first United States Consul General to Japan, as an interpreter. Hikozo came back to Japan in 1859 for the first time in nine years.
Japan was then toward a civil war because the anti-shogun camp was gaining strength. Samurais who opposed diplomatic policies of the Tokugawa shogun were trying to topple the Tougawa regime and expell Americans and other Westerners from Japan. Some radical samurais were really attacking foreigners around Yokohama, a port city near Edo opened for foreigners. So, Hikozo felt that his life was at stake. He returned to the US in 1861. And, he met Abraham Lincoln on March 31, 1862. Hikozo became the only Japanese who saw Abraham Lincoln. Or Abraham Lincoln met at least one Japanese in his life time.
In December 1862, Hikozo returned to Japan again. Since then, Hikozo worked in Japan, handling business in various fields. He died in Tokyo in 1897 as an American citizen.
While Hikozo was running a commerce firm in Yokohama in 1862, he read an article about Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in The New York Times he subscribed to. It gave him a hint for publishing a newspaper in Japan. In 1864, Hikozo started issuance of a newspaper in Japan, though commercial information papers had been occasionally delivered in Tokyo and other Japanese cities under rule of samurais. Hikozo's newspaper is today regraded as the first trial of publishing modern newspapers in Japan. Though Hikozo's newspaper business was terminated in two yeras, subsequent newspapers issued by other parties followed the style of Hikozo's modern newspaper.
So, we might say that there is a linkage between Abraham Lincoln and start of modern newspaper business in Japan.
*** *** *** ***
Pro 6:17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
Pro 6:18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
Pro 6:19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
Pro 6:20 My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: