1853 Mineta / Hashimoto World Map

This is a rare c. 1853 world map by Mineta Fūkō and Hashimoto Sadahide produced at roughly the same time that Japan was thrown open to outside influences as a result of American 'gunboat diplomacy.' It reflects Japanese geographic knowledge on the boundary between two eras, the end of Japan's self-imposed semi-isolation and the beginning of its rapid engagement with the outside world.

A Closer Look

The map shows that despite Japan's isolation policies (discussed below), the country had not been entirely closed to outside influences prior to 1853, and that certain intellectuals had a good grasp of developments in European geographical knowledge. It includes impressive documentation of place names, especially coastal cities and islands in the Pacific, which reflects the incorporation of knowledge of discoveries of the late 18th century. On the other hand, the lack of detail in Canada's Arctic Archipelago and the absence of Antarctica suggests that Mineta's geographical knowledge was several decades out of date.

Continents are color-coded, though the placement of some territories is unconventional, such as including Anatolia and Arabia in Africa. Latitudes are indicated in the border running along the outside, while the tropics are marked out and the equator shown with a black and yellow line. Longitude lines are included but not numbered; the prime meridian does not run through Edo, as became common in the following decades, but instead through the Pacific Ocean just to the east of Japan.

The End of Japanese Isolation

This map was most likely published the same year that American 'black ships' led by Commodore Mathew Perry arrived in Tokyo Bay. Perry had a commission from American President Millard Fillmore (1800 - 1874) to force the opening of Tokugawa Japan's seaports to American trade and diplomacy. For the previous 214 years, Japan operated under Sakoku (鎖国, 'Closed-Country') policies, where limited foreign trade and interaction was allowed with the Dutch and Chinese at Nagasaki and through other tightly constrained channels, but otherwise was strictly limited to prevent potentially troublesome foreign ideas like Christianity from undermining Tokugawa rule.

Nevertheless, some Japanese intellectuals, particularly of the 'Dutch Learning' (Rangaku) School, were aware of developments in Europe and the Tokugawa became quietly but increasingly concerned about foreign threats, moving to exert greater control over the northern region known as Ezo (蝦夷), including Hokkaido. News of China's defeat in the First Opium War (1839 - 1842), spread in large part by Mineta himself in his (banned) book New Tales from Abroad (海外新話), was also a deeply ominous sign.

Perry's timing was impeccable, as the leadership of the Tokugawa was in disarray when he reached Japan, with the aging Tokugawa Ieyoshi dying soon after the Americans' arrival, succeeded by his sickly son Tokugawa Iesada, in effect leaving a regency of Abe Masahiro and other top-level advisors. Abe felt that it was impossible for Japan to resist the American demands by military force and, by the time Perry returned in 1854, decided to accept virtually all the demands in Fillmore's letter. Other European powers soon piled in, demanding similar concessions from the Tokugawa.

The sudden opening of Japan to foreign trade and influence coincided with long-building issues in the Tokugawa system and set off a complete social and economic crisis. Samurai and daimyo in southern Japan, who had been the enemies of the Tokugawa over two centuries before and never been happy with their rule, sensed an opportunity. Rebellions were launched to 'restore' the emperor in Kyoto, for centuries a symbolic figure only, to a central political role, topple the Tokugawa, and expel the foreigners. By 1868, the rebels had succeeded in the first two goals, but recognizing the gap between Japan and the West embraced rather than banished foreign influence, leading Japan down a path of rapid modernization.

Placing this Map in Context

Although world maps exist from throughout the Tokugawa or Edo period, there was a distinct increase in their production in the last years of the Edo period, also known as the Bakumatsu period (1853 – 1867), especially once the Tokugawa launched an 11th hour modernization drive that failed to preserve their rule but did set the stage for even more drastic reforms in the Meiji era. Along with the present map, two similarly titled maps were published the same year, Kudō Tōhei's Shōchū bankoku zu (掌中萬國圖) and an unknown maker's Shintei Chikyū bankoku hōzu (新訂地球萬國方圖). All three were designed for foldability and portability.

Aside from Mineta, the present map's engraver, Hashimoto Sadahide (橋本貞秀), played an important role in the following years by producing woodblock prints showing foreigners residing in Yokohama and the hybrid Western-Japanese world created there by the treaty port system.

Publication History and Census

This map was published in 1853, with Mineta Fūkō (嶺田楓江) noted as the maker, Hashimoto Gyokuran (橋本玉蘭), better known as Hashimoto Sadahide (橋本貞秀), as the engraver, Murakami Goyū (村上吾雄) as the printer, and Kikuchi Editions (菊地氏藏版) as the publisher. The present edition is noted by us to belong to the institutional holdings of Meiji University, the University of California Berkeley, the Library of Congress, and the State Library of New South Wales.