Broadway
Broadway was a beautifully chaotic boulevard in 1872, and the Iwakura delegation were in awe of the multitude of New Yorkers commuting by carriage, bus, and on foot. Kunitake Kume wrote that the density of the city was unmatched by anything they had experienced before. It seemed as if all roads led back to New York City – a metaphorical Rome for the modern era. The delegates thought Broadway’s cobblestone roads, lined with businesses and stalls selling all types of goods, was comparable to a festival. It seemed to them the busiest street in the world!
Christian Organizations
While in New York City, the Iwakura Mission visited the American Bible Society and the YMCA. The Bible Society was an organization that advocated the translation and distribution of the Christian Bible, and presented the delegation with Bibles written in Chinese. Kunitake Kume made note of the popularity of Christianty in America, especially as a tool for people to evaluate the moral character of themselves and others. For Kume and his fellow delegates, this aspect of Christiany, among others, was difficult for them to fully accept. Nevertheless, Kume could tell that Christianity was a positive influence on American civilization, acting as a unifying religion and compass for moral standards. In […]
Establishment of the Consulate General of Japan in New York
This document, is a report regarding the establishment of the Consulate General of Japan in New York, sent from the Chargé d’Affaires Arinori Mori. It was sent on November 26, 1872, just over three months after the Iwakura Mission left the United States.
Erie Canal
The Iwakura Mission traveled north to Syracuse and Niagara Falls on a track that ran beside the Erie Canal. Kume wrote it was, “one of the best-known canals in the world,” and that its “gently flowing waters” were a “vital waterway” in the nation. Completed in 1825, the Canal connected the Hudson River with the Great Lakes Basin. This link gave New York City a great advantage over other seaports – it was connected to both the Atlantic Ocean and the interior of America. At the time of the mission, the canal’s dimensions had been expanded, and boats with a capacity of 240 tons were able to carry commercial goods […]
Oysters
As the delegates journeyed across the Eastern United States, they were often served oysters at events and parties. Kunitake Kume attributed their frequent oyster-eating to the abundance of oyster beds in the New York Bay and Americans’ view of the shellfish as a delicacy. Kume didn’t disagree – he thought that oysters were both delicious and a useful digestive aid.
David Murray, Professor of Mathematics and the Superintendent of Education of the Ministry of Education (1873-79)
David Murray (1830-1905) was a professor of mathematics at Rutgers from 1863-1873. He was instrumental in creating the science curriculum at Rutgers College and successfully lobbied for Rutgers to become New Jersey’s land grant college in 1864. He was a teacher and friend to many Japanese students who came to Rutgers, including the Iwakura brothers and Hatakeyama Yoshinari. His home became a social center for the Japanese students in New Brunswick. “These young men referred to Dr. Murray’s residence as their “American Home” and spent much of their leisure time there.”1 One of the objectives of the Iwakura Mission was to search for a Western adviser for the newly formed […]
Guido Verbeck and His “Brief Sketch”
Many of the Japanese students who came to New Brunswick had studied in Nagasaki under Guido F. Verbeck (1830-1898), one of the first three missionaries sent to Japan by the Dutch Reformed Church in 1859. Among his students were future leaders of Japan, such as Ōkuma Shigenobu, Ito Hirobumi, Ōkubo Toshimichi and Soejima Taneomi. The Yokoi brothers, Kusakabe, and the Iwakura brothers had also studied with him in Nagasaki prior to coming to New Brunswick. Verbeck’s “Brief Sketch,” written for his former student Ōkuma Shigenobu in 1869, is known to have inspired the Iwakura Mission. In it, he writes, …[T]here is something in the civilization of the West that must […]
Hatakeyama Yoshinari, the Third Secretary of the Iwakura Mission and the First President of Kaisei Gakkō
Hatakeyama Yoshinari (1842-76), known under the name “Kozo Soogiwoora” while at Rutgers, was a native of the Satsuma domain in present-day Kagoshima prefecture. He was one of the first nineteen students who were secretly sent by the domain to study in England in 1865. In 1867, he and five other students (Mori Arinori, Sameshima Naonobu, Yoshida Kiyonari, Matsumura Junzō, and Nagasawa Kanaye) left for Brocton, New York, to join Thomas Lake Harris’ “Brotherhood of the New Life”, a Christian spiritualist community. Mori and Sameshima left the community to return to Japan in 1868; Hatakeyama, Matsumura, and Yoshida, in search for further opportunities for Western education, went on to Rutgers. In […]
Prologue: The Japanese Students at Rutgers
“Fifth day of the fifth month[…] Daybreak came at New Brunswick of the New Jersey state. This is the city where the famous school is.” The “famous school” (有名なる学校) that is referred to in this brief passage on New Brunswick, New Jersey, in A True Account of the Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary’s Journey of Observation is Rutgers University, known as Rutgers College at the time. Rutgers and its preparatory Rutgers Grammar School had become a home to dozens of Japanese students by 1872. The first to arrive in 1866 were Yokoi Saheita and Daihei, nephews of the famed philosopher Yokoi Shōnan. They were soon joined by Kusakabe Tarō of Fukui […]
Ferries and Piers
In 1872 New York City was a major port, surrounded by water. As the delegates arrived into the famed metropolis, they marveled at the size and breadth of the city’s commercial ferry and freight vessels. There were so many people, horses, and goods in transit along the Hudson River! Nothing the men read about America could have prepared them for the scale of the United States’ shipping enterprise. The magnitude of the operation took them aback. The delegates were impressed when their carriage was loaded onto a massive ferry, without any need for them to disembark. Kunitake Kume wrote that it was surreal to view waves from a carriage window.