{"record":{"aliases":["新見正興","Shinmi Buzen-no-kami"],"appointmentIds":["japan-b719d32fc01b9b"],"appointmentsDataset":"https://chanceries.org/diplomats.json","archivalSources":[],"canonicalUrl":"https://chanceries.org/diplopedia/people/masaoki-shinmi-a38dc5405d/","countrySlug":"japan","entityId":"https://chanceries.org/diplopedia/people/masaoki-shinmi-a38dc5405d/#person","eventIds":[],"expandedParagraphs":["Masaoki Shinmi was born in 1822 into the Miura family and adopted by his uncle Shinmi Masamichi. He entered shogunate service as a page and rose through household and administrative appointments. In 1859 he became a foreign affairs magistrate, concurrently responsible for Kanagawa, and was selected to head the mission carrying Japan’s treaty ratification to the United States.","Shinmi travelled with deputy envoy Norimasa Muragaki and inspector Tadamasa Oguri aboard the American warship Powhatan. Their journey brought them through Hawaii, San Francisco, and Panama to Washington in May 1860. The delegation completed the exchange of ratifications of the 1858 Treaty of Amity and Commerce and visited American cities and institutions. Its members observed the Washington Navy Yard’s workshops before proceeding to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York and returning home by way of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.","After the mission, Shinmi remained a foreign affairs magistrate and later served close to the shogun as a sobashu, or personal attendant. He withdrew from service in the final years of the shogunate. Following the Meiji Restoration he lived at Shimo-Okutomi in Musashi before returning to Tokyo for medical treatment. He died in 1869."],"id":"japan:masaoki shinmi","identifiers":{},"legacyPersonIds":[],"legacyUrl":"https://chanceries.org/diplomat-a38dc5405d344b9bf8df.html","name":"Masaoki Shinmi","notes":[{"sourceIds":["mission-5a397b8676ad6894559b","mission-dcbd86a1101e558d1234","mission-6d204a16e90e588461c5"],"text":"Shinmi led a visiting embassy in 1860, before Japan established a permanent Washington legation."}],"paragraphLinks":[[],[{"recordId":"event-cbfed69193601b9b89966763","text":"Treaty of Amity and Commerce"}],[]],"paragraphSources":[["descendants-life"],["loc-mission","kotobank-life"],["descendants-life","kotobank-life"]],"profileUrl":"diplomat-a38dc5405d344b9bf8df.html","relatedEvents":[{"basis":"reviewed-context","country":"Japan","date":"1860","description":"Japan’s first diplomatic delegation to the United States reaches Washington and meets President James Buchanan—a highly visible encounter between two societies beginning a new relationship.","id":"japan-delegation","note":"Shinmi led the visiting 1860 embassy identified in his recorded appointment. No continuous resident mission is implied.","sourceUrls":["https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-japanese-mission-of-1860"],"title":"Japan’s first mission arrives","url":"Japan.html#history-japan-delegation"}],"relatedPeople":[],"relationships":[],"researchStatus":"reviewed","reviewedOn":"2026-10-28","revision":"ee4a787c64633acb","sources":[{"accessedOn":"2026-10-28","date":null,"id":"descendants-life","locator":"Profile and chronology","publisher":"Association of Descendants of the 1860 Japanese Embassy to America","title":"新見豊前守正興","type":"institutional-history","url":"https://1860kenbei-shisetsu.org/history/register/profile-01/"},{"accessedOn":"2026-10-28","date":"2016-06-13","id":"loc-mission","locator":"Eiichi Ito’s account of mission journals","publisher":"Library of Congress","title":"Who Were the First Japanese to Visit Washington?","type":"institutional-history","url":"https://blogs.loc.gov/international-collections/2016/06/who-were-the-first-japanese-to-visit-washington/"},{"accessedOn":"2026-10-28","date":null,"id":"kotobank-life","locator":"Nipponica; World Encyclopedia; Japanese biographical dictionary entries","publisher":"Shogakukan / Heibonsha and other biographical dictionaries via Kotobank","title":"新見正興","type":"reference","url":"https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%96%B0%E8%A6%8B%E6%AD%A3%E8%88%88-82594"},{"accessedOn":"","date":"2012-11-19","id":"mission-5a397b8676ad6894559b","locator":"Modern chief names and protocol dates through Kenichiro Sasae; Historical diplomatic representation from 1891; Embassy raised in 1906, wartime interruption, reopening in 1952","publisher":"","title":"Diplomatic Representation for Japan","type":"Mission record","url":"https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/cpr/rls/94066.htm"},{"accessedOn":"","date":"","id":"mission-dcbd86a1101e558d1234","locator":"","publisher":"","title":"Masaoki Shinmi — mission record (1860)","type":"Mission record","url":"https://www.ny.us.emb-japan.go.jp/oshirase/2020-12-12_JapaneseHistoryCouncil.html"},{"accessedOn":"","date":"","id":"mission-6d204a16e90e588461c5","locator":"","publisher":"","title":"Masaoki Shinmi — mission record (1860)","type":"Mission record","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ambassadors_of_Japan_to_the_United_States"}],"topics":["1860 Japanese Embassy","Treaty of Amity and Commerce","Tokugawa diplomacy"]},"schemaVersion":1}