Townsend Harris

Townsend Harris was an American merchant and diplomat whose negotiations with the Tokugawa shogunate expanded United States relations with Japan. Before his posting, he served as president of New York City’s Board of Education and helped establish the Free Academy in 1847. The institution, later the City College of New York, offered access to higher education to students who could not afford private colleges. ¹

President Franklin Pierce appointed Harris consul general to Japan after Commodore Matthew C. Perry secured the Treaty of Kanagawa. Harris arrived in 1856 and established his office at Gyokusenji, a Buddhist temple in Shimoda. With his interpreter Henry Heusken, he pressed Japanese officials to permit negotiations at Edo, the shogunate’s seat of government. His residence and audience involved prolonged arguments over access, ceremony, and the standing of a foreign representative. ^{2, 3}

Harris negotiated the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, signed in 1858. It opened additional Japanese ports to American residence and trade, provided for diplomatic representatives in Edo and Washington, and gave American consuls jurisdiction over specified offenses by Americans. The agreement made commercial access durable while imposing restrictions on Japanese tariff and judicial authority. Harris moved to Edo, where opposition to the foreign presence created persistent danger for the diplomatic community. ^{6, 2}

Appointed minister resident in 1859, Harris presented his credentials that November and remained until 1862. His posting connected the limited maritime arrangements of 1854 with permanent diplomatic representation and a commercial treaty. He returned to New York after presenting his recall on April 26, 1862, and died in 1878. The treaty system he helped establish survived the fall of the shogunate, although the subsequent Meiji government sought to restore jurisdiction over foreign residents. ^{4, 5}