Namamugi Incident

Coordinates: 35°29′29″N 139°39′49″E / 35.49139°N 139.66361°E / 35.49139; 139.66361
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
woodcut print with Charles Lennox Richardson
at the centre of the scene.

The Namamugi incident (生麦事件, Namamugi-jiken), also known as the Kanagawa incident and Richardson affair, was a political crisis that occurred in the

Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Bakumatsu on 14 September 1862. Charles Lennox Richardson, a British merchant, was killed by the armed retinue of Shimazu Hisamitsu, the regent of the Satsuma Domain, on a road in Namamugi near Kawasaki
.

Richardson's killing sparked outrage among Europeans for violating their extraterritoriality in Japan, while the Japanese argued Richardson had disrespected Shimazu and was justifiably killed under the Kiri-sute gomen rule. British demands for compensation and failure by the Satsuma to respond resulted in the Bombardment of Kagoshima (or Anglo-Satsuma War) in August 1863.

Course of events

Body of Charles Richardson, 1862.

On 14 September 1862, four

daimyō of the Satsuma Domain.[1][2]

Shimazu was heading in the opposite direction to Lennox and his party, who continued to ride along the side of the road without dismounting until they reached the main body of the procession, which occupied the entire width of the road. Richardson, leading his party, rode close to Shimazu's procession and did not dismount despite being gestured repeatedly to do so. Richardson was subsequently slashed and

post-mortem examination of Richardson's body showed ten mortal wounds, and he was buried in the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery, between the later graves of Marshall and Clark.[1][2]

Consequences of the Namamugi Incident

Entrance to the village of Namamugi, circa 1862.
Poetic monument of Namamugi Incident in Yokohama. Inscribed is a Chinese-style poem (kanshi) by Prince Yamashina Akira.

The Namamugi Incident caused a new

Tokugawa Shogunate had ended its historic isolationist foreign policy known as sakoku
and allowed the entry of foreigners. Japanese and Westerners were outraged by the incident, with these groups almost unanimously supportive and opposed to the killing, respectively.

Japanese reports accused Richardson of continuing to ride in the middle of the road, and trying to get between Shimazu's

Frederick Wright-Bruce, the British envoy to China, remembered Richardson as an "arrogant adventurer".[1]

The incident sparked a scare in Japan's foreign community, which was based in the Kannai district of Yokohama. Westerners argued that Lennox was protected in Japan by

Bakufu
and from the daimyō of Satsuma, together with the arrest, trial and execution of the perpetrators.

Bombardment of Kagoshima

Main article: Bombardment of Kagoshima

By mid-1863, the British had become impatient that the reparations demands for the Namamugi Incident were still unmet. In July, the Bakufu reluctantly paid the British the sum of £100,000 (one-third of their annual revenue) in compensation, though this was mainly due to fear of

naval bombardment against the Tokugawa capital city of Edo
. The Satsuma Domain continued to ignore the British demands and refused to apologize for Richardson's death.

On 15 August, a Royal Navy squadron entered the waters of Kagoshima, the capital city of the Satsuma Domain, to extract the demanded reparations for the Namamugi Incident by force. Meeting further prevarication, they seized several Satsuma ships as bargaining chips for future negotiations, but were unexpectedly fired upon by Satsuma coastal batteries. The squadron retaliated by destroying the Satsuma vessels and bombarding Kagoshima, which had been evacuated. The Satsuma batteries were gradually silenced, but the British ships were unable to sustain the bombardment and retreated two days later. Ultimately, the battle resulted in five killed on the Satsuma side, and eleven lives among the British (including, with a single cannon shot, both the captain and commander of the British flagship HMS Euryalus).[a]

Satsuma's material losses were substantial, with around 500 houses destroyed in Kagoshima, and three Satsuma steamships were sunk. The engagement caused much controversy in the British House of Commons, but Acting Vice Admiral Augustus Leopold Kuper's conduct was eventually commended by the House. Kuper was advanced to Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1864 "for his services at Kagoshima". Shimazu Hisamitsu was subsequently given the court title of Ōsumi no Kami (大隅守).[4]

The military stalemate resulted in a renegotiation between the British and Satsuma regarding the Namamugi Incident. The Satsuma admired the superiority of the Royal Navy and sought a trading relationship with Britain as a result. Later that year, the Satsuma paid the £25,000 (equivalent to £2,500,000 in 2021)

trial
were unfulfilled. The Bombardment of Kagoshima became known in Japan as the Anglo-Satsuma War (薩英戦争, Satsu-Ei Sensō).

In popular culture

The Namamugi Incident was the basis of

Gai-Jin. It is also partially referenced in the opening cutscene for the video game Total War: Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai
, which depicts an unnamed Japanese port town being bombarded by a British warship in retaliation for two western merchants being murdered by samurai.

See also

  • Anglo-Japanese relations
  • Anglo-Satsuma War

Notes

  1. William George Armstrong
    .

References

  1. ^ a b c Reichert, Folker (2013). "Mord in Namamugi" [Murder in Namamugi]. Damals (in German). Vol. 45, no. 3. pp. 66–69.
  2. ^ a b Denney 2011, pp. 1, 129 (photograph).
  3. ^ Denney 2011, p. 84.
  4. ISBN 0-8048-0996-8
    volume 2, p. 571.
  5. ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved June 11, 2022.

Further reading

35°29′29″N 139°39′49″E / 35.49139°N 139.66361°E / 35.49139; 139.66361

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