Tokugawa Period

The Tokugawas were distrustful of the political designs of foreign powers. The Spanish were expelled in 1624, the Portuguese in 1638. (The English trading venture had meanwhile failed.) The Dutch and Chinese, the only foreigners allowed to remain, were confined to Nagasaki. Christian Japanese met such persecution that they were virtually wiped out.

The Tokugawas maintained a strong central government, greatly reducing the power of the daimyo, and there was a long era of internal peace. Japanese culture was in a vigorous period, with the haiku poem, the kabuki drama, and the art of woodblock printing reaching great heights.

The country remained closed to the West until 18S4, when a U.S. Navy expedition under Commodore Matthew C. Perry succeeded in making a treaty opening two of Japan's ports to United States trade. Some samurai took advantage of the crisis created by the coming of the West and began to call for an end to Tokugawa rule and the restoration of imperial authority.