The Meiji Restoration of Japan

Japan was a largely closed society, it did not want diplomatic and commercial contact with foreigners. The United States and other nations tried to establish formal relations with Japan, but were repeatedly denied. So, in 1852, President Millard Fillmore ordered Commodore Matthew Perry to command the U.S. Navy's East India Squadron and to establish diplomatic relations with Japan. Perry initially delivered President Fillmore's request for a treaty to a representative of the Japanese emperor in 1853. He returned with a larger force in 1854, arriving in Edo (Now Tokyo) Bay, and obtained the signature of the Japanese authorities to the Treaty of Kanagawa on March of 1854. This treaty led to significant commercial trade between the United States and Japan, contributed to opening Japan to other Western nations, and ultimately resulted in the modernization of the Japanese state. The Japanese lived in an archipelago, an archipelago is a groups of many islands in a large body of water.