Drifting Toward the Southeast: John Manjirō

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A day in 1841 began as a fishing trip off the southeast coast of Shikuko Island. It turned perilous when unforgiving winds cast the men adrift. They took refuge on a deserted volcanic island 200 miles off Japan’s coast, where they subsisted for seven months, until finally being rescued by the crew of the Massachusetts whaling ship, John Howland. When Captain Whitfield plucked the 14-year-old peasant fisherman, John Manjirō, and his shipmates from the barren caves, the castaways were starving, freezing and desperate.

This dramatic encounter was the beginning of the first friendly contact between the Japanese and American people. Japan had been a closed country for nearly two-and-a half centuries. The poor fishermen had never seen creatures like the burly whalers who rescued them, since the Japanese government had enacted stern measures to repel foreigners. Even Japanese who came in contact with foreigners were suspected of being spies or Christians, and could be executed. Knowing it would be dangerous for the castaways to return in an American ship to "that double-bolted nation, Japan" (as Melville referred to it), the fishermen were instead brought to Hawaii.

At this time, Manjirō made the bold decision to accept an invitation by Whitfield: to help the captain finish his whaling voyage, and then return to live with him and his Christian family in New England. Over the course of the next 10 years, "a whale-ship was [his] Yale College and [his] Harvard."

Manjirō finally returned home (in 1851) with fortuitous timing. Commodore Matthew Perry's squadron of "Black Ships" were to arrive in Yokahama Harbor within a couple of years. When the Americans demanded that Japan open her ports, Manjirō proved useful to the government with his knowledge of Western ways. His stories of steam engines, locomotives, telegraphs, and democracy were almost too fantastic to believe. But evidence of the West's military might, maritime prowess, science and technology, made it clear that the young castaway had great knowledge that could benefit Japan.

Manjirō, "the man who discovered America," would play a significant role on the world stage for his country. He joined Japan's first delegation to America and Europe. He taught English, navigation, whaling, maritime trades, and earned a teaching position at the University of Tokyo. He deeply influenced the pioneers of modernization in Japan, such as Sakamoto Ryoma and Yukichi Fukuzawa, and was made a samurai scholar by the ruling shogunate. These were extraordinary accomplishments for a poor, uneducated boy from a small Japanese fishing village.

Drifting Toward the Southeast (Hyoson Kirayaku) is the official, autobiographical account of John Manjirō's historic voyage to the United States as told to the officials of the Shogunate in 1852.

Drifting Toward the Southeast: