Narrative: Ranald MacDonald

Ranald McDonald (1824-1894) is remembered as being the first person to teach English in Japan. During his ten-month stay there, he tutored 14 natives of Nagasaki, one of whom later played the pivotal role of interpreter when Commodore Perry arrived in 1854.

Ranald was born in the Oregon territory to a Scottish-both fur trader (his father, Archibald McDonald) and a Tillamook princess (his mother, Kaole'xoa) who died shortly after his birth. Growing up, Macdonald felt estranged by his mixed blood heritage and, to better make sense of his own life, he hatched a very unusual plan.

Reputedly theorizing a racial link between North American Indigenous peoples and the Japanese, Macdonald signed on as crew to an American whaling ship. As the ship approached the vicinity of Japan, he persuaded the captain to set him adrift in a tiny boat, where he planned to feign shipwreck and reach the shore. It was well understood that he may have been sailing into the jaws of death, since unauthorized foreigners who set foot on Japanese soil--even at great distress--risked execution.

Upon arrival, MacDonald was imprisoned, interrogated, and forced to step on an image of the Virgin Mary. However, he eventually befriended his captors. MacDonald surmised that his friendly reception was owed to a sense of racial affinity with the Japanese. But MacDonald was a loner, a seeker, and an indefatigable world traveler. Having grown up in a multi-cultural environment, he was at home among peoples of different races and classes, and had come to Japan peacefully and of his own volition. His charisma and intelligence--evident to readers of his account--is sufficient to explain their response.

The Narrative of Ranald MacDonald, Chapters 4-6, 11-16:

• Google books: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ranald_MacDonald/trIOAQAAIAAJ?hl=en
• Washington State Library: https://www.sos.wa.gov/library/publications_detail.aspx?p=14

Supplemental:

• "Native American Castaway Gives First Description of Closed Japan (1848)": https://youtu.be/GV0MnMBRyRo
• "My Favorite Places": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT5z-4LS_EY&ab_channel=TVW
• "Oregon Adventurer in Japan": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8bJFaKYTQY&ab_channel=WarrenKarmol
• "Anytown, USA" podcast: https://www.podbean.com/site/EpisodeDownload/PBD6695EFBBW3

Extracts:

"If that double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due; for already she is on the threshold." (Moby-Dick, 24)

This meetup is part of a series on Japan Unbolted.