Chapter 1. - Solidarity with Samurai : The Antebellum African American Press, Transnational Racial Equality, and the 1860 Japanese Embassy to the United States

Summary

Abstract

Within the African American press, stories of the 1860 Japanese Embassy, the first Japanese diplomatic mission to the US, inspired hope for the future and a sense of brotherhood with the samurai visitors. African American and abolitionist writers imagined a transnational solidarity with the Japanese that subverted state hierarchies of “civilization” and race to prove further the equality of all men. The transnational celebration of the Japanese gave African Americans a new lens through which to present their quest for racial equality. This imagined transnational solidarity reveals Japan's influence in the United States as African American publications developed an imagined racial solidarity with Japanese agents of “civilization” long before initiatives of “civilization and enlightenment” appeared on Japan's diplomatic agenda.

Keywords: 1860 Japanese Embassy, African American press, antebellum print culture, Afro-Asian solidarity, Douglass’ Monthly

Long before Japan and the United States engaged in imperial politics of inclusion and exclusion, samurai travelled to the United States and inspired Black writers with visions of a shared racial past, a united future, and a transnational solidarity between African American and Japanese people. African American and abolitionist newspapers embraced the 1860 Japanese embassy to the United States as “negroes from Japan”, using race to create an imagined solidarity that subverted and transcended state hierarchies of ‘civilization’ and race. The African American and abolitionist press, reimagining Japan and the Japanese, reframed racial prejudice as an experience in solidarity, to prove further the equality of all men, and assert African American membership to the worlds of civility and “civilization.” “These colored men of the East”, declared the June 1860 Weekly Anglo-African about the visiting Japanese embassy, “are paving the way for a new state of things much needed in our country”. The acceptance of the Japanese gave politically and socially ostracized African Americans a new lens through which to present their quest for racial equality and recognition as citizens of American “civilization.” This imagined transnational solidarity reveals Japan's influence in the United States outside the American state's vision of how white powers and nations governed by people of color should interact. Examining the writings of non-state actors traditionally excluded from early historical narratives of US–Japan diplomacy reveals an imagined transnational solidarity occurring within and because of an oppressive racial hierarchy, as well as a Japanese influence on antebellum African American intellectual history and cultural production.