The Image of the USA in the Works by Fukuzawa Yukichi

Abstract

During the Edo period, the Japanese saw images of “other” peoples in Dutch books and maps. The opportunity to see images of “Others” involuntarily gave rise to the idea not only of the plurality and diversity of people in the world, of the level of their civilization and enlightenment, but, most importantly, of the place that the Japanese themselves occupied in this system. The Japanese also saw images of Native Americans on screens and maps.
Not wanting to become a colony like other Asian countries, from the end of the Tokugawa era (1603–1868), Japan began organizing overseas missions and sending promising young Japanese to study in other countries. The main goal was to adopt the experience and achievements of the “enlightened West” and transform Japan into an advanced country that would be able to take its place among the leading powers of the time.
The first official mission to America was sent by the Japanese in 1860. This mission included the future greatest Japanese educator of the Meiji era (1868–1912), Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901). Later, he visited America again, in 1867. He described his memories of these trips in his autobiography, which he dictated in his declining years. These trips served as great assistance for him to write chapters on the United States in the geographical works Description of the Countries of the World (Sekai kuni zukushi, 1869) and The State of Affairs in the West (Seiy jij, 1866–1869). In Fukuzawa’s description, the United States appears as a progressive and dynamically developing country that Japan should emulate.