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The most important points were:

  • exchange of diplomatic agents

  • Edo , Kobe , Nagasaki , Niigata , and Yokohama ’s opening to foreign trade as ports

  • ability of U.S. citizens to live and trade in those ports

  • a system of Extraterritoriality that provided for the subjugation of foreign residents to the laws of their own consular courts instead of the Japanese law system

  • fixed low import/export duties, subject to international control


The agreement served as a model for similar treaties signed by Japan with other foreign countries in the ensuing weeks. These Unequal Treaties curtailed Japanese sovereignty for the first time in its history; more importantly, it revealed Japan’s growing weakness, and was seen by the West as a pretext for possible colonisation of Japan. The recovery of national status and strength became an overarching priority for the Japanese, with the treaty’s domestic consequences being the end of Bakufu control and the establishment of a new imperial government.


SEE ALSO



EXTERNAL LINK

  • [http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob58.html The United States-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce, 1858 (partial text)]