1854 Kaei 7 Fijita Map of Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands

This is a rare 1854, Kaei 7, Japanese Edo period Fujita Ryou (橋本貞秀) chromoxylographic map illustrating Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Japanese Kuril Islands. It was issued following the 1853 arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry anticipating the opening of Hakodate as one of the 5 Japanese treaty ports. The maps coverage extends north from the tip of Honshu to include Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands as far as Kamchatka. This is a practical map, intended for actual Japanese voyages, both military and trade, and thus features copious annotations and coastal notes. A preface in Chinese is added to the end of the map, and 16 Ainu words are listed as 'dialect translation abbreviations'.

Historical Context

This map was issued following Commodore Perry's 1853 arrival that forced the Shogun to open Japan to foreign Trade. On his second visit to Japan, he did a more thorough reconnaissance, visiting Hokkaido and the city of Hakodate. In 1854, under the Convention of Kanagawa, as negotiated by Commodore Matthew Perry, Hakodate port partially opened to foreign ships for provisioning. Several years later, on June 2, 1859, Hakodate fully opened as one of five Japanese ports designated as free-trade zones by the 1858 Treaty of Amity and Commerce. A foreign zone, the U.S. Hakodate Foreign Settlement, quickly established and remains one of the legacies of the treaty.

Russian Border Questions

Fearing further loss of sovereignty, the Shogunate reinstituted the Hakodate Bugyō, or governorship, under the old Samurai system. At the same time, the arrival of foreigners led the Shogunate to order a reassessment of known border cartography, resulting in a wealth of new maps covering the extremes of the empire - of which this, embracing the very fringes of Tokugawa Era geographical knowledge, is one of the most important. Americans were not the only foreigners interested in Hokkaido (Ezo, as it was then known). Long neglected by the Shogunate, the indigenous Ainu frequently traveled north to Sakhalin or Kamchatka to pay tribute to Manchu and Russian powers. Part of this map's purpose was to facilitate the formalization of borders with the Russians.

Publication History and Census

This map was first printed in Kaei 6, or 1853. The map was compiled by Fujita Ryou (藤田良) and drawn by the Japanese mapmakers and Ukiyo-e printer Sadahide Hashimoto (橋本貞秀). Fujita Ryou, the compiler, is elusive and even within Japan, nothing is known. The present example is the second edition, issued in Kaei 7, 1854. It was published by Katsugoro Harimaya, a book wholesaler at the Edo Nihonbashi Dori Juken store. The map is present in several institutional collections in Japan, and at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, but is otherwise scarce, with no market presence.