During this time period, Japan practiced a system known as sakoku, a policy of strict isolation from the global world that remained in place for over two centuries. Perry’s arrival disrupted this isolation and pressured the Tokugawa Shogunate to negotiate under the imposing presence of armed American steamships, known as the Black Ships, in their harbor. In this tense environment, gifts became a crucial medium of communication, allowing each side to convey intentions and values without direct confrontation. Mauss argues that gifts are “total social facts,” carrying political, moral, and spiritual obligations, and this framework shows that the exchange between the United States and Japan was far more than a series of objects passing between the two countries. It represented a meeting of cultural ideologies, each shaped by its own expectations of respect, hierarchy, and diplomacy. From this perspective, the Japanese presentation of gifts to Perry was not merely ceremonial, but an attempt to assert cultural identity, express dignity, and maintain agency within an unequal encounter.

The Perry Expedition resulted in the Tokugawa shogunate signing the 1854 Treaty of Kanagawa, which ended the two centuries of isolation and created a new diplomatic order in East Asia. The treaty established several things, including a formal peace agreement between the United States and Japan, as well as the opening of the Shimoda and Hakodate ports for coaling and resupply. Additionally, it guaranteed humane treatment for shipwrecked American sailors, and created in the first American consul in Shimoda, which was the first Western diplomatic presence inside of Japan. Despite not immediately granting commercial trade rights, the Treaty of Kanagawa set the stage for future trade agreements and expeditions, such as the Harris Treaty of 1858, expanding American access further.