October 23, 2024 • 42 mins
In 1834, the Three Kichis were on a routine journey to deliver rice to Tokyo. But when a typhoon interfered, they were swept out into the Pacific for 5,000 miles — and became the first Japanese people in the Pacific Northwest. But that was only a single moment in one of history’s most amazing journeys.
The trio would end up going halfway around the world and back again, seeing things they never could have imagined, accidental pioneers in a world on the precipice of being transformed.
*
On the Very Special Episodes podcast, we tell one incredible story each week. Stranger-than-fiction tales about normal people in extraordinary situations. Stories that make you say, “this should be a movie!” Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.
VERY SPECIAL CREDITS
Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, Jason English
Written by Bess Lovejoy
Produced by Josh Fisher
Story Editor is Marisa Brown
Editing and Sound Design by Jonathan Washington and Josh Fisher
Mixing and Mastering by Baheed Frazier
Original Music by Elise McCoy
Research and Fact Checking by Meredith Danko, Bess Lovejoy, and Austin Thompson
Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla
Executive Producer is Jason English
Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying Very Special Episodes, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. You can reach us at veryspecialepisodes@gmail.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Originals.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is an iHeart original. The westernmost tip of the
Olympic Peninsula is a bit of a desolate place, thick
with trees and prone to storms. It's where the northwestern
US disappears into the Pacific Ocean. The rocky coastline is
(00:33):
especially forbidding and tends to catch ships unaware. That's what
happened one cold day in January eighteen thirty four, when
a battered wooden ship snagged on the rocks and began
leaning to one side. The ship had already been through
a lot, and so had the three men who soon
(00:57):
trudged up the beach, gaunt and bedraggled from fourteen months
at sea. The trio probably didn't look like much of
them were barely into their teen years. All three almost
certainly needed a hot meal and a bath. As unimpressive
as they probably looked, the three men must have been
(01:20):
an astonishing site to the members of the Macaw Nation,
the local Native Americans who first spotted them on the beach.
That's because the three shipwrecked sailors were far far from home,
in fact, farther away from home than they could have
ever imagined, going blown off course in a violent storm
(01:45):
more than a year earlier. They were the first Japanese
people known to set foot in what is now Washington State.
They may have been the very first Japanese people to
set foot in America period. Back in eighteen thirty four.
The Macaw had little if any idea Japanese people existed,
(02:08):
and these Japanese sailors, who were poor peasants, had little
if any idea the Macaw existed. It was, in the
words of one scholar, about as weird for both sides
as a Martian landing would be for us. But for
the three men on that beach, it was only a
(02:29):
single moment in one of history's most amazing journeys. The
trio would end up going halfway around the world and
back again, seeing things they never could have dreamed of,
and acting as accidental pioneers in a world that was
on the precipice of being transformed. Yet at the moment
(02:51):
the men staggered up the beach on the Olympic Peninsula,
they probably had two pressing questions, where the heck were
they exactly? And how or when would they ever get home?
Welcome to very special episodes and iHeart original podcast. I'm
(03:13):
your host Dana Schwartz, and this is no turning back
the amazing journey of the Three ki Chies. My husband
is actually from the Pacific Northwest and he had never
heard of this story before.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That's what I love about this.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That's wild. I mean, as a first contact story, and
you think it would be like just a legend it's
always told. Can there be something you learned about in school?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Yeah, this had that stuff you missed in history class.
Feel where we never talked about any of this. It's
like a Below Deck season gone terribly wrong.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I'm laughing. I've never seen below Deck. It's fun. People
like it.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
We'll do an episode on below Deck.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
The village of Onia is wedged between the mountains and
the sea on the southern part of Japan's Cheetah Peninsula. Today,
it's known for its family friendly beaches and its fishing,
but it's also known in Japan as the birthplace of
the three Kichis, Otokichi, Kukichi, and Iwakichi, the three sailors
(04:21):
who staggered up that Olympic Peninsula beach in eighteen thirty four.
Otokichi and Kiukichi, fourteen and fifteen years old, respectively, were
apprentice cooks. Iwakichi, aged twenty eight, was a ship navigator.
When the three set sail on a cargo vessel called
(04:42):
the Hojin Maru, they were probably expecting a pretty routine journey.
The destination Edo known today as Tokyo. Back in the
nineteenth century, Edo is where the Shogun lived, the Shogun
being the military dictator who ruled Japan at the time.
The Hojinmoru was carrying rice and porcelain meant as the
(05:06):
annual tribute to the Shogun. When the ship left in
late eighteen thirty two, the sailors on board probably expected
to spend just a few days making the three hundred
and twenty five mile trip to the port nearest the
Shogun's palace, but the Hojin Maru and the Kichis never
(05:28):
made it as far as Edo. Instead, shortly after leaving port,
a violent storm took hold, Unfortunately for the crew. Japanese
ships like the Hojin Maru had some design characteristics that
weren't so great for typhoons. They were built with enormous
(05:48):
rudders and one very tall mast. They didn't have a keel,
that big blade that sticks down into the water from
a ship's hull and helps to keep it stable. In
typhoons like this one, the rudders would often break off,
leaving the ship unable to steer. With no keel to
(06:09):
stabilize the vessel, the tall mast would leave the ship
prone to tipping over and capsizing. Some scholars argue that
design was intentional. You see, at the time, the shogun
didn't want ships surviving sailing on the open ocean far
from their nation's shores. In the mid seventeenth century, Japan
(06:32):
had instituted a policy of near total isolation when it
came to most foreigners, especially Europeans. Except for a few
Dutch and Chinese traders in Nagasaki Bay, almost nothing in
the way of foreign influence was supposed to come into Japan,
and almost nothing was supposed to come out leaving Japanese soil.
(06:57):
Even being seen with a foreigner, even talking to one,
was generally punishable by death.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
This seclusion policy meant that Japan had ironically over two
hundred years of peace. It was never colonized by foreign powers.
But the other side of it is is that that
seclusion policy it could be very very cool as well,
just like the Berlin Wall could be very very cool
during the Cold War.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
That's Frederick Schatt, a writer, interpreter, and translator who has
written extensively on Japan and Japanese culture.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
This had all kinds of implications because it meant that
if you wound up accidentally leaving Japan as a drifter
or a castaway and a ship that was disabled, you
were not welcome home. Hundreds of people who of course
just went off, maybe thousands, you know, went off into
the Pacific Ocean and disappeared.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
This event was so common there was even a ritual
for when it happened.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Your writer is torn off, the ship is disabled. You
cut down the mast so the ship is not turned
over in the wind, and then you pray, and you
cut off your top knots, and you pray to the gods.
You leave your life to the wind and the ocean,
and you drift, and you drift and you drift.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
In the case of the ki Cheese, their ship made
it through the storm even though it lost both its
rudder and its mast. But now off course, it drifted
into a current it was never meant to be in
the so called black current. All in all, the ship
would drift along that current across the Pacific Ocean to
(08:38):
North America. No one is quite sure how the ki
Cheese managed to survive that long on the open ocean,
but they had a few things happening in their favor.
Here's Fred again.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
One thing they had going for them was that in
this case was that they were carrying rice, so they
had a lot of rice t eat, and they were fishermen,
so the crew could catch a lot of fish. But
then the question is, of course, how do you avoid
getting scurvy, and even more than that, how do you
not die from dehydration because you can't drink sea water
(09:14):
in this way.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
At least, Japanese ships like the Hojin Mauru were frequently
prepared for these types of situations. They often carried a
piece of equipment called arenbiki.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
And anambiki was a ceramic kind of porcelain device used
to distill sake and also especially chochu, which is potato wine.
But it could also be used to distill seawater and
you could create pure water from this.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Despite these assets, disease and exposure eventually carried off most
of the crew. In fact, only the three ki Chies
managed to survive the fourteen month journey The Macaw who
found them on shore were used to shipwrecks from Japan,
and they often collected the contents of those shipwrecks for
(10:05):
metal that they could use to make weapons or trade with.
But one thing they weren't used to finding was living sailors,
at least not ones from as far away as Japan.
The Macaw brought the men back to their Cedar longhouse,
feeding them dried fish and other foods and wrapping them
(10:26):
in furs, but the Macaw also enslaved them, something that
was actually pretty normal back then. Here's Fred shot again.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
Slavery was very common in the Pacific Northwest, all along
the coast, and it didn't have anything to do with
race at all. It was more like we beat you,
we're not going to kill you, and in return, you're
going to work for us.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
And the Kichies did work for the Macaw, gathering seaweed
and shellfish on the beach and firewood in the forest,
often handcuffed together with strips of leather, but they didn't
work for long. Soon word of the trio reached a
powerful figure on the other side of the forest, across
(11:12):
the peninsula, through miles and miles of dense rainforest, and
down on the northern banks of the Columbia River, there
was another world. It was a place where quote everything,
and of every kind and description could be quote got.
In the words of American naval officer and explorer Charles Wilkes,
(11:36):
one American missionary even called it the New York of
the Pacific Ocean. It was Fort Vancouver, the headquarters and
supply depot for the Hudson's Bay Company, and the most
important community on the Pacific coast. Now today, the Hudson's
Bay Company is perhaps best known as a Canadian department
(12:00):
store with colorful striped blankets, But back then it was
a vast commercial enterprise with an English royal charter that
stretched across the North American continent. It even acted like
a government in some places. One of its major operations
was running the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest. Fort
(12:23):
Vancouver was filled with hundreds of fur traders, pioneers, missionaries,
and Native Americans. It was a crossroads of culture that
connected points as far away as Alaska, Chile, and the
East coast of the US and Canada. In eighteen fifty nine,
the artist Paul Caine wrote, there was a quote babble
(12:45):
of languages at the fort. It wouldn't have been unusual
to see folks from Hawaii and Ireland chatting together at
the bakery, say, or to watch a Native American person
interact with a French Canadian trader at the blacksmiths. And
overseeing it all was John mcloughton, chief Factor, who was
(13:06):
in charge of all the Hudson's Bay Company operations in
the Pacific Northwest. A former physician from Quebec, he was
about six foot four and had flowing white hair, which
may be why the region's Native Americans called him White Eagle.
Mclochton helped establish Fort Vancouver, and today he's sometimes called
(13:30):
the father of Oregon. Mclochton was a savvy guy and ambitious.
That's why when one of his captains handed him a
strange message on a scrap of rice paper, he knew
he had to follow up. The message included a drawing
of a shipwreck and characters written in kanji, a type
(13:51):
of Japanese script. The kanji actually spelled out the names
of the three Kichees, but to mclochton it was just
a fascinating, if incomprehensible scrawl. Mclachton did not know what
he was dealing with a exactly, but he could tell
it was something from Asia that meant it could be
(14:12):
very valuable. Indeed, at the time, just about everybody was
interested in trade with Asia, the land of silk, spices, tea,
and much more. Mclaughton sent several expeditions looking for whoever
had written the mysterious message. Eventually he succeeded in locating
(14:33):
the trio and paid a ransom to the Macaw to
release them from slavery and bring them to Fort Vancouver.
When the Kei Cheese arrived, they must have been amazed
by what they saw. The fort's buildings and farms were
filled with things they had rarely, if ever encountered before,
things like red meat and guns and glass windows.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
They entered a society which for them it was just
must have been like another world. You know, they had
never seen white people before, but here they are in
Fort Vancouver. It's not just white people. Well, there's half
Indian and half European. There's a lot of Hawaiians. There's
a lot of the crewmen on the ships were Hawaiians
because they knew how to swim. The Europeans didn't know
(15:16):
how to swim, so this was I'm sure for them,
it's just a totally totally different world, like landing on
another planet.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
And there was something else new for the Kichies at
Fort Vancouver. It was an ancient religion, but one that
was brand new to them, Christianity. After recovering in the
Fort's hospital, the trio were presented to the Methodist Mission
of Oregon. They were taught English and instructed in the
(15:44):
new faith. Their teacher, Cyrus Shepherd, mentioned them in a
report to supervisors back east quote while at school, they
made rapid improvement and were remarkably studious and docile, and
learned to repeat the Lord's Prayer and some portions of
the Scriptures. Christianity would go on to play a big
(16:06):
role in the Key Cheese Journey, and it was part
of the plan that White Eagle John mcloughton began hatching
not long after their arrival. Here's Fred shot again.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
And of course John McLaughlin was a very smart man
with a global view. He I'm sure was thinking that
these three Japanese could be used by Britain to help
pry open Japan for trade. And of course, in the
back of everybody's mind. There's also this other motive of
maybe being able to convert Japanese to Christianity, that kind
of thing. As I'm sure for him he was probably thinking, Wow,
(16:41):
you know, this will really look good on my resume,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
On November eighteenth, eighteen thirty four, mcloughton wrote a letter
to the head of the Hudson's Bay Company in London.
He described his plan to send the Trio there on
the company's brig the aptly named Eagle.
Speaker 6 (17:00):
As I believe they are the first Japanese who have
been in the power of the British nation. I thought
the British government would avail itself of this opportunity to
endeavor to open a communication with the Japanese government, and
that by these men going to Great Britain, they would
have an opportunity of being instructed and convey to their
countrymen a respectable idea of the grandeur and power of
(17:23):
the British nation.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Alas history does not record what the Kichies thought of
this plan. We have no diaries, letters, or interviews from them,
but after being away from Japan for two years, it's
safe to imagine the Trio must have been homesick, all
but desperate for a place with a familiar landscape, language,
(17:45):
and food. Unfortunately for the Kichies, they were once again
caught up in currents beyond their control, and it was
far from the last time they'd be used as ponds
in a scheme that involved some of the most powerful
forces of the nineteenth century. It's June eighteen thirty five
(18:12):
in London. The Eagle is docked on the Thames River
after a dangerous seven month journey from the Pacific northwest
down around the tip of South America. London is the
capital of what would become the largest empire in history,
and its bustling. It's packed with people, and especially since
(18:35):
its summer, it really smells. The Thames itself was filled
with sewage. Yet the view from the river must have
been impressive, with Saint Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of
London looming from its banks. Far from all this quote
grandeur and power of the British nation that John Mcloughton
(18:57):
hoped the Japanese men would experience. The three Kichies stayed
on board the Eagle, waiting to hear their fate. And waiting.
They stayed on the ship for ten days, though they
did get one day out to see the sites. When
the news finally came from the Hudson's Bay Company leaders,
(19:20):
it wasn't good. The company's top brass eventually wrote back
to mclochdon that his Majesty's government was not quote disposed
to open a communication with the Japanese government through the
medium of three shipwrecked seamen. The Hudson's Bay Company was
not interested in ki Chi diplomacy. So where would the
(19:44):
three men go next? And why had the Hudson's Bay
Company and the British government turned their backs on them?
The answer to both China Here's fred shot again.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Opimore was about to start, and things for chaotic. They
had their hands full with China and trying to basically
carve up parts of China. You know, they were busy
getting ready for all these things.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And there may also have been another motivation behind the
Hudson's Bay Company rebuff, one that went a little beyond
don't bother us? Where busy?
Speaker 5 (20:22):
And it was known, I mean among people who were
relatively aware and well read that going back to Japan
could be very dangerous. And it was well known that
if you were tainted by Christianity, you could be executed.
Even American sailors knew that.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
In other words, all that time the Kichies spent in
Fort Vancouver, learning English, eating meat, using knives, and being
indoctrinated in Christianity. With every second of exposure, they were
becoming more and more dangerous in the eyes of the
Japanese government, which meant that even if the Kichies did
(20:59):
get home, home might not want them. So what were
the British going to do with them?
Speaker 5 (21:07):
Well, they're basically like I guess, they're treated like almost
stateless people. Everyone knows they can't go back to Japan
through normal channels. There are no normal channels.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
The British decided to ship the trio off to the
port of Macau, the closest place to Japan, where they
had an outpost. From there, British officials handed them over
to Karl Gutzlaf, a German missionary and linguist who was
also secretary to the British trade representative in China. Gutzlaf,
(21:40):
like mclochton, was an ambitious guy, a rogue evangelist promoting
Christianity in Asia, and soon enough, he too came up
with a plan for how to use the Kichies. Gutslaf
wanted the trio to help him translate the New Testament
into Japanese.
Speaker 7 (22:03):
And some of the missionaries, particularly Gutslav and Williams, were
forward looking, and they believed that Japan would sooner or
later open its stores, and they wanted to be prepared
when that happened, so that they could get missionaries there
to evangelized for Christianity at the earliest possible opportunity.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Steve Cole is an Associate professor emeritus in Japanese literature
at Oregon State University. He's probably America's greatest expert on
the Kichies story.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
They undertook to translate the Bible into Japanese. How are
they going to do that? And if they didn't have
a teacher of Japanese, they didn't have a dictionary, they
didn't even have much in the way of texts in Japanese.
And so suddenly here's three native speakers of Japanese show
(22:59):
up in Macau, and they say they must have been
heaven sent to help us in this project.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
But there were some problems. After all, the Kichis were
semi literate sailors, not professional translators. They probably only knew Katakana,
an angular script. That's just one of the scripts used
in Japan today. Plus there was another wrinkle. According to
(23:28):
Fred Shott.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
The Nagoya area or where they're from, has quite a
strong dialect that sometimes comedians in Japan today make fun of.
So the First Japanese Bible is a very interesting document,
and even the first page that I have seen, they're struggling,
you know, I mean, how do you translate a lot
of these concepts in the language in the Bible anyway
(23:50):
into something that makes any sense at all.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Gutzlaf and the Kichies only got as far as the
Gospel of John and possibly a few other texts, but
the results weren't quite seen as up to snuff and
the project was scrapped. That was okay, because it wasn't
long before the missionaries figured out something else to do
with the Kichies. Here's Steve again.
Speaker 7 (24:15):
The missionaries had a great idea, what if we repatriated
these guys to Japan. Maybe the shogun would look on
this humanitarian gesture kindly and give us the opportunity to
do some evangelizing in Japan. And that's where the Morrison
(24:36):
comes in.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
The Morrison, that's the name of a ship, was a
go big or go home kind of project. At the time.
An American merchant named Charles King had recently arrived in
Macau to trade with China. Besides selling goods, King also
wanted to spread Christianity in the Far East. He got
(25:00):
connected to Gutzlaf, who by then had four other Japanese
sailors at his mission, men who had been rescued from
a shipwreck in the Philippines. The pair hatched a plan
to take all seven Japanese men back to their home country.
King thought he could benefit both as a merchant and
(25:21):
as an evangelist. Let's call it his business and Bibles motivation.
As for the Kicheese, it must have seemed like a
tantalizing chance to finally get home for good. That is,
if home still wanted them. The Morrison was the first
American ship to try to visit Japan in thirty years
(25:45):
before it said sale. King and Gutslaf made special preparations.
They wanted to show they came in peace, so they
stripped the ship of its guns and filled the hold
with gifts, including US history books, a telescope, and a
portrait of George Washington. They also wrote what they hoped
(26:07):
would be persuasive letters to the shogun expressing their concern
for the Kichis and the other castaways, who should be
quote restored to their homes and behold again their aged parents.
The letters also emphasized the virtues of opening up a
relationship with America, a place where people quote, worship the
(26:30):
God of Peace, respect our superiors, and live in harmony
with one another. The Morrison set sail on July fourth,
eighteen thirty seven. King wasn't messing around, and he decided
the ship should go straight to Edobay, straight to the
Shogun's capital. Apparently King didn't know that sending the Morrison
(26:54):
directly to Edobey was more or less suicidal. Back in
eighteen twenty five, the Shogunate had issued an expulsion decree
that set all foreign ships approaching Japan were to be
immediately fired upon. As Stephen Cole tells it.
Speaker 7 (27:13):
Their policy in Japanese they call uchi haai, which is
translated off in a shell and repel. When a foreign
ship approaches, just shoot at it and keep shooting until
they get the message and go away.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
The Japanese had artillery emplacements set up on both sides
of the channel leading into Edo Bay. When the Morrison
arrived and started sailing up the channel, the batteries opened fire.
At first, some of those on the ship didn't take
the fire too seriously. They thought it might just be
a signal from the lookouts back to Edo, but others
(27:52):
on board had a feeling it was a warning to
the ship. Soon the truth became clear.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
And then pretty soon they began to see water spouts
as cannon balls were landing in the water around the ship,
and they said, well, they're shooting at us well, and
so the Morrison backed off a little bit, got out
of range and said we'll anchor here until morning and
(28:21):
then we'll try to go ashore and negotiate.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
But that only made the Japanese more determined. During the night,
the Japanese fortress commander brought his cannons down from the
hillside onto the beach so he could fire point blank
at the Morrison, and.
Speaker 7 (28:39):
As soon as it was light enough to see in
the morning, they opened fire once again, and the Morrison
had no choice but to withdraw.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Undeterred, the ship eventually made it to Kagashima Bay in
the southern part of the country. There, one of the
castaways went ashore and talked to some of the officials,
trying to plead their case. But the next the word
from the officials came down get rid of that ship.
(29:12):
Once again, the morrison was barraged by Japanese artillery, and
once again they were forced to turn around.
Speaker 7 (29:21):
And you can imagine emotionally and psychologically what this must
have been for these guys. At this point, they'd been
five years away from home, shipwrecked, captured by Indians, rescued
by people they didn't know, travel all the way around
the world. Finally they're within literally yards of home. They
(29:47):
can see the rice fields, they can see the towns,
they can see people walking back and forth on the roads,
and they're being shot at. They're being told not here.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Steve thinks the ki Cheese must have felt devastated, unwanted.
Speaker 7 (30:04):
In a fit of depression, some of them shaved their
heads as a sign of rejection, and they said, no,
we'll just go back and live our lives among the
foreign communities in China. Japan doesn't want us, We don't
want Japan.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
But that wouldn't be the end of the Ki Cheese journey. Today,
the story of the Three Kei Cheese is remembered better
in Japan, where there was a best selling novel about
it in the nineteen eighties and even a movie featuring
(30:45):
none other than Johnny Cash as White Eagle John Mclockton.
In the US, there's a monument to the three in
Fort Vancouver, which is now a National Historic Site, and
a cherry tree was planted at the Macaw Museum in
the Olympic Peninsula. But the story is often omitted from
the larger narrative about Jazzopanese people in the Pacific Northwest
(31:09):
and America in general, and that's a shame.
Speaker 8 (31:13):
This is a reminder to me, as a historian of
trans Pacific migration, that migrants have always played a very
important role in connecting different nations and empires.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
That's Michael Jin, Associate professor at the University of Illinois,
Chicago and an expert on Asian American history.
Speaker 8 (31:32):
It's easy to overlook this story as history's many unintended accidents, because,
after all, the Kitsches never meant to travel all the
way across the ocean to reach North America, but they
eventually emerged as not unsignificant actors who shaped what was
(31:53):
perhaps one of the earliest modern diplomatic encounters between the
British Empire and Japan.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Back in eighteen thirty seven, when the Kichese ship was
chased away from by cannons, it ignited a debate in
some Japanese circles about how to treat foreign ships. After all,
when people found out that an unarmed ship which had
arrived on a mercy mission to repatriate lost sailors had
(32:24):
been shot at, well, it wasn't a very good look.
Some historians say this internal debate may have helped contribute
to the end of Japan's seclusion era around twenty years later.
In any case, as Michael notes, the Kichis were only
early and accidental migrants in what later became a wave
(32:49):
of Japanese immigration to the United States.
Speaker 8 (32:52):
Once the transnational immigration became a part of the state
policy of the major Empire of Japan in the late
nineteenth century, the Japanese immigrants they would play a very
important role in the American settler colonial empire on Hawaiian
Island in the US Western States, in particular, as one
of the many groups from Asia who were brought to
(33:12):
North America to replace the indigenous enslave labor. I mean,
they were regardless a very very important source of labor,
but they were never meant to be welcomed as future citizens.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Like the ki Cheese returning home, even the idea of
what home means could be complicated for these migrants.
Speaker 8 (33:33):
Many migrants themselves came to North America with the understanding
that they would make some money, then they would go
back to their hometowns in Japan. But of course we
know that as difficult as it is for one to
leave their homes to move to another country, it is
also not easy to simply pack up and go back.
(33:53):
Because things happen in life, right, you know, People establish
their families here and then they become more comfortable. So
many of them simply felt that they didn't really have
anything to go back to back home.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Though the details around these later Japanese migrants and the
Kichis differ, they are linked by the idea of being
caught between countries. After their ship had been shot at
and chased away by their own countrymen, the Kichis were
on their own again. The Morrison was back in Macau
by late August, eighteen thirty seven, and the Japanese men
(34:30):
were given thirty coins each by a sympathetic British official.
Then they were left to themselves adrift. Once again. We
don't know much about how Iwakichi and Kikichi spent the
rest of their lives. Both continued to work as translators,
and Kikichi worked in Hong Kong after it became a
(34:52):
British colony. Less is known about Iwakichi, but by one
account he was quote killed by a jealous wife in
eighteen fifty two. Eventually, though both Iwakichi and Kikichi, he
disappeared into history. Odo Queche, on the other hand, left
(35:12):
a legacy. He went to work for a big British
trading firm in Shanghai. He became a naturalized British citizen,
converted to Christianity, changed his name to John Matthew Ottison,
and got married. He also worked as an interpreter on
British ships, and he actually went to Japan on those
(35:34):
ships twice. The first time was in eighteen forty nine
on a British ship surveying the waters around at O Bay.
But he was still so rattled by his experience on
the Morrison that he pretended to be Chinese. The Japanese
he met didn't buy it for a minute, but Odo
(35:55):
Quiche made it through unscathed the second time he fessed
up about his origins. By then it was eighteen fifty
four and the situation in Japan had changed. The seclusion
era was over, and Odokichi traveled to Nagasaki aboard a
British warship as part of a mission to convince the
(36:16):
Japanese not to let the Russians use their ports during
the Crimean War. This time Odokichi gave the Japanese officials
his real name and background, and this time the response
was very different, and.
Speaker 7 (36:33):
The officials he talked to said, why don't you come home?
You know we'll welcome you back, resume the life as
his Japanese.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
As for Odokichi's response, that was pretty different too.
Speaker 7 (36:47):
That's when he said no thanks. He said, I built
a new life for myself. I have a wife and
a family, I've got a job, Happy and satisfied with
the life I have. I don't need to go back.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Like the later Japanese migrants that Michael mentioned, Odo Kichi
had been put in this situation because of factors out
of his control, but he went on to make a
life outside Japan, and eventually Japan must not have felt
like a home to go back to. Odo Kichi later
moved to Singapore, where he's believed to have been the
(37:24):
first Japanese resident, and where he died of tuberculosis in
eighteen sixty seven, after forty nine years on earth. He
was buried in a Christian graveyard and then later moved
to a different one. Around nineteen seventy, that cemetery was moved,
and no one knew where Odo Kichi's remains ended up,
(37:48):
that is until two thousand and four, when devoted researchers
in Singapore tracked down Odo Kichi's grave and exhumed.
Speaker 7 (37:57):
It, and there was only some sand and a nail
a bit of a tooth in there. That They divided
the remains into three portions and reburied one portion in
Singapore where he died, and one portion went back to
Japan to his family's temple where in eighteen thirty two
(38:22):
they had put a gravestone with his name on it there,
not knowing that he was still alive. And then the
third portion they gave to his descendants to keep with
the family alto, so in the end he did kind
of returned to Japan.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
For fred shot. In addition to the Kichi's incredible tale
of survival and adaptation, there's another lesson here too.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
The world has always been interconnected in some way or another,
and there's been a lot more exchanges, not necessarily frequent,
but there's been a lot more mobility. One hundreds and
hundreds of years ago, maybe in ancient times, maybe thousands
of years ago, there's more mobility than people in imagine.
That's one thing. And the other thing I think is
(39:10):
that just related to that, is that you really can't
close off of society, and that should speak to people
in today because it's tempting to think you can just
shut the doors, but actually you can't. You know, it's
not possible.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
So we mentioned last week that we were nominated for
a Signal Award in the Best Commute Podcast category, Right,
that's right. Yeah, it's like the Cable Ace Awards of podcasting.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Yes, the awards.
Speaker 6 (39:40):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Yes, today's episode was in many ways like the worst
commute story of all time. These guys are just on
a ship and we're talking about it. How awful it was.
One hundred and ninety years later.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Fourteen month commute. I mean, the most hellish thing imaginable
on open ocean, the entire time wondering where are we
getting to?
Speaker 3 (39:59):
It sounds like a nightmare. As someone whose favorite thing
in the world is being home, it just made me
insanely acious.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
So if you are listening to this on your commute,
which apparently people do, if we're in the best commute
podcast category, then maybe it makes you feel slightly better
about your terrible delays, or make.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
You recognize and really appreciate, much like Dane of the
value of getting home and being home, because this one,
do you have the whole thing about home is essentially
where you lay your head, but it's also to whom
you give your heart. I really liked that point.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Oh yeah, if we're going for a very special character
in this one, I'm taken by whoever the fourth Kichi was.
It's like being the fifth Beatle. It just like, you know,
you had this awful experience but didn't make it long
enough to get into the history books.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
M h.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
I'm going with the kichi who caught the first fish
and they're like, wait, we can do this.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Yeah, yeah, I think the Kichi that spotted land. Yeah,
is probably that moment. I just wish I could capture
that moment. It's almost worth having a terrible, terrible shipwrecked
disaster situation just for that ex on the other side.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Oh, completely, that rush. Can you imagine just the thrill
of feeling saved by something you have no idea what
you're about to encounter. But yes, it feels like this
is going to say to me, thank God or you know,
thank whatever. The first contact aspect of this was wild
to me about you know, there's this native indigenous population.
All of a sudden, these Japanese guys roll up on
the shore. But apparently they've been having boats come over
(41:28):
and does shipwreck without the sailors alive. So they've just
been giving this like gifts from the sea of boats
with like metal and stuff in it. Like how wild
was that? Then finally they get oh these are the people, Hey,
thanks for all the stuff.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
This show is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Sarah Burnett, and
Jason English. Today's episode was written by Bess Lovejoy. Best
is Amazing. We've worked together at various places for about
a decade, she wrote a book called rest in Pieces
about famous corpses. We've got another best episode in development
(42:04):
to look at for that is Josh Fisher. Our story
editor is Marissa Brown. Editing and sound design by Jonathan
Washington and Josh Fisher. Mixing and mastering by the Heat Fraser.
Original music by Alis McCoy, Research in bactchecking by Meredith Thanko,
Best Love Joy and Austin Thompson. Show logo by Lucy Cantonia.
(42:29):
Our executive producer is Jason English. You'd like to email
the show, you can reach us at Very Special Episodes
at gmail dot com. Very Special Episodes is a production
of iHeart Podcasts.
Originals.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is an iHeart original. The westernmost tip of the
Olympic Peninsula is a bit of a desolate place, thick
with trees and prone to storms. It's where the northwestern
US disappears into the Pacific Ocean. The rocky coastline is
(00:33):
especially forbidding and tends to catch ships unaware. That's what
happened one cold day in January eighteen thirty four, when
a battered wooden ship snagged on the rocks and began
leaning to one side. The ship had already been through
a lot, and so had the three men who soon
(00:57):
trudged up the beach, gaunt and bedraggled from fourteen months
at sea. The trio probably didn't look like much of
them were barely into their teen years. All three almost
certainly needed a hot meal and a bath. As unimpressive
as they probably looked, the three men must have been
(01:20):
an astonishing site to the members of the Macaw Nation,
the local Native Americans who first spotted them on the beach.
That's because the three shipwrecked sailors were far far from home,
in fact, farther away from home than they could have
ever imagined, going blown off course in a violent storm
(01:45):
more than a year earlier. They were the first Japanese
people known to set foot in what is now Washington State.
They may have been the very first Japanese people to
set foot in America period. Back in eighteen thirty four.
The Macaw had little if any idea Japanese people existed,
(02:08):
and these Japanese sailors, who were poor peasants, had little
if any idea the Macaw existed. It was, in the
words of one scholar, about as weird for both sides
as a Martian landing would be for us. But for
the three men on that beach, it was only a
(02:29):
single moment in one of history's most amazing journeys. The
trio would end up going halfway around the world and
back again, seeing things they never could have dreamed of,
and acting as accidental pioneers in a world that was
on the precipice of being transformed. Yet at the moment
(02:51):
the men staggered up the beach on the Olympic Peninsula,
they probably had two pressing questions, where the heck were
they exactly? And how or when would they ever get home?
Welcome to very special episodes and iHeart original podcast. I'm
(03:13):
your host Dana Schwartz, and this is no turning back
the amazing journey of the Three ki Chies. My husband
is actually from the Pacific Northwest and he had never
heard of this story before.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That's what I love about this.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That's wild. I mean, as a first contact story, and
you think it would be like just a legend it's
always told. Can there be something you learned about in school?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Yeah, this had that stuff you missed in history class.
Feel where we never talked about any of this. It's
like a Below Deck season gone terribly wrong.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I'm laughing. I've never seen below Deck. It's fun. People
like it.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
We'll do an episode on below Deck.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
The village of Onia is wedged between the mountains and
the sea on the southern part of Japan's Cheetah Peninsula. Today,
it's known for its family friendly beaches and its fishing,
but it's also known in Japan as the birthplace of
the three Kichis, Otokichi, Kukichi, and Iwakichi, the three sailors
(04:21):
who staggered up that Olympic Peninsula beach in eighteen thirty four.
Otokichi and Kiukichi, fourteen and fifteen years old, respectively, were
apprentice cooks. Iwakichi, aged twenty eight, was a ship navigator.
When the three set sail on a cargo vessel called
(04:42):
the Hojin Maru, they were probably expecting a pretty routine journey.
The destination Edo known today as Tokyo. Back in the
nineteenth century, Edo is where the Shogun lived, the Shogun
being the military dictator who ruled Japan at the time.
The Hojinmoru was carrying rice and porcelain meant as the
(05:06):
annual tribute to the Shogun. When the ship left in
late eighteen thirty two, the sailors on board probably expected
to spend just a few days making the three hundred
and twenty five mile trip to the port nearest the
Shogun's palace, but the Hojin Maru and the Kichis never
(05:28):
made it as far as Edo. Instead, shortly after leaving port,
a violent storm took hold, Unfortunately for the crew. Japanese
ships like the Hojin Maru had some design characteristics that
weren't so great for typhoons. They were built with enormous
(05:48):
rudders and one very tall mast. They didn't have a keel,
that big blade that sticks down into the water from
a ship's hull and helps to keep it stable. In
typhoons like this one, the rudders would often break off,
leaving the ship unable to steer. With no keel to
(06:09):
stabilize the vessel, the tall mast would leave the ship
prone to tipping over and capsizing. Some scholars argue that
design was intentional. You see, at the time, the shogun
didn't want ships surviving sailing on the open ocean far
from their nation's shores. In the mid seventeenth century, Japan
(06:32):
had instituted a policy of near total isolation when it
came to most foreigners, especially Europeans. Except for a few
Dutch and Chinese traders in Nagasaki Bay, almost nothing in
the way of foreign influence was supposed to come into Japan,
and almost nothing was supposed to come out leaving Japanese soil.
(06:57):
Even being seen with a foreigner, even talking to one,
was generally punishable by death.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
This seclusion policy meant that Japan had ironically over two
hundred years of peace. It was never colonized by foreign powers.
But the other side of it is is that that
seclusion policy it could be very very cool as well,
just like the Berlin Wall could be very very cool
during the Cold War.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
That's Frederick Schatt, a writer, interpreter, and translator who has
written extensively on Japan and Japanese culture.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
This had all kinds of implications because it meant that
if you wound up accidentally leaving Japan as a drifter
or a castaway and a ship that was disabled, you
were not welcome home. Hundreds of people who of course
just went off, maybe thousands, you know, went off into
the Pacific Ocean and disappeared.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
This event was so common there was even a ritual
for when it happened.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Your writer is torn off, the ship is disabled. You
cut down the mast so the ship is not turned
over in the wind, and then you pray, and you
cut off your top knots, and you pray to the gods.
You leave your life to the wind and the ocean,
and you drift, and you drift and you drift.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
In the case of the ki Cheese, their ship made
it through the storm even though it lost both its
rudder and its mast. But now off course, it drifted
into a current it was never meant to be in
the so called black current. All in all, the ship
would drift along that current across the Pacific Ocean to
(08:38):
North America. No one is quite sure how the ki
Cheese managed to survive that long on the open ocean,
but they had a few things happening in their favor.
Here's Fred again.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
One thing they had going for them was that in
this case was that they were carrying rice, so they
had a lot of rice t eat, and they were fishermen,
so the crew could catch a lot of fish. But
then the question is, of course, how do you avoid
getting scurvy, and even more than that, how do you
not die from dehydration because you can't drink sea water
(09:14):
in this way.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
At least, Japanese ships like the Hojin Mauru were frequently
prepared for these types of situations. They often carried a
piece of equipment called arenbiki.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
And anambiki was a ceramic kind of porcelain device used
to distill sake and also especially chochu, which is potato wine.
But it could also be used to distill seawater and
you could create pure water from this.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Despite these assets, disease and exposure eventually carried off most
of the crew. In fact, only the three ki Chies
managed to survive the fourteen month journey The Macaw who
found them on shore were used to shipwrecks from Japan,
and they often collected the contents of those shipwrecks for
(10:05):
metal that they could use to make weapons or trade with.
But one thing they weren't used to finding was living sailors,
at least not ones from as far away as Japan.
The Macaw brought the men back to their Cedar longhouse,
feeding them dried fish and other foods and wrapping them
(10:26):
in furs, but the Macaw also enslaved them, something that
was actually pretty normal back then. Here's Fred shot again.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
Slavery was very common in the Pacific Northwest, all along
the coast, and it didn't have anything to do with
race at all. It was more like we beat you,
we're not going to kill you, and in return, you're
going to work for us.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
And the Kichies did work for the Macaw, gathering seaweed
and shellfish on the beach and firewood in the forest,
often handcuffed together with strips of leather, but they didn't
work for long. Soon word of the trio reached a
powerful figure on the other side of the forest, across
(11:12):
the peninsula, through miles and miles of dense rainforest, and
down on the northern banks of the Columbia River, there
was another world. It was a place where quote everything,
and of every kind and description could be quote got.
In the words of American naval officer and explorer Charles Wilkes,
(11:36):
one American missionary even called it the New York of
the Pacific Ocean. It was Fort Vancouver, the headquarters and
supply depot for the Hudson's Bay Company, and the most
important community on the Pacific coast. Now today, the Hudson's
Bay Company is perhaps best known as a Canadian department
(12:00):
store with colorful striped blankets, But back then it was
a vast commercial enterprise with an English royal charter that
stretched across the North American continent. It even acted like
a government in some places. One of its major operations
was running the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest. Fort
(12:23):
Vancouver was filled with hundreds of fur traders, pioneers, missionaries,
and Native Americans. It was a crossroads of culture that
connected points as far away as Alaska, Chile, and the
East coast of the US and Canada. In eighteen fifty nine,
the artist Paul Caine wrote, there was a quote babble
(12:45):
of languages at the fort. It wouldn't have been unusual
to see folks from Hawaii and Ireland chatting together at
the bakery, say, or to watch a Native American person
interact with a French Canadian trader at the blacksmiths. And
overseeing it all was John mcloughton, chief Factor, who was
(13:06):
in charge of all the Hudson's Bay Company operations in
the Pacific Northwest. A former physician from Quebec, he was
about six foot four and had flowing white hair, which
may be why the region's Native Americans called him White Eagle.
Mclochton helped establish Fort Vancouver, and today he's sometimes called
(13:30):
the father of Oregon. Mclochton was a savvy guy and ambitious.
That's why when one of his captains handed him a
strange message on a scrap of rice paper, he knew
he had to follow up. The message included a drawing
of a shipwreck and characters written in kanji, a type
(13:51):
of Japanese script. The kanji actually spelled out the names
of the three Kichees, but to mclochton it was just
a fascinating, if incomprehensible scrawl. Mclachton did not know what
he was dealing with a exactly, but he could tell
it was something from Asia that meant it could be
(14:12):
very valuable. Indeed, at the time, just about everybody was
interested in trade with Asia, the land of silk, spices, tea,
and much more. Mclaughton sent several expeditions looking for whoever
had written the mysterious message. Eventually he succeeded in locating
(14:33):
the trio and paid a ransom to the Macaw to
release them from slavery and bring them to Fort Vancouver.
When the Kei Cheese arrived, they must have been amazed
by what they saw. The fort's buildings and farms were
filled with things they had rarely, if ever encountered before,
things like red meat and guns and glass windows.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
They entered a society which for them it was just
must have been like another world. You know, they had
never seen white people before, but here they are in
Fort Vancouver. It's not just white people. Well, there's half
Indian and half European. There's a lot of Hawaiians. There's
a lot of the crewmen on the ships were Hawaiians
because they knew how to swim. The Europeans didn't know
(15:16):
how to swim, so this was I'm sure for them,
it's just a totally totally different world, like landing on
another planet.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
And there was something else new for the Kichies at
Fort Vancouver. It was an ancient religion, but one that
was brand new to them, Christianity. After recovering in the
Fort's hospital, the trio were presented to the Methodist Mission
of Oregon. They were taught English and instructed in the
(15:44):
new faith. Their teacher, Cyrus Shepherd, mentioned them in a
report to supervisors back east quote while at school, they
made rapid improvement and were remarkably studious and docile, and
learned to repeat the Lord's Prayer and some portions of
the Scriptures. Christianity would go on to play a big
(16:06):
role in the Key Cheese Journey, and it was part
of the plan that White Eagle John mcloughton began hatching
not long after their arrival. Here's Fred shot again.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
And of course John McLaughlin was a very smart man
with a global view. He I'm sure was thinking that
these three Japanese could be used by Britain to help
pry open Japan for trade. And of course, in the
back of everybody's mind. There's also this other motive of
maybe being able to convert Japanese to Christianity, that kind
of thing. As I'm sure for him he was probably thinking, Wow,
(16:41):
you know, this will really look good on my resume,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
On November eighteenth, eighteen thirty four, mcloughton wrote a letter
to the head of the Hudson's Bay Company in London.
He described his plan to send the Trio there on
the company's brig the aptly named Eagle.
Speaker 6 (17:00):
As I believe they are the first Japanese who have
been in the power of the British nation. I thought
the British government would avail itself of this opportunity to
endeavor to open a communication with the Japanese government, and
that by these men going to Great Britain, they would
have an opportunity of being instructed and convey to their
countrymen a respectable idea of the grandeur and power of
(17:23):
the British nation.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Alas history does not record what the Kichies thought of
this plan. We have no diaries, letters, or interviews from them,
but after being away from Japan for two years, it's
safe to imagine the Trio must have been homesick, all
but desperate for a place with a familiar landscape, language,
(17:45):
and food. Unfortunately for the Kichies, they were once again
caught up in currents beyond their control, and it was
far from the last time they'd be used as ponds
in a scheme that involved some of the most powerful
forces of the nineteenth century. It's June eighteen thirty five
(18:12):
in London. The Eagle is docked on the Thames River
after a dangerous seven month journey from the Pacific northwest
down around the tip of South America. London is the
capital of what would become the largest empire in history,
and its bustling. It's packed with people, and especially since
(18:35):
its summer, it really smells. The Thames itself was filled
with sewage. Yet the view from the river must have
been impressive, with Saint Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of
London looming from its banks. Far from all this quote
grandeur and power of the British nation that John Mcloughton
(18:57):
hoped the Japanese men would experience. The three Kichies stayed
on board the Eagle, waiting to hear their fate. And waiting.
They stayed on the ship for ten days, though they
did get one day out to see the sites. When
the news finally came from the Hudson's Bay Company leaders,
(19:20):
it wasn't good. The company's top brass eventually wrote back
to mclochdon that his Majesty's government was not quote disposed
to open a communication with the Japanese government through the
medium of three shipwrecked seamen. The Hudson's Bay Company was
not interested in ki Chi diplomacy. So where would the
(19:44):
three men go next? And why had the Hudson's Bay
Company and the British government turned their backs on them?
The answer to both China Here's fred shot again.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Opimore was about to start, and things for chaotic. They
had their hands full with China and trying to basically
carve up parts of China. You know, they were busy
getting ready for all these things.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And there may also have been another motivation behind the
Hudson's Bay Company rebuff, one that went a little beyond
don't bother us? Where busy?
Speaker 5 (20:22):
And it was known, I mean among people who were
relatively aware and well read that going back to Japan
could be very dangerous. And it was well known that
if you were tainted by Christianity, you could be executed.
Even American sailors knew that.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
In other words, all that time the Kichies spent in
Fort Vancouver, learning English, eating meat, using knives, and being
indoctrinated in Christianity. With every second of exposure, they were
becoming more and more dangerous in the eyes of the
Japanese government, which meant that even if the Kichies did
(20:59):
get home, home might not want them. So what were
the British going to do with them?
Speaker 5 (21:07):
Well, they're basically like I guess, they're treated like almost
stateless people. Everyone knows they can't go back to Japan
through normal channels. There are no normal channels.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
The British decided to ship the trio off to the
port of Macau, the closest place to Japan, where they
had an outpost. From there, British officials handed them over
to Karl Gutzlaf, a German missionary and linguist who was
also secretary to the British trade representative in China. Gutzlaf,
(21:40):
like mclochton, was an ambitious guy, a rogue evangelist promoting
Christianity in Asia, and soon enough, he too came up
with a plan for how to use the Kichies. Gutslaf
wanted the trio to help him translate the New Testament
into Japanese.
Speaker 7 (22:03):
And some of the missionaries, particularly Gutslav and Williams, were
forward looking, and they believed that Japan would sooner or
later open its stores, and they wanted to be prepared
when that happened, so that they could get missionaries there
to evangelized for Christianity at the earliest possible opportunity.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Steve Cole is an Associate professor emeritus in Japanese literature
at Oregon State University. He's probably America's greatest expert on
the Kichies story.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
They undertook to translate the Bible into Japanese. How are
they going to do that? And if they didn't have
a teacher of Japanese, they didn't have a dictionary, they
didn't even have much in the way of texts in Japanese.
And so suddenly here's three native speakers of Japanese show
(22:59):
up in Macau, and they say they must have been
heaven sent to help us in this project.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
But there were some problems. After all, the Kichis were
semi literate sailors, not professional translators. They probably only knew Katakana,
an angular script. That's just one of the scripts used
in Japan today. Plus there was another wrinkle. According to
(23:28):
Fred Shott.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
The Nagoya area or where they're from, has quite a
strong dialect that sometimes comedians in Japan today make fun of.
So the First Japanese Bible is a very interesting document,
and even the first page that I have seen, they're struggling,
you know, I mean, how do you translate a lot
of these concepts in the language in the Bible anyway
(23:50):
into something that makes any sense at all.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Gutzlaf and the Kichies only got as far as the
Gospel of John and possibly a few other texts, but
the results weren't quite seen as up to snuff and
the project was scrapped. That was okay, because it wasn't
long before the missionaries figured out something else to do
with the Kichies. Here's Steve again.
Speaker 7 (24:15):
The missionaries had a great idea, what if we repatriated
these guys to Japan. Maybe the shogun would look on
this humanitarian gesture kindly and give us the opportunity to
do some evangelizing in Japan. And that's where the Morrison
(24:36):
comes in.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
The Morrison, that's the name of a ship, was a
go big or go home kind of project. At the time.
An American merchant named Charles King had recently arrived in
Macau to trade with China. Besides selling goods, King also
wanted to spread Christianity in the Far East. He got
(25:00):
connected to Gutzlaf, who by then had four other Japanese
sailors at his mission, men who had been rescued from
a shipwreck in the Philippines. The pair hatched a plan
to take all seven Japanese men back to their home country.
King thought he could benefit both as a merchant and
(25:21):
as an evangelist. Let's call it his business and Bibles motivation.
As for the Kicheese, it must have seemed like a
tantalizing chance to finally get home for good. That is,
if home still wanted them. The Morrison was the first
American ship to try to visit Japan in thirty years
(25:45):
before it said sale. King and Gutslaf made special preparations.
They wanted to show they came in peace, so they
stripped the ship of its guns and filled the hold
with gifts, including US history books, a telescope, and a
portrait of George Washington. They also wrote what they hoped
(26:07):
would be persuasive letters to the shogun expressing their concern
for the Kichis and the other castaways, who should be
quote restored to their homes and behold again their aged parents.
The letters also emphasized the virtues of opening up a
relationship with America, a place where people quote, worship the
(26:30):
God of Peace, respect our superiors, and live in harmony
with one another. The Morrison set sail on July fourth,
eighteen thirty seven. King wasn't messing around, and he decided
the ship should go straight to Edobay, straight to the
Shogun's capital. Apparently King didn't know that sending the Morrison
(26:54):
directly to Edobey was more or less suicidal. Back in
eighteen twenty five, the Shogunate had issued an expulsion decree
that set all foreign ships approaching Japan were to be
immediately fired upon. As Stephen Cole tells it.
Speaker 7 (27:13):
Their policy in Japanese they call uchi haai, which is
translated off in a shell and repel. When a foreign
ship approaches, just shoot at it and keep shooting until
they get the message and go away.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
The Japanese had artillery emplacements set up on both sides
of the channel leading into Edo Bay. When the Morrison
arrived and started sailing up the channel, the batteries opened fire.
At first, some of those on the ship didn't take
the fire too seriously. They thought it might just be
a signal from the lookouts back to Edo, but others
(27:52):
on board had a feeling it was a warning to
the ship. Soon the truth became clear.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
And then pretty soon they began to see water spouts
as cannon balls were landing in the water around the ship,
and they said, well, they're shooting at us well, and
so the Morrison backed off a little bit, got out
of range and said we'll anchor here until morning and
(28:21):
then we'll try to go ashore and negotiate.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
But that only made the Japanese more determined. During the night,
the Japanese fortress commander brought his cannons down from the
hillside onto the beach so he could fire point blank
at the Morrison, and.
Speaker 7 (28:39):
As soon as it was light enough to see in
the morning, they opened fire once again, and the Morrison
had no choice but to withdraw.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Undeterred, the ship eventually made it to Kagashima Bay in
the southern part of the country. There, one of the
castaways went ashore and talked to some of the officials,
trying to plead their case. But the next the word
from the officials came down get rid of that ship.
(29:12):
Once again, the morrison was barraged by Japanese artillery, and
once again they were forced to turn around.
Speaker 7 (29:21):
And you can imagine emotionally and psychologically what this must
have been for these guys. At this point, they'd been
five years away from home, shipwrecked, captured by Indians, rescued
by people they didn't know, travel all the way around
the world. Finally they're within literally yards of home. They
(29:47):
can see the rice fields, they can see the towns,
they can see people walking back and forth on the roads,
and they're being shot at. They're being told not here.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Steve thinks the ki Cheese must have felt devastated, unwanted.
Speaker 7 (30:04):
In a fit of depression, some of them shaved their
heads as a sign of rejection, and they said, no,
we'll just go back and live our lives among the
foreign communities in China. Japan doesn't want us, We don't
want Japan.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
But that wouldn't be the end of the Ki Cheese journey. Today,
the story of the Three Kei Cheese is remembered better
in Japan, where there was a best selling novel about
it in the nineteen eighties and even a movie featuring
(30:45):
none other than Johnny Cash as White Eagle John Mclockton.
In the US, there's a monument to the three in
Fort Vancouver, which is now a National Historic Site, and
a cherry tree was planted at the Macaw Museum in
the Olympic Peninsula. But the story is often omitted from
the larger narrative about Jazzopanese people in the Pacific Northwest
(31:09):
and America in general, and that's a shame.
Speaker 8 (31:13):
This is a reminder to me, as a historian of
trans Pacific migration, that migrants have always played a very
important role in connecting different nations and empires.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
That's Michael Jin, Associate professor at the University of Illinois,
Chicago and an expert on Asian American history.
Speaker 8 (31:32):
It's easy to overlook this story as history's many unintended accidents, because,
after all, the Kitsches never meant to travel all the
way across the ocean to reach North America, but they
eventually emerged as not unsignificant actors who shaped what was
(31:53):
perhaps one of the earliest modern diplomatic encounters between the
British Empire and Japan.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Back in eighteen thirty seven, when the Kichese ship was
chased away from by cannons, it ignited a debate in
some Japanese circles about how to treat foreign ships. After all,
when people found out that an unarmed ship which had
arrived on a mercy mission to repatriate lost sailors had
(32:24):
been shot at, well, it wasn't a very good look.
Some historians say this internal debate may have helped contribute
to the end of Japan's seclusion era around twenty years later.
In any case, as Michael notes, the Kichis were only
early and accidental migrants in what later became a wave
(32:49):
of Japanese immigration to the United States.
Speaker 8 (32:52):
Once the transnational immigration became a part of the state
policy of the major Empire of Japan in the late
nineteenth century, the Japanese immigrants they would play a very
important role in the American settler colonial empire on Hawaiian
Island in the US Western States, in particular, as one
of the many groups from Asia who were brought to
(33:12):
North America to replace the indigenous enslave labor. I mean,
they were regardless a very very important source of labor,
but they were never meant to be welcomed as future citizens.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Like the ki Cheese returning home, even the idea of
what home means could be complicated for these migrants.
Speaker 8 (33:33):
Many migrants themselves came to North America with the understanding
that they would make some money, then they would go
back to their hometowns in Japan. But of course we
know that as difficult as it is for one to
leave their homes to move to another country, it is
also not easy to simply pack up and go back.
(33:53):
Because things happen in life, right, you know, People establish
their families here and then they become more comfortable. So
many of them simply felt that they didn't really have
anything to go back to back home.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Though the details around these later Japanese migrants and the
Kichis differ, they are linked by the idea of being
caught between countries. After their ship had been shot at
and chased away by their own countrymen, the Kichis were
on their own again. The Morrison was back in Macau
by late August, eighteen thirty seven, and the Japanese men
(34:30):
were given thirty coins each by a sympathetic British official.
Then they were left to themselves adrift. Once again. We
don't know much about how Iwakichi and Kikichi spent the
rest of their lives. Both continued to work as translators,
and Kikichi worked in Hong Kong after it became a
(34:52):
British colony. Less is known about Iwakichi, but by one
account he was quote killed by a jealous wife in
eighteen fifty two. Eventually, though both Iwakichi and Kikichi, he
disappeared into history. Odo Queche, on the other hand, left
(35:12):
a legacy. He went to work for a big British
trading firm in Shanghai. He became a naturalized British citizen,
converted to Christianity, changed his name to John Matthew Ottison,
and got married. He also worked as an interpreter on
British ships, and he actually went to Japan on those
(35:34):
ships twice. The first time was in eighteen forty nine
on a British ship surveying the waters around at O Bay.
But he was still so rattled by his experience on
the Morrison that he pretended to be Chinese. The Japanese
he met didn't buy it for a minute, but Odo
(35:55):
Quiche made it through unscathed the second time he fessed
up about his origins. By then it was eighteen fifty
four and the situation in Japan had changed. The seclusion
era was over, and Odokichi traveled to Nagasaki aboard a
British warship as part of a mission to convince the
(36:16):
Japanese not to let the Russians use their ports during
the Crimean War. This time Odokichi gave the Japanese officials
his real name and background, and this time the response
was very different, and.
Speaker 7 (36:33):
The officials he talked to said, why don't you come home?
You know we'll welcome you back, resume the life as
his Japanese.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
As for Odokichi's response, that was pretty different too.
Speaker 7 (36:47):
That's when he said no thanks. He said, I built
a new life for myself. I have a wife and
a family, I've got a job, Happy and satisfied with
the life I have. I don't need to go back.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Like the later Japanese migrants that Michael mentioned, Odo Kichi
had been put in this situation because of factors out
of his control, but he went on to make a
life outside Japan, and eventually Japan must not have felt
like a home to go back to. Odo Kichi later
moved to Singapore, where he's believed to have been the
(37:24):
first Japanese resident, and where he died of tuberculosis in
eighteen sixty seven, after forty nine years on earth. He
was buried in a Christian graveyard and then later moved
to a different one. Around nineteen seventy, that cemetery was moved,
and no one knew where Odo Kichi's remains ended up,
(37:48):
that is until two thousand and four, when devoted researchers
in Singapore tracked down Odo Kichi's grave and exhumed.
Speaker 7 (37:57):
It, and there was only some sand and a nail
a bit of a tooth in there. That They divided
the remains into three portions and reburied one portion in
Singapore where he died, and one portion went back to
Japan to his family's temple where in eighteen thirty two
(38:22):
they had put a gravestone with his name on it there,
not knowing that he was still alive. And then the
third portion they gave to his descendants to keep with
the family alto, so in the end he did kind
of returned to Japan.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
For fred shot. In addition to the Kichi's incredible tale
of survival and adaptation, there's another lesson here too.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
The world has always been interconnected in some way or another,
and there's been a lot more exchanges, not necessarily frequent,
but there's been a lot more mobility. One hundreds and
hundreds of years ago, maybe in ancient times, maybe thousands
of years ago, there's more mobility than people in imagine.
That's one thing. And the other thing I think is
(39:10):
that just related to that, is that you really can't
close off of society, and that should speak to people
in today because it's tempting to think you can just
shut the doors, but actually you can't. You know, it's
not possible.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
So we mentioned last week that we were nominated for
a Signal Award in the Best Commute Podcast category, Right,
that's right. Yeah, it's like the Cable Ace Awards of podcasting.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Yes, the awards.
Speaker 6 (39:40):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Yes, today's episode was in many ways like the worst
commute story of all time. These guys are just on
a ship and we're talking about it. How awful it was.
One hundred and ninety years later.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Fourteen month commute. I mean, the most hellish thing imaginable
on open ocean, the entire time wondering where are we
getting to?
Speaker 3 (39:59):
It sounds like a nightmare. As someone whose favorite thing
in the world is being home, it just made me
insanely acious.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
So if you are listening to this on your commute,
which apparently people do, if we're in the best commute
podcast category, then maybe it makes you feel slightly better
about your terrible delays, or make.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
You recognize and really appreciate, much like Dane of the
value of getting home and being home, because this one,
do you have the whole thing about home is essentially
where you lay your head, but it's also to whom
you give your heart. I really liked that point.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Oh yeah, if we're going for a very special character
in this one, I'm taken by whoever the fourth Kichi was.
It's like being the fifth Beatle. It just like, you know,
you had this awful experience but didn't make it long
enough to get into the history books.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
M h.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
I'm going with the kichi who caught the first fish
and they're like, wait, we can do this.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Yeah, yeah, I think the Kichi that spotted land. Yeah,
is probably that moment. I just wish I could capture
that moment. It's almost worth having a terrible, terrible shipwrecked
disaster situation just for that ex on the other side.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Oh, completely, that rush. Can you imagine just the thrill
of feeling saved by something you have no idea what
you're about to encounter. But yes, it feels like this
is going to say to me, thank God or you know,
thank whatever. The first contact aspect of this was wild
to me about you know, there's this native indigenous population.
All of a sudden, these Japanese guys roll up on
the shore. But apparently they've been having boats come over
(41:28):
and does shipwreck without the sailors alive. So they've just
been giving this like gifts from the sea of boats
with like metal and stuff in it. Like how wild
was that? Then finally they get oh these are the people, Hey,
thanks for all the stuff.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
This show is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Sarah Burnett, and
Jason English. Today's episode was written by Bess Lovejoy. Best
is Amazing. We've worked together at various places for about
a decade, she wrote a book called rest in Pieces
about famous corpses. We've got another best episode in development
(42:04):
to look at for that is Josh Fisher. Our story
editor is Marissa Brown. Editing and sound design by Jonathan
Washington and Josh Fisher. Mixing and mastering by the Heat Fraser.
Original music by Alis McCoy, Research in bactchecking by Meredith Thanko,
Best Love Joy and Austin Thompson. Show logo by Lucy Cantonia.
(42:29):
Our executive producer is Jason English. You'd like to email
the show, you can reach us at Very Special Episodes
at gmail dot com. Very Special Episodes is a production
of iHeart Podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Jason English
Dana Schwartz
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
Today’s Latest News In 4 Minutes. Updated Hourly.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.