History of The Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery

Brief History of the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery.

Brief History of the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery. In 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry, with his four kurofune (black ships) appeared off Uraga in Edo Bay (Tokyo Bay) and shocked the people of Japan. Perry landed at Kurihama, south of Yokohama and delivered a lettered from President Millard Fillmore and demanded the bakufu (the shogun goverment) open ports to the American vessels. The next year (1854), when Perry returned with a squadron of seven warships for the negotiations, Robert Williams, a 24 year-old marine, died aboard the USS Mississippi, one of the steam frigates. Perry requested that a piece of land be given as a cemetery for Americans in which to bury Williams. After negotiations, bakufu offered a place within Zotokuin temple in Yokohama village, with a view overlooking the sea (a condition asked for by Perry). This was how the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery started on the Bluff. Three months latter the grave of Williams, the first man buried at the gaijin bochi (foreigner's cemetery), was moved to Gyokusenji Temple in Shimoda on the Izu Peninsula. The Americans were offered a cemetery through the U.S. Japan Peace and Amity Treaty of 1854. Five Americans, mainly from Perry's voyage and three Russians were buried at Gyokusenji.

In 1859, soon after the opening of the port of Yokohama, extreme nationalists killed Russian marines Roman Mophet and Ivan Sokoloff. The bakufu bought farmland-adjoining Zotokuin for their tomb. This grave is the oldest known in the Foreign Cemetery. Though it was once a magnificent monument, only the pedestal now remains. At that time, the bakufu considered collecting land rent for the cemetery, but finally decided not to do so. As the number of foreign residents increased with the opening of the doors of the country, the number of deaths of foreigners naturally increased. The foreigner's cemetery and the Japanese cemetery of Zotokuin were becoming difficult to differentiate. To define the area@for foreign cemetery, the Japanese graves were moved in 1861. The cemetery area@defined at that time is now the area near the Meyer M.Lury Memorial Gate (Motomachi Gate), where the oldest tombs can be found. One of these tombs is that of Charles Richardson, a British merchant who was killed on the Tokai Road near Namamugi on September 14th, 1862, by the escorts of the Lord Satsuma. His death was a historic importance, because it brought about the Anglo-Satsuma War of 1863.

In 1864 a Memorandum for the Foreign Settlement at Yokohama was signed by the bakufu with the legations of the United States, Britain, France and the Netherlands. The extension of the cemetery area to the top of the Bluff was acknowledged in Article Three of the Treaty. The Convention of Improvement of Settlement of Yokohama including the Negishi Racetrack and the Foreign cemetery in 1866.
The Meiji government started in 1868, bringing a revolution of tremendous change in Japan's social and legal systems. In 1869, the new Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a letter to each consulate stating that although the cemetery land would be provided without charge, as before, the consulates should pay maintenance cost. The consulates then decided to form a committee to manage the cemetery in 1870. This committee, the Executive Committee of the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery, became incorporated as a zaidanhojin (foundation) on April 13th 1900 and exists to this day. The Meiji government altered the treaties of the bakufu and concluded the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Britain in July 1894, with the United States of America in November of the same year, and with other countries the following year. It was stated in Article Eighteen of the Treaty that all lands previously granted free of rent for public purposes for which the originally was set apart, should be permanently reserved free of all taxes and charges. This Article Eighteen of the Treaty was also applied to the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery.

The Executive Committee of the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery Foundation has been managing the Cemetery for more than 135 years and will continue in perpetuity.