page_title: Namamugi Incident
section_title: Consequences of the Namamugi Incident
hierarchical_section_title: Namamugi Incident / Consequences of the Namamugi Incident
context_page_description: The Namamugi incident, also known as the Kanagawa incident and Richardson affair, was a political crisis that occurred in the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Bakumatsu on 14 September 1862.
  Charles Lennox Richardson, a British merchant, was killed by the armed retinue of Shimazu Hisamitsu, the regent of the Satsuma Domain, on a road in Namamugi near Kawasaki. Richardson's murder sparked outrage among Europeans for violating their extraterritoriality in Japan, while the Japanese argued Richardson had disrespected Shimazu and justifiably killed under the Kiri-sute gomen rule. British demands for compensation and failure by the Satsuma to respond resulted in the Bombardment of Kagoshima in August 1863.
context_section_description: The Namamugi Incident caused a new political crisis in Japan during the Bakumatsu, the period after the ruling Tokugawa Shogunate had ended its historic isolationist foreign policy known as sakoku and allowed the entry of foreigners. Japanese and Westerners were outraged by Richardson's death, with these groups almost unanimously supportive and opposed to the killing, respectively.
  Japanese reports accused Richardson of continuing to ride in the middle of the road, even trying to get between Shimazu's litter and his bodyguards. In Japan, the samurai had a legal right known as kiri-sute gomen which allowed them to kill anyone of a lower class for perceived disrespect, which would have justified the killing by Shimazu's retinue. The Japanese instanced Eugene Van Reed, an American who had dismounted and bowed before a daimyō's train, as evidence that the insolent attitude of the Britons (who did not dismount) caused the incident. Van Reed's conduct had appalled the Western community, who believed that Westerners should hold themselves with dignity before the Japanese, being at least the equal of any Japanese person. There were also later suggestions that Richardson whipped Chinese people while horseback riding in China, and according to the Japan Herald "Extra" of Tuesday 16 September 1862, he had been heard to say just before the incident, "I know how to deal with these people". Richardson's uncle was reportedly not surprised about his nephew's demise, but blamed him for being reckless and stubborn. Frederick Wright-Bruce, the British envoy to China, remembered Richardson as an arrogant adventurer.
  The incident sparked a scare in Japan's foreign community, which was based in the Kannai district of Yokohama. Westerners argued that British nationals were protected in Japan by extraterritoriality under the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty and were exempt from Japanese cultural requirements, meaning Richardson's death under kiri-sute gomen was illegal. Many Western traders appealed to their governments to take punitive action against Japan. Britain demanded reparations from the Bakufu and from the daimyō of Satsuma, together with the arrest, trial and execution of the perpetrators.
caption: Entrance to the village of Namamugi, circa 1862.
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