Towards a Hybrid Seagoing Ship: The Transfer and Exchange of Maritime Know-How and Shipbuilding Technology Between Holland and Japan Before the Opening of Japan (1853)

Blussé, Leonard

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-97801-7_8

Leonard Blussé⁴

Part of the book series: Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies ((IOWS))

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Abstract

During the so-called sakoku period (1635–1853), the Tokugawa shogunate imposed severe constraints on direct contacts with the overseas world. Yet through studying Rangaku (Dutch learning) and Yōgaku (Western learning) Japanese scholars attempted to catch up with scientific developments in the fields of medicine, ballistics and astronomy. Although the study of Western ship design and technology strictly belonged to the forbidden realm of the kaikin or maritime prohibitions, the Tokugawa regime itself finally tried to catch up with developments in Western shipbuilding technology when it had to face uninvited visits by Russian explorers and American whalers by the beginning of the nineteenth century. How off and on the quest for the transfer of maritime knowledge occurred between Holland and Japan is the subject of this contribution.

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Notes

1.
The present article is a further development of an earlier short piece published in Itinerario: Bao Leshi (Leonard Blusse)(1995) “Ruling Out Change: Institutional Impediments to Transfer of Technology in Ship Building and Design in the Far East,” Itinerario 19.3, 142–151.
2.
Richard W. Unger (1978) Dutch Shipbuilding Before 1800 (Assen: Van Gorcum); Yokokura Tatsuji 横倉辰次 (1971) Edo jidai fune to koro no rekishi 江戶時代舟と航路の歴史 (Tōkyō: Yuzankaku shuppan), 46.
3.
Yoshi S. Kuno (1940) Japanese Expansion on the Asiatic Continent: A Study in the History of Japan with Special Reference to Her International Relations with China, Korea, and Russia, 2 vols., here vol. 2 (Berkeley: University of California Press), 68–69.
4.
See, for instance Ishii Kenji (1979) “Fune to kōkai no rekishi” 船と航海の歷史, Jimbutsukai no Nihonshi 人物海の日本史 6, 145–146.
5.
In an absorbing study of the ship models of the former ship model room of the Dutch navy now kept at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the restorer of the model collection, Ab Hoving, throws light on the innovations that were adopted or rejected in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Ab Hoving (2012) Modellen vertellen (Franeker: Uitgeverij van Wijnen).
6.
Jan W. Ijzerman [1851–1932], ed. (1926) De reis om de wereld door Olivier van Noort 1598–1601 [Linschoten vereeniging, 27] (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff), 1, 113.
7.
Montague Paske-Smith [1886–1946] (1930) Western Barbarians in Japan and Formosa in Tokugawa Days, 1603–1868 (Kobe: J. L. Thompson), 13–14.
8.
Antonio de Morga [1559–1636] (1907), History of the Philippine Islands: From Their Discovery by Magellan in 1521 to the Beginning of the XVII Century; With Descriptions of Japan, China and Adjacent Countries. Completely translated into English, edited and annotated by E. H. Blair and J. A Robertson (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark), 252.
9.
Montague Paske-Smith, Western Barbarians, 39.
10.
Yamada Jun 山田純 (1985) “Oranda no Hirado ni okeru junk sen ni tsuite” オランダの憑戶におけるジュンク船について, Daitō bunka daigaku Tōyō kenkyū 大東文化大学東洋研究 70, 69–96; Leonard Blussé (2009) “The Repairs of the Chinese Junk Goede Fortuna,” Paper Presented at “Of Ships and Men,” International Conference on New Comparative Approaches in Asian Maritime History and Archaeology, 9–11 November 2009 (Beijing: no Publisher).
11.
Montague Paske-Smith, Western Barbarians, 35. Japanese shipwrights were not a success overseas as they were difficult to handle: “they are a kitteloorich (difficult) people and one of us does as much as three of them, while the latter even earn more money than do our people.” Willem P. Coolhaas (1960) Generale missiven van gouverneurs-generaal en raden aan Heren XVII der Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, 1610–1638, vol. 1 (’s-Gravenhage: Nijhoff), 64 (18 July 1616).
12.
Willem P. Coolhaas (1960) Generale Missiven (26 October 1615), vol. 1, 50.
13.
For the conditions under which these Japanese sailors were hired, see Oscar Nachod (1897) Die Beziehungen der Niederländischen Ostindischen Kompagnie zu Japan im 17ten Jahrhundert (Berlin), 168 and XLVI–XLVIII.
14.
Letter of 1 January 1614, in Herman T. Colenbrander, ed. (1919–1953) Jan Pietersz. Coen: bescheiden omtrent zijn bedrijf in Indië, 7 vols., here vol. 1 (’s Gravenhage: Nijhoff), 32–33.
15.
See Iioka Naoko (2009) “Literati Entrepreneur: Wei Zhiyuan in the Tonkin-Nagasaki Silk Trade” (PhD thesis, National University of Singapore).
16.
François Valentijn (1724–1726) Oud- en Nieuw Oost Indien, vol. 5 (Dordrecht), 34–36.
17.
Diary of the Court Journey by François Caron (22 May 1639). Typescript, Steinmetz collection, General State Archive—The Hague (ARA).
18.
Algemeen Rijksarchief, NFJ 58, Dagregister Van Elseracq 1643/4 (1993) Diaries Kept by the Heads of the Dutch Factory in Japan, November 8, 1643–November 24, 1644, vol. 8 (Tōkyō: Shiryō Hensanjo), 186–188.
19.
Ibid.
20.
Ōba Osamu 大庭脩 [1927–2002] (1972) “Hirado Matsuura shiryō hakubutsukan-zo 平戶松浦史料博物館蔵 [Tōsen no zu 唐船の図] ni tsuite”, in Kansai daigaku Tōzai gakujutsu kenkyūjo kiyō 関西大学東西学術研究所集要 5, 13–50.
21.
Willem M. Ottow (1954) Rijckloff van Goens (Utrecht: no publisher), 110.
22.
Leonard Blussé́ and Paul van der Velde, eds. (1989) The Deshima Dagregisters: Their Original Tables of Contents, 1710–1720, vol. 4 (Leiden: Centre for the History of European Expansion), 131, 142.
23.
Leonard Blussé and Paul van der Velde, eds. (1990) The Deshima Dagregisters: Their Original Tables of Contents, 1720–1730, vol. 5 (Leiden: Centre for the History of European Expansion), 35.
24.
Leonard Blussé and Paul van der Velde, eds. (1991) The Deshima Dagregisters: Their Original Tables of Contents, 1730–1740, vol. 6 (Leiden: Centre for the History of European Expansion), 118, 126, 140, 154, 188.
25.
Jan Feenstra Kuiper [1890–1927] (1921) Japan en de Buitenwereld in de achttiende eeuw (’s Gravenhage: Nijhoff), 275–276.
26.
Leonard Blussé ́and Paul van der Velde, eds. (1995) The Deshima Dagregisters: Their Original Tables of Contents, 1760–1780, vol. 8 (Leiden: Centre for the History of European Expansion), 112–116.
27.
By the end of the Tokugawa period, when the superior quality of English gunboats had been proven during the Opium Wars in China, of course many other attempts were made to learn from the West.
28.
12 October 1783, “Secreet Dagregister Gehouden door Isaac Tit-sing 1782–1783,” in Cynthia Viallé and Leonard Blussé (eds.) (1996) The Deshima Dagregisters: Their Original Tables of Contents, 1790–1800, vol. 9 (Leiden: Centre for the History of European Expansion), 247.
29.
Cynthia Viallé and Leonard Blussé, eds. (1996) The Deshima Dagregisters: Their Original Tables of Contents, 1790–1800, vol. 9 (Leiden: Centre for the History of European Expansion), 125 (28 January 1787).
30.
Timon Screech (2006) Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns, Isaac Titsingh and Japan 1779–1822 (Abingdon: Routledge), 48–49.
31.
20 January 1789, Cynthia Viallé and Leonard Blussé, eds. (1996) The Deshima Dagregisters: Their Original Tables of Contents, 1790–1800, vol. 9 (Leiden: Centre for the History of European Expansion), 185.
32.
Timon Screech points out that the ship actually sank as early as 11 November 1787.
33.
Leonard Blussé and Cynthia Viallé, eds. (1997) The Deshima Dagregisters: Their Original Tables of Contents, 1790–1800, vol. 10 (Leiden: Centre for the History of European Expansion), 40.
34.
Willem J. C. Huyssen van Kattendyke (1860) Uittreksel uit het Dagboek, gedurende zijn verblijf in Japan in 1857, 1858, en 1859 (’s Gravenhage), 116.
35.
Willem J. C. Huyssen van Kattendyke, Uittreksel uit het Dagboek, 220.
36.
Yamada Michio 山田廸生 (1997) Nihon no fune, Kisen-hen 日本の船, 汽船編 (Tōkyō: Fune no kagakukan heisei 9), 10.
37.
For an Illustration, see The Illustrated London News of 13 January 1855. Johannes Stellingwerff (1988) Zijne Majesteits Raderstoomschip Soembing overgedragen aan Japan. (Zutphen: De Walburg Pers), 43. Van den Broek introduced many new technological inventions into Japan. See: Herman Jan Moeshart (3 juni 2003) Een miskend geneesheer, Dr. Jan Karel van den Broek en de overdracht van kennis van westerse technologie in Japan, 1853–1857 (Amsterdam: De Bataafse Leeuw).
38.
Willem J. C. Huyssen van Kattendyke, Uittreksel uit het Dagboek, 99.
39.
Willem J. C. Huyssen van Kattendyke, Uittreksel uit het Dagboek, 202.

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Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
Leonard Blussé

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University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
Angela Schottenhammer
Research Director of the Indian Ocean World Centre (IOWC), McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Angela Schottenhammer

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Blussé, L. (2019). Towards a Hybrid Seagoing Ship: The Transfer and Exchange of Maritime Know-How and Shipbuilding Technology Between Holland and Japan Before the Opening of Japan (1853). In: Schottenhammer, A. (eds) Early Global Interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World, Volume II. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97801-7_8

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97801-7_8
Published: 14 February 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97800-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-97801-7
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