Landing of Commodore Perry, Officers and Men of the Squadron, to Meet the Imperial Commissioners at Simoda, Japan, June 8, 1854

Following the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry visited the ports and harbors that Japan had opened to the United States. Shimoda, the site of a new American consulship, was located in southern Japan and was fairly isolated, discouraging the development of trade. Yet its importance in the newly signed treaty elevated it to an imperial city. During Perry's second trip to Shimoda, he met with the emperor's commissioners. He arrived with more than 300 officers, seamen, and Marines and later entertained the commissioners with dancing on his flagship. This lithograph, part of a series produced by Eliphalet Brown Jr. and Peter Bernard William Heine, both of whom accompanied Perry on his expedition, shows the people of Shimoda greeting the Americans as they arrived on the beach.