Yokohama and its Connections with Silk.

横浜と絹のものがたり

Yokohama横浜 is a fashionable city. It has state-of-the-art seafront shopping malls and entertainment spots, a bustling China town中華街, historic architecture and a reputation for being a little more international than many other places in Japan. On our recent trip to Yokohama, we went to investigate to see for ourselves how historical factors have shaped the city. While in the early 1600s there had been a small community of Europeans mainly in出島 Dejima, off the coast of 長崎Nagasaki, for the next 250 years, non-Japanese had been kept out of Japan. This all changed with the arrival of Perry and the Black Ships from the US in 1853. It is hard to imagine the impact that those ships had on the peasant farmers and the fishermen in their small wooden sail boats around 下田Shimoda. Though they might possibly have heard about such strange technology, they had never seen anything like the scale of these ships, and there are stories of people rushing for arms, and others fleeing to other parts of Japan. The sound of cannons was also a new, and undoubtedly a terrifying, experience.

異国情緒のある、お洒落な街として人気の横浜。江戸時代から約250年間、日本の海外との接点は長崎の出島でした。そんな前例を破るかのように、1853年にアメリカのペリー提督が黒船を率いて、下田近辺に来たことから開国に向けての激動の時代が始まります。小さな漁村だつた横浜は、歴史の舞台となったのです。

A year later (1854) and a treaty is signed with the US, and Japan is warned about the other countries, with equally powerful ships who are also waiting to make treaties with Japan. Fearing an invasion, and not wanting a repeat of the Opium warsアヘン戦争 that had raged in China, a reluctant Japan made friendship treaties with Britain, Russia and France. Although this opened Hakodate函館 and Nagasaki長崎 for British ships, it did not permit trade and in 1858 Lord Elgin returned to Japan to make a trade deal, the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce日英通商条約, opening Hakodate, Nagasaki and Kanagawa to trade. The agreement also allowed British subjects to reside in Edo and Osaka. The first consul diplomat to be resident in Edo was Sir Rutherford Alcock (from 1859) and the second was Sir Harry Parkes (from 1865). Living in the late Edo period in Japan for a non-Japanese was not without risk. There were two-sworded samurai roaming in Edo and on the Tokaido road, some of whom would well have liked the foreigners to disappear. In fact, several of them were cut down in various, largely unprovoked, incidents. The Richardson affair, or namamugi incident 生麦事件was the most significant, and the foreign community was outraged when, in 1862, Richardson,a British trader, was cut down on the road to Kawasaki by samurai from the Satsuma clan薩摩藩. The British wanted compensation from the government, and when this was not forthcoming, the Royal Navy attacked and took hostage several ships off Kagoshima鹿児島, in the Satsuma region in Kyushu九州. Satsuma retaliated and 11 Britons on the flagship Euralyus were killed. Kagoshima was bombed and this comprised the Anglo-Kagoshima war薩英戦争. The names of the British who lost their lives on the Euralyus are written on a plaque in the old consul building.(Now the Yokohama archives横浜開港資料館).

アヘン戦争で中国が英国などの列強に植民地化されたことを知っていた幕府は、次々と西洋各国と条約を結び外国に扉を開きました。江戸にオールコックが初代英国大使として、パークスが二代目英国大使として赴任します。尊王攘夷運動も盛んになり、外国人を狙った事件も頻発します。薩摩藩の参勤交代とのトラブルで英国商人が殺傷された生麦事件は、鹿児島での薩英戦争のきっかけとなりました。旧英国領事館だった横浜開港資料館本館の壁には、この薩英戦争で亡くなった兵士の名前が刻まれた慰霊のプレートが当時のまま残されています。

Alcock wanted the government to open the port of Kanagawa, (Kanagawa Juku on the Tokaido Road東海道神奈川宿), present day Higashi Yokohama region, but the government refused and the official port for receiving foreign trading ships was designated as Yokohama. Rutherford complained that it was further away, and also that it was just a poor countryside fishing and farming district. What happened in the next few years to that poor fishing and farming village was truly amazing. Alcock complained that the Japanese government really didn’t want to trade. They saw only disadvantages. Their currency was being exported, they only made enough of popular products for their own people, so foreigners wanting to buy oils and silks put up the prices so that Japanese couldn’t afford them, and the Europeans had no goods to sell that the people really needed. This may well have been largely true, but what Japan did want was technology. Parkes worked with The Japanese Navy in building infrastructure, lighthouses, and also a railway from Tokyo to Yokohama. The former British consular building in Yokohama now houses the Yokohama Archives of History. The English House No 7, The Toda Peace Memorial Building, is the only foreign trading house that was not destroyed in the Kanto earthquake関東大震災 of 1923. The site of the oldest bank in Japan, dating from 1866, the Shanghai and Hong Kong bank香港上海銀行, is located nearby, and the site is now transformed into the HSBC. Yokohama has many huge stone buildings that were formerly banks, testifying to the importance of foreign trade and the wealth it brought to Yokohama. There is a plaque outside the Silk Museum, which marks the site of The English House No 1, 英一番館which belonged to Jardine Matheson, who were trading in the far east, in silk and other commodities. The new railway went to the docks where there were two red-brick customs houses built in the Meiji period. They now house popular shopping and restaurant malls. Also near the docks can be found a large red brick government building which was the Silk Conditioning House生糸検査所. Silk became the most important product for export and it was here that the quality was checked. The huge size of the building testifies to the importance of the silk trade to the city of Yokohama.

 当初英国大使オールコックは東海道の神奈川宿に外国人居留地を希望していましたが、幕府は小さな漁村だった横浜を指定しました。それから数年で小さな村だった横浜は大きく発展していくことになります。外国商人は生糸をほしがり、日本は欧米からお雇い外国人を多数受け入れ、進んだ技術を学ぼうとしました。灯台の建設や新橋と横浜間の鉄道は外国人技師により日本に導入されています。開国間際の日本の輸出を支えてたのは生糸でした。生糸により経済が動き出し、香港上海銀行や中国でアヘンや生糸、お茶を扱っていた英国商社ジャーデイン・マセソンも進出してきます。吉田茂の養父はこの商社の日本人支配人でした。また、長崎で幕末に活躍していた英国人商人グラバーのグラバー商会はジャーデイン・マセソンの代理店でもありました。ジャーデイン・マセソンは英一番館とよばれ、シルク博物館の入り口に記念碑が建っています。横浜の中華街は外国商館の通訳や買弁として広東や香港から来た中国の人が住み着いたのが始まりとされています。観光施設として人気の赤レンガ倉庫も生糸などを輸出するための倉庫として活用されていました。蚕のレリーフを掲げた旧横浜生糸検査所はリノベーションされて、今も生糸で栄えた横浜の歴史を伝える建物として存在しています。

In just one generation, the quiet fishing and farming village of Yokohama had been transformed into a thriving cosmopolitan trading port, with a lively non-Japanese community who enjoyed sports clubs, had schools and churches, and lived on and around the Bluff. Yokohama was flattened by the Great Kanto Earthquake 関東大震災in 1923 and most of the larger buildings there now date from the Taisho period. Yamashita Park is like many similar parks and public spaces in Victorian English seaside towns. The elegant New Grand Hotel stands facing the sea behind it. Built in 1927, it was used by MacArthur on his first night as the occupying government after the war. It reflects the art deco aesthetics of the time and it remains grand to this day. Another art deco treasure in Yokohama, also connected to the silk trade, is the ship the Hikawa Maru氷川丸. Built in 1929 with her first voyage in 1930 and retired in 1960, the elegant cruising ship was called the Queen of the Pacific. One of her purposes was to carry bales of silk to Seattle from where they were taken to New York by railway. She is named after the Hikawa Shrine in Omiya, Saitama, and carries the symbol of the shrine in her art deco wrought iron stair case. She was famous for her elegant art deco interiors, made of the finest craftsmanship, and her fine quality food prepared by French chefs. She made 238 peacetime voyages across the Pacific太平洋, has been used to evacuate refugees and rescue returning Japanese citizens. She has also been used as a naval hospital during the 2^nd World War第二次世界大戦. She has carried Prince and Princess Chichibu秩父宮, Charlie Chaplinチャップリン and Takarazuka entertainers宝塚歌劇団. Her elegance can now be admired by anyone, as she is a floating museum.

小さな漁村から多くの外国人が住むコスモポリタンな街へ短期間で変貌してきた横浜。スポーツクラブやミッションスクール、教会、商社などがで賑わっていましたが、1923年の関東大震災が襲います。今の横浜の街並み、建物は関東大震災後に建てらてたものが多いのです。山下公園は震災の瓦礫を埋め立てて造られました。市民に愛される散歩道となっています。山下公園に面した昭和2年開業のホテル・ニューグランドも横浜の歴史的建造物として知られています。こちらも震災からの復興事業として横浜市が手掛けたものの一つです。

また、アールデコの内装が美しい氷川丸（国の重要文化財指定）も横浜の魅力的な場所のひとつです。大宮の氷川神社が名前の由来となっており、船長室の神棚には氷川神社のお札が掲げられています。

One more wonderful attraction of Yokohama that is connected with silk, is the Sankeien Garden三渓園 in the Negishi area. Originally the land was bought by a silk trader from Saitama, named Hara Zenzaburo原善三郎. The business was continued, very successfully by his grandson-in-law, Hara Sankei原三渓. Sankei loved art, poetry and the tea ceremony. He had graduated at Waseda and taught at Atomi university before taking over the family business. Hara also took over the Tomoika Silk Mill富岡製糸場, the most important silk mill in Japan, originally built by the government as a model silk mill. He was able to improve the quality of the silk produced in the mill by developments in care and production of silk worm eggs蚕種 and the spinning equipment. He believed that the wealth he generated though his business should be shared and the garden was opened to the public in 1906. Sankei collected important buildings including a beautiful pagoda from Kyoto and rebuilt them in the gardens. He also held art events and had young painters visit to work together. The garden is extensive and with its flowing water, variety of buildings and a great many types of trees and plants, can be enjoyed at all seasons of the year. This beautiful garden is a reminder of the incredible power of silk and its importance the development and modernization of Japan at the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th Centuries. Spending a day or two in Yokohama is to experience this as living history.

横浜の生糸遺産をもっとも感じられる場所が本牧の三渓園です。現在の埼玉県神川町出身の原善三郎が生糸貿易で成功し基盤となる土地を購入しています。原家の歴史は横浜の生糸貿易の歴史とも重なります。原善三郎は明治26年の川越大火の際に横浜の生糸商、茂木惣兵衛、平沼仙蔵らととともに多額の復興費用を寄付をしています。あまり知られていませんが、川越と横浜の生糸つながりが伺えるエピソードです。善三郎の養嗣子となった富太郎（三渓）が完成させたのが三渓園です。元々伝統的建物のなかった横浜に重要文化財の名だたる建物を全国から移築しました。富太郎の時代に富岡製糸場も経営することとなりました。富太郎は単なる実業家ではなく、美術愛好家でもあり才能ある若い画家を育てたことでも有名です。また、自分の為だけに贅をつくすのではなく、素晴らしい庭園を完成後まもない明治39年に一般公開しているのです。戦後は横浜市に寄付され、市民の共有財産として維持管理されています。

 原善三郎について

三渓園について

日本文参考資料　「明治維新とイギリス商人」杉山伸也　「都市ヨコハマ物語」田村明

＊和文については一部説明を追記しています。