Transpacific Connections in the Civil War Era

Abstract

Abstract: This essay introduces the special forum on transpacific connections in the Civil War era. The forum investigates how US interaction with Asia and the Pacific shaped race relations, gender ideology, diplomacy, and legal rights in the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century. By examining the first Japanese diplomatic mission to the United States, the experience of Black migrants in Japan, Chinese women's habeas corpus litigations, and the naturalized citizenship of Chinese Americans, the forum integrates Asia and the Pacific into Civil War–era scholarship. Conceptually, the forum is informed by three strands of historiography: the international history of the Civil War era, the American West during the Civil War era, and the history of the Pacific World.