Western Merchants and Intra-Asian Trade: John Henry Duus at Treaty port Hakodate (Part One 1861-68)

Steven Ivings

doi:10.5195/shashi.2021.51

Abstract

This article examines the business activities of John Henry Duus, a long-standing foreign resident of the treaty port of Hakodate. In the first of this two-part article, I trace Duus’ background and focus in on his efforts to conduct business at Hakodate in the 1860s. Though Duus’ efforts to foster trade between Japan and western countries proved largely fruitless, he played an important role as a local agent for Chinese and China-based western firms and thus was active in fostering intra-Asian trade. As an Asia-born Anglo-Dane who first came to Hakodate as a British merchant but later switched allegiances to Denmark and served as Danish consul, Duus’ career also points to the cosmopolitan background of western treaty porters at the more peripheral treaty ports such as Hakodate.

Highlights

As an Asiaborn Anglo-Dane who first came to Hakodate as a British merchant but later switched allegiances to Denmark and served as Danish consul, Duus’ career points to the cosmopolitan background of western treaty porters at the more peripheral treaty ports such as Hakodate
In this two-part article I examine the business activities of John Henry Duus, a long-standing foreign resident of the treaty port of Hakodate in order to get a closer understanding of the role and activities of Western merchants at the more marginal Japanese treaty ports
The port’s international trade, which was almost exclusively limited to exporting marine products to other Chinese treaty ports, may have been small in comparison to the volume of trade conducted at ports such as Yokohama

Summary

Introduction

In this two-part article I examine the business activities of John Henry Duus, a long-standing foreign resident of the treaty port of Hakodate in order to get a closer understanding of the role and activities of Western merchants at the more marginal Japanese treaty ports. Stretching across almost three decades, Duus was active in an era that saw Japan pass through several major changes, most notably the transition from the Tokugawa (Edo) to the Meiji period (to be covered in Part Two) An examination of his activities utilizing fragments of his correspondence with the Japanese authorities together with the consular records that both he and other foreign consuls left behind allows us to gain an understanding of the conduct of business in treaty port Hakodate and provides several insights into how the more marginal of Western merchants sought to prosper in what was a turbulent era.[2]. “The Chinese in the Japanese Treaty Ports, 18581899: The Unknown Majority” in Proceedings of the British Association for Japanese Studies 2 (1977), 18-33

Background and Early Life

Conclusion

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