ethics of civilization

BECK index
ETHICS OF CIVILIZATION
by Sanderson Beck
Volume 1: MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA to 1875
Volume 2: INDIA & SOUTHEAST ASIA to 1800
Volume 3: CHINA, KOREA & JAPAN to 1800
Volume 4: GREECE & ROME to 30 BC
Volume 5: ROMAN EMPIRE 30 BC to 610
Volume 6: MEDIEVAL EUROPE 610-1250
Volume 7: MEDIEVAL EUROPE 1250-1453: Rise of Humanism (in progress)
Volume 11: AMERICA to 1744
Volume 20: SOUTH ASIA 1800-1950
Volume 21: EAST ASIA 1800-1949
Chronological Index to 1300
Chronology of Asia & Africa 1300-1875
America Chronology to 1744
Volume 1: MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA to 1875
Introduction
Purposes and Motives
Philosophical Premises and Methods
Limitations
Ethics
Metaphysical Foundation
Universal Values
Applying Universal Values
Prehistoric Cultures
Evolution of Life
Human Evolution
Lemuria and Atlantis
Sumer, Babylon, and Hittites
Sumer
Sargon the Akkadian
Sumerian Revival
Sumerian Literature
Epic of Gilgamesh
Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna, Mari, Assur, and Babylon
Hammurabi's Babylon
Kassites, Hurrians, and Assyria
Babylonian Literature
Hittites
Egypt
Old Kingdom
Middle Kingdom
Hyksos Shepherd Kings
New Kingdom Empire
Egypt 1085-323 BC
Early Egyptian Literature
Book of the Dead
Later Egyptian Literature
Israel
Genesis
Moses
Conquest of Canaan
David and the Psalms
Solomon and the Wisdom Books
Israel and Judah Divided
Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Micah
Judah's Fall and Jeremiah
Ezekiel and Babylonian Isaiah
Jews in the Persian Empire
Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Empires
Assyrian Empire
Babylonian Empire
Zarathushtra
Persian Empire to 500 BC
Persian-Greek Wars
Parthian Empire
Mani and Manichaeism
Sasanian Empire
Muhammad and Islamic Conquest
Muhammad in Mecca
Muhammad in Medina at War 622-628
Muhammad Triumphant 628-632
Qur'an and Hadith
Islamic Wars in the Near East 632-661
Umayyad Caliphate 661-750
Abbasid, Buyid, and Seljuk Empires 750-1095
'Abbasid Caliphate 750-945
Umayyad Spain and Fatimid Africa
Samanids, Ghaznavids, Buyids, and Seljuqs
Mirrors for Princes
Nizam al-Mulk's Rules for Kings
Firdausi's Shah-nameh
Sufis: Rabi'a, Al-Hallaj, and Qushayri
Al-Razi, Al-Farabi, and Miskawayh
Avicenna, Ibn Hazm, and ibn Gabirol
1001 Nights and 'Umar Khayyam's Ruba'iyat
Islamic Culture 1095-1300
Middle East during the Crusades
Al-Ghazali's Mystical Ethics
Ibn Tufayl, Averroes, and Al-Tusi
Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed
Sufism of Gilani, Suhrawardi, and Ibn 'Arabi
Sufi Literature of Sana'i and 'Attar
Rumi's Masnavi and Discourses
Sa'di's Rose Garden and Orchard
Ottoman and Persian Empires 1300-1730
Ottoman Empire to 1451
Ottoman Empire 1451-1520
Ottoman Empire Under Sulayman
Ottoman Empire 1566-1617
Ottoman Empire 1617-1730
Persia in the 14th Century
Timur and the Timurids
Safavid Persian Empire
Ottoman and Persian Empires 1730-1875
Wahhabis and Saudi Arabia
Ottoman Decline 1730-1826
Ottoman Reforms 1826-1875
Persia of Nadir and Zands 1730-1794
Persia Under Qajars 1794-1875
Bábis and Bahá'u'lláh
Africa to 1500
Nubia and Ethiopia to 1500
Sub-Saharan Africa to 1500
Traditional African Ethics
North Africa to 900
North Africa 900-1300
North Africa 1300-1500
Ibn Khaldun on History
Africa and Slavery 1500-1800
Egypt Under the Ottomans
Ethiopia and Eastern Sudan
Algeria
Tunisia and Tripoli
Morocco
Western and Central Sudan
West Africa and Slavery
Gold Coast, Asante, and Slavery
Niger Coast and Slavery
East Africa, Portuguese, and Arabs
Southern Africa, Portuguese, and Dutch
Africa and Europeans 1800-1875
Egypt of Muhammad 'Ali
Ethiopia
North Africa and Europeans
Islam in Western Sudan
Asante, British, and the Gold Coast
East Africa, Arabs, and Europeans
Southern Africans and Zulus
British and Boers in South Africa
Summary and Evaluation
Prehistory
Ancient Near East
Muslim Middle East 610-1875
Africa to 1875
Evaluating the Middle East and Africa to 1875
Bibliography

Volume 2: INDIA & SOUTHEAST ASIA to 1800
Vedas and Upanishads
Harappan Civilization
Rig Veda
Sama Veda
Yajur Veda
Atharva Veda
Brahmanas
Aranyakas
Early Upanishads
Kena, Katha, Isha, and Mundaka
Later Upanishads
Mahavira and Jainism
Parshva
Mahavira
Jainism
Buddha and Buddhism
Siddartha Gautama
Buddha
Doctrine (Dharma)
Dhammapada
Questions of King Milinda
Community (Sangha)
Political and Social Ethics of India
Magadhan Ascendancy
Alexander's Invasion of India
Mauryan Empire, Ashoka and Sri Lanka
Dharma Sutras
Laws of Manu
Artha Shastra
Kama Sutra
Hindu Philosophy
Nyaya and Vaishesika
Mimamsa and Vedanta
Samkhya and Yoga
Bhagavad-Gita
Literature of India
Ramayana
Mahabharata
Jatakas
Panchatantra
India 30 BC to 1300
India 30 BC-320 CE
Gupta Empire and India 320-750
Plays of Bhasa, Kalidasa, and Bhavabhuti
Hindu Kingdoms 750-1000
Tibetan Buddhism
India and Muslim Invaders 1000-1300
Literature of Medieval India
Delhi Sultans and Rajas 1300-1526
Delhi Sultanate 1300-1526
Barani on Politics of the Delhi Sultanate
Independent North India 1401-1526
Independent South India 1329-1526
Kabir and Chaitanya
Nanak and Sikhism
Mughal Empire 1526-1707
Mughal Conquest of India 1526-56
Akbar's Tolerant Empire 1556-1605
Jahangir and Shah Jahan 1605-58
Aurangzeb's Intolerant Empire 1658-1707
Kashmir and Tibet 1526-1707
Southern India 1526-1707
European Trade with Mughal India
Tulsidas and Maharashtra Mystics
Sikhs 1539-1708
Marathas and the English Company 1707-1800
Mughal Decline and Maratha Rise 1707-48
Afghan Invasions, Sikhs, and Marathas 1748-67
French, English, and Clive 1744-67
Marathas and Hastings 1767-84
Marathas and Cornwallis Reforms 1784-1800
Sikhs and North India 1767-1800
Tibet and Nepal 1707-1800
Sri Lanka 1707-1800
Southeast Asia to 1800
Burma and Arakan to 1800
Siam (Thailand) to 1800
Cambodia to 1800
Laos to 1800
Vietnam to 1800
Malaya to 1800

Pacific Islands to 1800
Sumatra, Java, and the Archipelago
Java and Dutch Trade 1613-1800
Philippines to 1800
Australia and New Zealand to 1800
Polynesian Islands to 1800
Summary and Evaluation
Ancient India
India 78-1526
Mughal Empire
British in India
Southeast Asia and Pacific Islands
Bibliography
Volume 3: CHINA, KOREA & JAPAN to 1800
Shang, Zhou and the Classics
Shang Dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
Yi Jing (Book of Changes)
Shi Jing (Book of Odes)
Li (Propriety)
Shu Jing (Book of Documents)
Spring and Autumn Era
Sun-zi's Art of War
Period of Warring States
Confucius, Mencius and Xun-zi
Confucius
Teachings of Confucius
Followers of Confucius
Mencius
Xun-zi
Later Confucian Works
Daoism and Mo-zi
Lao-zi
Mo-zi
Teachings of Mo-zi
Moism
Zhuang-zi
Lie-zi
Songs of Chu
Huai-nan-zi
Legalism, Qin Empire and Han Dynasty
Guan-zi
Book of ShangYang
Han Fei-zi
Qin Empire 221-206 BC
Founding the Han Dynasty 206-141 BC
Wu Di's Reign 141-87 BC
Confucian China 87-30 BC
China 7 BC to 1279
Wang Mang's Revolution
Later Han Empire
China Divided and Reunited 220-618
Sui Dynasty 581-617
Tang Dynasty Empire 618-907
Liao, Xi Xia, and Jin Dynasties 907-1234
Song Dynasty Renaissance 960-1279
Neo-Confucian Ethics
Literature of Medieval China
Mongols and Yuan China
Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire
Khubilai Khan in China
Yuan Dynasty 1294-1368
Chinese Theater in the Yuan Era
Ming Empire 1368-1644
Ming Dynasty Founded by Hongwu
Ming Empire 1398-1464
Ming Empire 1464-1567
Ming Decline 1567-1644
Wang Yangming and Ming Confucians
Ming Era Short Stories
Novels of the Ming Era
Theater in the Ming Era
Qing Empire 1644-1799
Qing Conquest of Ming China 1644-61
Kangxi's Consolidation 1661-1722
Yongzheng's Reforms 1723-35
Qianlong's Expansion 1736-99
Confucian Intellectuals in the Qing Era
Theater in the Qing Era
Wu Jingzi's Novel The Scholars
Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber
Korea to 1800
Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla to 668
Silla and Parhae 668-936
Koryo 936-1392
Yi Begins Choson Dynasty 1392-1567
Korea and Foreign Invasions 1567-1659
Korea and Practical Learning 1659-1800

Japan to 1615
Japan to 794
Japan's Heian Era 794-1192
Murasaki's Tale of Genji
Feudal Japan 1192-1333
Feudal Japan 1333-1465
No Plays of Kannami, Zeami, and Zenchiku
Japan under Warlords 1465-1568
Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu 1568-1615
Japan 1615-1800
Tokugawa Japan's Seclusion 1615-1716
Japanese Confucianism and Religion
Saikaku's Stories of Sex and Money
Chikamatsu's Plays
Takeda-Namiki-Miyoshi Plays
Tokugawa Japan 1716-1800
Japanese Culture 1716-1800

Summary and Evaluation
Ancient China to 221 BC
Imperial China 221 BC to 1368
Ming Dynasty
Qing Dynasty to 1875
Korea to 1875
Japan to 1875
Evaluating China, Korea, and Japan
Bibliography
Volume 4: GREECE & ROME to 30 BC
Greek Culture to 500 BC
Crete, Mycenae and Dorians
Iliad
Odyssey
Hesiod and Homeric Hymns
Aristocrats, Tyrants, and Poets
Spartan Military Laws
Athenian Political Laws
Aesop's Fables
Pythagoras and Early Philosophy
Greek Politics and Wars 500-360 BC
Persian Invasions
Athenian Empire 479-431 BC
Peloponnesian War 431-404 BC
Spartan Hegemony 404-371 BC
Theban Hegemony 371-360 BC
Syracusan Tyranny of Dionysius 405-367 BC
Greek Theatre
Aeschylus
The Persians
The Suppliant Maidens
Seven Against Thebes
Prometheus Bound
Agamemnon
Libation Bearers
The Eumenides
Sophocles
Ajax
Antigone
Oedipus the Tyrant
The Women of Trachis
Electra
Philoctetes
Oedipus at Colonus
Euripides
Rhesus
Alcestis
Medea
Hippolytus
Heracleidae
Andromache
Hecuba
The Cyclops
Heracles
The Suppliant Women
The Trojan Women
Electra
Helen
Iphigenia in Tauris
Ion
The Phoenician Women
Orestes
Iphigenia in Aulis
The Bacchae
Aristophanes
The Acharnians
The Knights
The Clouds
The Wasps
Peace
The Birds
Lysistrata
The Thesmophoriazusae
The Frogs
The Ecclesiazusae
Plutus
Socrates, Xenophon, and Plato
Empedocles
Socrates
Xenophon's Socrates
Defense of Socrates
Memoirs of Socrates
Symposium
Oikonomikos
Xenophon
Cyropaedia
Hiero
Ways and Means
Plato's Socrates
Alcibiades
Charmides
Protagoras
Laches
Lysis
Menexenus
Hippias
Euthydemus
Meno
Gorgias
Phaedrus
Symposium
Euthyphro
Defense of Socrates
Crito
Phaedo
Plato's Republic
Plato's Later Work
Seventh Letter
Timaeus
Critias
Theaetetus
Sophist
Politician
Philebus
Laws
Isocrates, Aristotle, and Diogenes
Hippocrates
Isocrates
Aristotle
Aristotle's Rhetoric
Aristotle's Ethics
Aristotle's Politics
Diogenes
Philip, Demosthenes, and Alexander
Dionysius II, Dion, and Timoleon in Sicily
Wars and Macedonian Expansion under Philip
Demosthenes and Aeschines
Alexander's Conquest of the Persian Empire
Hellenistic Era
Battles of Alexander's Successors
Egypt Under the Ptolemies
Alexandrian Poetry
Seleucid Empire
Judea in the Hellenistic Era
Antigonid Macedonia and Greece
Xenocrates, Pyrrho, and Theophrastus
Menander's New Comedy
Epicurus and the Hedonists
Zeno and the Stoics
Roman Expansion to 133 BC
Roman and Etruscan Kings
Republic of Rome 509-343 BC
Rome's Conquest of Italy 343-264 BC
Rome at War with Carthage 264-201 BC
Republican Rome's Imperialism 201-133 BC
Roman Revolution and Civil Wars
Reforms of the Gracchi Brothers
Marius and Sulla
Pompey, Crassus, Caesar, and Cato
Julius Caesar Dictator
Brutus, Octavian, Antony and Cleopatra
Plautus, Terence, and Cicero
Plautus
The Menaechmi
The Asses
The Merchant
The Swaggering Soldier
Stichus
The Pot of Gold
Curculio
Epidicus
The Captives
The Rope
Trinummus
Mostelleria
Pseudolus
The Two Bacchides
Amphitryo
Casina
The Persian
Truculentus
Terence
The Woman of Andros
The Mother-In-Law
The Self-Tormentor
The Eunuch
Phormio
The Brothers
Lucretius
Catullus
Virgil
Cicero
Cicero on Oratory
Cicero's Republic and Laws
Cicero on Ethics
Summary and Evaluation
Greece
Rome
Evaluating Greece and Rome
Bibliography

Volume 5: ROMAN EMPIRE 30 BC to 610
Empire of Augustus and Tiberius
Rome Under Augustus
Virgil's Aeneid
Horace and Propertius
Ovid's Art of Love
Ovid's Metamorphoses
Rome Under Tiberius
Judea under Herod and Caesar
Essene Community by the Dead Sea
Philo of Alexandria
Jesus and His Apostles
John the Baptist
Jesus According to Mark
Jesus According to Matthew
Jesus According to Luke
Jesus According to John
Thomas and the Gnostics
Peter, James, and the Church
Paul and Christianity
Christian Fathers and Martyrs to 180
Roman Decadence 37-96
Caligula 37-41
Claudius 41-54
Nero 54-68
Seneca's Tragedies
Seneca's Stoic Ethics
Judean and Roman Wars 66-70
Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian 70-96
Roman Literature in the First Century
Quintilian's Education of an Orator
Apollonius of Tyana
Rome Under Better Emperors 96-180
Nerva 96-98 and Trajan 98-117
Dio Chrysostom's Discourses
Plutarch's Essays
Epictetus' Stoic Discourses
Hadrian 117-138
Antoninus Pius 138-161
Marcus Aurelius 161-180
Stoic Ethics of Marcus Aurelius
Literature in the Second Century
Lucian's Comic Criticism
Roman Empire In Turmoil 180-285
Commodus 180-192 and Pertinax
Severus Dynasty 193-235
Roman Wars 235-285
Judah and the Mishnah
Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Cyprian
Clement of Alexandria and Origen
Plotinus and Neo-Platonism
Literature in the Third Century

Roman Power and Christian Conflict 285-395
Diocletian's Reforms 284-305
Constantine's Religious Revolution 306-337
Lactantius
Constantine's Sons 337-361
Julian's Pagan Revival 361-363
Valentinian, Valens, Gratian, and Theodosius
Antony, Arius, and Athanasius
Basil and Two Gregorys of Cappadocia
Martin, Ambrose, and Prudentius
John Chrysostom and Jerome
Augustine and the Fall of Rome 395-476
Augustine's Confessions
Augustine and the Catholic Church
Augustine's City of God
Roman Empire Invaded 395-425
Macrobius and Cassian
Roman Empire Reduced 425-476
Orosius and Salvian
Leo, Patrick, and Severin
Talmud
Goths, Franks, and Justinian's Empire 476-610
Zeno, Anastasius, and Theodoric's Ostrogoths
Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy
Frank Kingdom of Clovis and His Sons
Benedict's Monastic Rule
Justinian's Imperial Wars to 540
Justinian's Imperial Wars after 540
Justinian and Roman Law
Roman Empire Disintegration 565-610
Frank Civil Wars and Brunhild 561-613
Saxon Kingdoms in Britain 476-616
Pope Gregory's Reforms 590-604
Summary and Evaluation
Roman Domination 30 BC to 180 CE
Roman Decline and Christianity 180-610
Evaluating the Roman Empire
Bibliography
Volume 6: MEDIEVAL EUROPE 610-1250
Byzantine Empire 610-1095
Heraclius and Byzantine Wars 610-717
Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus
Leo III and Byzantine Iconoclasm 717-843
Byzantine Empire and Bulgaria 843-927
Byzantine Expansion 927-1025
Byzantine Decline 1025-1095
Barlaam and Ioasaph and Digenis Akritas
Franks and Anglo-Saxons 613-899
Isidore and Christian Spain
Lombards and Franks 613-774
Charlemagne 768-814 and Alcuin
Frank Empire Divided 814-899
Anglo-Saxons 616-865
Beowulf and Irish Legends
John Scotus Erigena
Danes in England and Alfred 871-899
Vikings and Feudal Europe 900-1095
Vikings and Scandinavia
England and the Danes 900-1042
Franks and Western Europe 900-1095
Christian Spain 900-1095
Germans and the Ottos 900-1002
Russia to 1097
Italy and the Popes 900-1045
Germans and Eastern Europe 1002-1095
Italy, Normans, and Reform Popes 1045-1095
England and the Norman Conquest 1042-1095
Crusaders, Greeks, and Muslims
Crusade for Jerusalem 1095-1100
Jerusalem Kingdom of the Baldwins 1100-1131
Crusaders, Manuel, and Nur-ad-Din 1131-1174
Saladin and Crusading Kings 1174-1198
Crusades to Constantinople and Egypt 1198-1255
Mongol and Egyptian Invasions 1255-1300
Europe's 12th-Century Development
German Empire 1095-1152
England under Norman Kings 1095-1154
Italian Republics and Norman Sicily 1095-1197
France and Flanders 1095-1200
Spanish Peninsula 1095-1200
Scandinavia 1095-1200
Eastern Europe 1095-1200
Germany's Friedrich I and Heinrich VI 1152-1197
England under Henry II and Richard 1154-1199
Europe's 13th-Century Progress
England's John and Magna Carta 1199-1226
Friedrich II, Italy and German Empire 1197-1250
France and Flanders 1200-1300
Spanish Peninsula 1200-1300
Scandinavia 1200-1250
Eastern Europe 1200-1300
England Under Henry III 1227-1272
Germany and Italian City States 1250-1300
England Under Edward I 1272-1300
Christian Ethics 1095-1250
Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux
Aelred of Rievaulx's Spiritual Friendship
John of Salisbury on Politics
Hildegard of Bingen
Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade
Dominic and His Preaching Brothers
Francis of Assisi and His Lesser Brothers

European Literature 1095-1300
Epics of Roland and the Cid
Geoffrey of Monmouth and The Mabinogion
Romantic Love and Lais by Marie de France
Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes
Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach
Romances of Tristan and Lancelot
Snorri Sturluson and His Sagas
Icelandic Sagas: Laxdaela, Eyrbyggja, and Njal
Romance of the Rose
Theater and Lives of Saints
Summary and Evaluation
Byzantine and Frank Empires
Crusades Era 1095-1300
Evaluating Medieval Europe
Bibliography

Volume 7: MEDIEVAL EUROPE 1250-1453: Rise of Humanism
Crusaders and Byzantine Decline 1250-1453
Crusaders Defeated 1250-1300
Byzantine and Balkan Decline 1250-1350
Byzantine and Balkan Decline 1350-1453
Eastern Europe 1250-1453
Hungary 1250-1382
Hungary 1382-1453
Bohemia 1250-1409
Bohemia’s Hussite Revolution 1409-1453
Chelcicky’s Nonviolence
Poland 1250-1453
Lithuania 1250-1453
Russia under the Mongols 1250-1453
Russian Orthodox Church 1250-1453
Catholic Ethics 1250-1350
Bonaventure’s Ethics
Ethics of Thomas Aquinas
Roger Bacon and Moral Philosophy
Ramon Llull’s Spiritual Writings
Lives of Saints
Franciscans and the Spirituals
Béguines and Marguerite Porete
Dominicans and Eckhart’s Mystical Unity
Duns Scotus and William of Ockham
German Empire 1250-1453
Germany and the Empire 1250-1313
Germany under Ludwig and Karl IV
Germany and the Empire 1378-1410
Sigismund and the Council of Constance
Germany and the Empire 1438-1453
Austria 1250-1453
Swiss Cantons and Confederation 1250-1453
Teutonic Knights, Prussia, and Livonia
Scandinavia 1250-1453
Denmark 1250-1397
Sweden 1250-1397
Norway 1250-1397
Scandinavia’s Kalmar Union 1397-1453
Iceland 1250-1453
Icelandic Sagas: Eyrbyggja and Njal
Castile, Aragon, Granada, and Portugal 1250-1453
Castile’s Alfonso X and the Zohar
Castile 1284-1350
Castile’s Pedro I and Civil War
Castile 1369-1453
Aragon 1250-1336
Aragon’s Pedro IV 1336-87
Aragon 1387-1453
Granada 1250-1453
Portugal 1250-1383
Portugal 1383-1453
Juan Manuel’s Examples and Ruiz’s Good Love
Italian City States 1250-1453
Milan and the Visconti 1250-1453
Venice and Padua 1250-1350
Venice 1350-1453
Genoa and Pisa 1250-1453
Florence 1250-1336
Florence 1336-1453
Siena and Catherine
Rome and the Papal State 1250-1303
Rome and the Papal State 1303-1357
Rome and the Papal State 1357-1453
Sicily and Naples 1250-1453

Volume 11: AMERICA to 1744
Mayans, Toltecs, Aztecs, and Incas
Mayans
Toltecs and Anasazi
Aztecs to 1519
Incas to 1532
Spanish Conquest 1492-1580
Columbus and the Caribbean
Caribbean and Panama 1500-21
Cortes in Mexico 1519-28
Mexico 1528-80
Central America and Caribbean 1521-80
Cabeza, Coronado, Soto, and Menendez
Pizarros and Peru 1532-80
New Granada 1525-80
Southern South America to 1580
Las Casas on the Spanish Conquest
Brazil and Guiana 1500-1744
Portuguese in Brazil 1500-80
Brazil and the Dutch 1580-1654
Brazil and Vieira 1654-1700
Brazil and Slavery 1700-44
Guiana to 1744
Spanish Colonies and the West Indies 1580-1744
Rio de la Plata 1580-1744
Peru and Chile 1580-1744
New Granada 1580-1744
Central America 1580-1744
Mexico 1580-1744
Northern Mexico 1580-1744
Spanish and French West Indies 1580-1744
British and Dutch West Indies 1580-1744
Northern America to 1642
Hiawatha and the Iroquois League
Cartier and Champlain in Canada 1534-1642
Raleigh and Roanoke 1585-90
Jamestown, Smith and Pocahontas 1607-16
Virginia Company and Colony 1616-42
Maryland and Cecil Calvert 1632-42
New Netherland Company 1614-42
Plymouth Pilgrims and Bradford 1620-43
Massachusetts Puritans and Winthrop 1629-43
Pequot War and Connecticut 1634-42
Roger Williams and Rhode Island to 1642
English, French, and Dutch Colonies 1643-1664
French and the Iroquois 1642-63
New England Confederation 1643-64
Rhode Island and Williams 1643-64
New Netherland and Stuyvesant 1642-64
Maryland and the Calverts 1642-64
Virginia and Berkeley 1642-64
New France 1663-1744
Canada of Louis XIV and Frontenac 1663-80
Canada and La Salle 1680-88
Canada, Frontenac, and War 1689-1713
Canada Between Wars 1713-44
Louisiana 1699-1750
New England 1664-1744
New England and Metacom's War 1664-77
New England Disunion 1676-91
Salem Witch Trials
Massachusetts 1692-1744
Cotton Mather and John Wise
Rhode Island 1692-1744
Connecticut 1692-1744
Edwards and the Great Revival
New York to Pennsylvania 1664-1744
New York under James 1664-88
New York 1689-1744
New Jersey 1664-1744
Penn and Pennsylvania 1681-88
Pennsylvania and Penn 1688-1701
Pennsylvania Expansion 1702-44
Maryland, Virginia, Carolinas, and Georgia 1663-1744
Maryland and Calverts 1664-1744
Virginia and Bacon's Rebellion 1664-80
Virginia Expansion 1680-1744
Carolina Proprietary Colonies 1663-88
North Carolina 1689-1744
South Carolina 1689-1719
South Carolina and Slavery 1720-44
Georgia and Oglethorpe 1732-44
Franklin's Practical Ethics
Franklin's Autobiography
Silence Dogood and Franklin's Religion
Franklin's Journalism 1729-47
Poor Richard's Almanac 1733-58
Summary and Evaluation of America to 1744
Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas
Spanish Colonies 1492-1744
Brazil 1500-1744
French, Dutch, and English Colonies to 1664
New France and New England 1664-1744
New York to Georgia 1664-1744
Evaluating American Civilization to 1744
Bibliography
General
Mayans, Toltecs, Aztecs, and Incas
Colonial Latin America to 1744
Northern Colonies to 1744


Volume 20: SOUTH ASIA 1800-1950

British India 1800-1848
British Conquest of the Marathas 1800-18
Sikhs and North India 1800-18
British Expansion 1818-28
Bentinck's Reforms 1828-35
Rammohun Roy and Social Reform
British Invasion of Afghanistan and Sind
Sikhs and the Punjab 1839-48

British India's Wars 1848-1881

Dalhousie's Annexations 1848-56
Mutiny and Revolt 1857-58
Reconstruction of British India 1858-76
Famine and a Second Afghan War 1876-81
Bankim Chandra Chatterji's Novels

India's Renaissance 1881-1905
Reforms in India 1881-99
Curzon's Viceroyalty 1899-1905
Ramakrishna and Vivekananda
Theosophy and Blavatsky 1875-88
Besant and Theosophy 1889-1905
Indian National Congress 1885-1905
India's Freedom Struggle 1905-1918
India's Boycott 1905-07
British Repression 1907-10
India in an Imperial War 1911-18
Besant, Krishnamurti, and Bhagavan Das
Aurobindo's Spiritual Evolution
Tagore's Spiritual Expressions
Gandhi and India 1919-1933
Gandhi's Soul Force and Nonviolence
Gandhi's Nonviolent Campaigns 1919-22
India's Struggle 1922-29
Premchand's Realistic Fiction
Iqbal's Islamic Poetry
India's Civil Disobedience 1930-33

Liberating India and Pakistan 1934-1950

Indian Politics 1934-39
India during World War II
India Divided 1945-47
Indian Independence 1947-48
India and Pakistan 1948-50
Tibet, Nepal, and Ceylon 1800-1950
Tibet 1800-1905
Tibet 1905-33
Tibet 1934-50
Nepal 1800-77
Nepal 1877-1950
Ceylon 1800-75
Ceylon 1875-1931
Ceylon 1931-50
Burma, Malaya and the British 1800-1950
Burma 1800-85
Burma under the British 1886-1929
Burma under the British 1930-41
Burma Invaded 1942-45
Burma Liberated 1945-50
Malaya and the British 1800-96
Malaya and the British 1896-1941
Malaya Invaded and in Conflict 1941-50
Siam, Cambodia, and Laos 1800-1950
Siam's Monarchy 1800-1910
Siam's Monarchy 1910-32
Siam Becomes Thailand 1932-39
Thailand 1940-50
Cambodia 1800-1904
Cambodia 1904-50
Laos 1800-1940
Laos 1940-50
Vietnam and the French 1800-1950
Vietnam's Monarchy 1800-57
French Conquest of Vietnam 1858-85
Vietnamese Resistance and Doumer 1885-1902
Vietnamese Nationalists 1902-08
Vietnam under the French 1909-28
Vietnamese Revolutionaries 1928-39
Vietnam during World War II
Vietnam's August 1945 Revolution
French-Vietnam War 1946-50
Indonesia and the Dutch 1800-1950
Netherlands East Indies 1800-40
Netherlands East Indies 1840-1900
Indonesia under the Dutch 1900-08
Indonesian Nationalism 1908-27
Indonesia under Dutch Repression 1927-41
Japanese Occupation of Indonesia 1942-45
Indonesia Liberated 1945
Indonesian Revolution 1946-50

Australia to 1950
Australia as a British Penal Colony 1788-1823
Australia in Transition 1823-50
Maconochie's Penal Reforms
Australia Gold and Democracy 1851-75
Australia Reforms 1875-87
Australian Unions and Federation 1887-1900
White Australia United 1901-14
Australia in the Great War 1914-19
Australia Between Wars 1920-39
Australia and World War II 1939-50
New Zealand to 1950
Maoris and New Zealand to 1841
New Zealand and Maoris 1841-70
New Zealand Democracy 1870-1914
New Zealand's Reforms 1914-41
New Zealand and World War II 1939-50
Summary and Evaluation
British India 1800-1905
India's Freedom Struggle 1905-41
Tibet, Nepal, and Ceylon
Burma, Malaya, and Siam
Indochina
Indonesia
Australia and New Zealand
Evaluating South Asia 1800-1950
Bibliography
Volume 21: EAST ASIA 1800-1949
Qing Decline 1799-1875
Jiajing Era 1799-1820
Li Ruzhen's Flowers in the Mirror
Daoguang Era 1821-50
Opium Wars
Taiping Revolution and Other Rebellions
Qing Reconstruction 1861-75
Qing Dynasty Fall 1875-1912
China under Cixi 1875-98
Kang's Reforms of 1898
Boxer Uprising of 1900
Late Qing Reforms 1901-10
Sun Yatsen and Revolutionaries
Chinese Revolution 1911-12
Republican China in Turmoil 1912-1926
Yuan Shikai's Presidency 1912-16
China under Warlords 1916-19
May Fourth Movement of 1919
China's Struggle for Power 1920-24
Sun Yatsen and Guomindang 1920-24
May 30th Movement of 1925-26
Lu Xun's Stories
Nationalist-Communist Civil War 1927-1937
Jiang Jieshi's Nationalist Revolution 1927-28
Chinese Communism 1927-31
Nationalist China 1929-34
Chinese Communism 1932-37
Nationalist China 1934-37
Lu Xun's Essays
Mao Dun, Lao She, and Ba Jin
Ding Ling and Shen Congwen
Pearl Buck
China at War 1937-1949

Japanese Invasion of China 1937-38
Fighting the Japanese Occupation 1939-41
China's War with Allies 1942-45
Jiang, CCP, US, and USSR 1945-46
Nationalist-Communist Civil War 1946-49
Mao Zedong's Political Philosophy
Korea 1800-1949
Korea in Isolation 1800-64
Korea in Transition 1864-93
Korea Reforms 1894-1904
Japan's Annexation of Korea 1904-18
March First Movement 1919-20
Colonial Korea under Japan 1921-45
Korea Liberated and Divided 1945-49
Japan's Modernization 1800-1894
Japan Isolated 1800-37
Japan's Transition 1837-67
Meiji Restoration 1868-73
Meiji Conflicts 1873-77
People's Rights Movement 1877-84
Japan's Constitutional Development 1884-94
Fukuzawa Yukichi's Ethics
Imperial Japan 1894-1937
Japan's Growing Military 1894-1903
Japan's Victory over Russia 1904-05
Japan Between Wars 1906-14
Japan in the World War 1914-19
Japanese Progress 1920-30
Japan Takes Manchuria 1931-33
Japan's Militarism 1933-37
Japan's War and Defeat 1937-1949
Japan Invades China 1937-38
Japan's Occupation of China 1939-40
Japanese and American Diplomacy in 1941
Japan's Aggressive War 1941-42
Japan's Losing War 1943-45
Japan's Defeat and Surrender
American Occupation of Japan in 1945
American Occupation of Japan 1946-49
Trials of Japanese War Crimes
Censorship and Kurosawa's Early Films
Philippines to 1949
Philippines under Spain to 1800
Philippines under Spain 1800-80
Rizal and Filipino Reformers 1880-96
Filipino Revolution 1896-98
US Intervention and Filipino Independence 1898
Filipino-American War 1899-1902
Philippines under US Republicans 1902-10
Philippines under Americans 1910-33
Philippines and Quezon 1933-41
Philippines, Japan, and MacArthur 1941-45
Philippines American Independence 1945-49
Pacific Islands to 1949
Micronesia
Melanesia
Fiji and Tonga
Samoa to 1899
Samoa Divided 1899-1949
Tahiti
Hawaiian Islands to 1836
Hawaiian Islands 1836-76
Hawaii and the United States 1876-1900
Hawaii under the United States 1900-49
Summary and Evaluation
Qing Decline 1800-1912
China's Long Revolution 1912-49
Korea 1800-1949
Japan's Modernization 1800-1930
Japan's Imperial Wars 1931-1949
Philippines
Pacific Islands
Evaluating East Asia 1800-1949
Bibliography
projected volume: AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1744-1808
Colonial Latin America 1744-1808
Brazil 1744-1808
Rio de la Plata 1744-1808
Peru and Chile 1744-1808
New Granada 1744-1808
Central America 1744-1808
Mexico 1744-1808
California Missions 1768-1808
Caribbean Islands 1744-1808
Haiti's Slave Revolution
English and French Conflict 1744-1754
New France 1744-54
New England, New York, and New Jersey 1744-54
Pennsylvania and Franklin 1744-54
Virginia, Ohio, and Maryland 1744-54
Carolinas and Georgia 1744-54
English, French, and Indian Wars 1754-1763
English-French War 1754-57
English Defeat of New France 1758-60
New York and New Jersey 1754-63
Pennsylvania and Franklin 1754-63
Maryland and Virginia 1754-63
Carolinas and the Cherokees 1754-63
Georgia and the Creeks 1754-63
New England and British Canada 1760-63
Pontiac's Uprising of 1763
Bolivar and South American Liberation
Bolivar in Venezuela 1808-13
Bolivar in Venezuela 1814-19
Bolivar and Colombia 1819-22
Bolivar in Peru and Bolivia 1823-26
Bolivar and Northern Conflicts 1824-30
Chronological Index
America Chronology to 1744
ETHICS OF CIVILIZATION PLAN:
Volume 1: MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA to 1875
Volume 2: INDIA & SOUTHEAST ASIA to 1800
Volume 3: CHINA, KOREA & JAPAN to 1800
Volume 4: GREECE & ROME to 30 BC
Volume 5: ROMAN EMPIRE 30 BC to 610
Volume 6: MEDIEVAL EUROPE 610-1250
Volume 7. MEDIEVAL EUROPE 1250-1453: Rise of Humanism (in progress)
Volume 8. RENAISSANCE EUROPE 1453-1588
Volume 9. EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1588-1688
Volume 10. EUROPEAN ENLIGHTENMENT 1688-1763
Volume 11: AMERICA to 1744
Volume 12. AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1744-1808
Volume 13. EUROPE & REVOLUTION 1763-1815
Volume 14. AMERICAN CONFLICT 1808-1865
Volume 15. EUROPEAN PROGRESS 1815-1865
Volume 16. MIDEAST & AFRICA 1500-1950 (in progress)
Volume 17. EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM 1865-1914
Volume 18. AMERICAN PROGRESS 1865-1914
Volume 19. EUROPEAN WARS 1914-1950
Volume 20: SOUTH ASIA 1800-1950
Volume 21: EAST ASIA 1800-1949
Volume 22. AMERICA & WORLD WARS 1914-1950
Volume 23. AMERIC'S COLD WAR 1950-1989
Volume 24. EUROPE'S COLD WAR 1950-1989
Volume 25. EUROPE'S UNIFICATION 1990-2020
Volume 26. SOUTH ASIA 1950-2020
Volume 27. EAST ASIA 1950-2020
Volume 28. AFRICA & MIDEAST 1950-2020
Volume 29. AMERICAN CAPITALISM 1990-2020
Volume 30. GLOBAL CULTURE 2020-2025
BECK index

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Theoretically speaking, M’s does not have the enemy, because revolutionary's final goal is to liberate the universe, from eats person's human nature all people, to eat person's culture and to eat in person's social system to liberate.
Practically speaking, to achieve the liberation universe od  the goal, must sweep clean on path of advancement's many barriers, therefore many people and are representing the human nature, the culture and the system, objectively become M’s the enemy.
But this is the revolutionary enemy merely, but is not the private enemy. M’s is the mercy. M’s will not regard as the enemy the private enemy, but the enemy will regard as M’s the private enemy.　　

M’s revolution is containing  of the spiritual strength which cannot be baffled, must break through all net's fetter, but achieves the enormous liberation, this kind of liberation does not have the boundary, lacks the big bearing big boundary the human is unable to withstand.
Therefore, in the M’s type revolution's front, broad-minded, the spiritual lofty person will experience to the limit the big happiness, but the human desire will be grave, the chicken intestines mouse stomach's person will feel enormous constraining.　


  These betrayals, destroy the M’s revolutionary business's person, has become the victor temporarily in politics. But, spiritually they are the thorough losers. Because of theirs betrayal, the destruction, are because oneself cannot withstand sun's ray, can only run away to the psychological dark angle in is engaged in the conspiratorial activity.　

The reason that M’s is presented by the people for the god, is because he indeed has the bright makings; The reason that M’s revolution has the divine nature, is because in indeed is containing the extremely lofty religious factor.　

Regarding misery all living things, M’sis the worship idol which may believe. Regarding had the human who the mind pursued, M’s might be a Zen master, might be beats and shouts at wisely, might give the gymnosophist the inexhaustible enlightenment.
M’s led a pious life the religion revolutionized, he destroyed had still been at the self-closing condition the mind bright mirror, led a pious life no longer is individual heart “not causes to annoy the dust” the type impurity, also no longer was “does not have a thing originally” the type mind extrication, but has become the altruism-like struggle, the offer, the sacrifice, has become personally with the collective ceaseless common life condition, became not has repaired repairs, the altruism is my greatly comfortable big true colors dauntless life.
Is willing to understand Mao Zedong inner world the human, should from here realize why M’s does like the six patriarchs brightly being able with "World after".　　

Tang Dynasty's Zen masters, have destroyed the image of Buddha, destroyed the external worship idol. They inspire the common people by such motion: The heart is Buddha. But the rigid common people were also actually tight hold the heart to take the intrinsic worship idol. Therefore a lot of years disposition philosophy, in worships the heart the time, on the one hand has explored mind many secrets, on the one hand actually spins in the innermost feelings, cannot go out the innermost feelings the park to limit, the civilization was infected the self-closing for China, chillily, to be negligent in the external motion the atmosphere.
Since the modern times internal disorder's and foreign invasion's stern time, M’s by oneself full of vitality struggle philosophy, has destroyed the mibd this disposition philosophy highest worship idol, destroyed the Chinese to hold crazily to the innermost feelings, turned the strength the mind, turned the social action, turned the ideal blueprint, will turn will have traded the place another day the grand enterprise.　　
M’s further and troop's worship also destroyed the common people to oneself. He attempts to force each people to glow transforms self-and transformation society's independent, the reason that displays the human for person's strength and the function. His method looked like somewhat strongly, but his heart in certain people was still the mercy.
He changes into diligently the innermost feelings happy blueprint the world reality, but partial all living things also attempt their contamination virulent innermost feelings to change into another kind of world reality, their moral level had decided they accept M’s-like happy innermost feelings and the wonderful world without the luck. Therefore in the revolution, the innermost feelings and the innermost feelings, the reality and the reality has had the fierce conflict.　　

Some people the revolution which challenges selfishness and criticizes revisionism M’s regard as the Song bright Neo-Confucianism the extension, thought of the revolution has suppressed person's individuality and the desire.
But in my opinion, in fact M’s revolution, both has integrated Song Dynasty's moral rationality, and has integrated Datang's young blood;
Both has bought in the Chinese tradition human sentiment ethics, and has bought in West's democratic equality;
Both takes individual innermost feelings training, and takes social the collective action, thus presents the smelting ancient and modern China and the West civilized essence, but is a body's brand-new civilized special characteristic.
M’s civilization, will be China in the future the civilized foundation and the hope.　　

Encouraged by Wilson’s Fourteen Points, Koreans worked for self-determination and published an eloquent Declaration of Independence for the massive demonstrations held on March 1, 1919. They dedicated themselves to overcoming Japanese oppression without blaming them and committed themselves to doing so without violence. The leaders were from the Ch’ondogyo (Eastern Learning) religion, Christians, and the Buddhist Han Yong-un. Protests occurred throughout Korea and continued into April when 7,645 people were killed and 46,811 were arrested. Koreans in exile were active and elected Syngman Rhee as president of a provisional government. Bolsheviks assisted the Korean Socialist Party that met in Siberia. Korean revolutionaries killed Japanese soldiers in Manchuria, and the Japanese retaliated with the 1920 massacre. Admiral Saito Makoto became governor-general of Korea in August 1919 and implemented liberal reforms while increasing the police. Newspapers were allowed but censored.

Japan imported much of Korea’s rice, but Korean farmers became poorer. Korea developed manufacturing, but 95% of its exports went to Japan. Korean workers were only paid half as much as the Japanese, and Japanese capitalists owned seven-eighths of Korean industries. Koreans formed various organizations while the Japanese tried to spread their propaganda. Even the Comintern ordered Korean Communists to join the Japanese Communist Party or in Manchuria the Chinese party. Koreans who protested were suspended from school or arrested. In 1931 Korean nationalist groups declared war on the Japanese and the Communists. Korean literature and theater described the suffering under colonialism. During the war 1937-45 the Japanese exploited the Koreans even more and banned the Korean language from schools. The Korean Provisional Government in exile declared war on Japan on December 9, 1941, but many Koreans were conscripted into the Japanese army.

To accept the surrender of the Japanese in August 1945 the Allies divided Korea at the 38th parallel with Soviet forces occupying the north and Americans in the south. The Communist guerrilla leader Kim Il Sung was welcomed by the Soviets, and US General Hodge honored Syngman Rhee. Most heavy industry was in the north while the south had more food and consumer goods. Stalin ordered Russian troops to respect civil liberties, but most industries were taken over by the Communist government. The Soviet army and police fired on demonstrators. Most exiles returned to south Korea, and they were joined by 800,000 refugees from the north. The Allies agreed on a trusteeship. Elections were held separately, and the UN Temporary Commission was not allowed in the north. In the south the elections were contested, but the north had a single list of candidates. Communists organized strikes in the south; but martial law was declared, and the US Military Government banned the Korean Communist Party. In the south the Republic of Korea elected Syngman Rhee president and arrested Communist guerrillas. In the north the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was led by Kim Il Sung. Most Soviet and American forces withdrew, and fighting occurred around the border in 1949.

Japan's Modernization 1800-1930
Russian encroachments in the north stimulated the building of Japanese defenses. While Ienari was preoccupied with twenty concubines, Mizuno Tadanari became his chief advisor in 1812. In an era of pleasure while theaters and prostitution flourished, the government’s gold and silver reserves fell by a third. In 1825 foreigners were still excluded and were threatened with death. Frequent debasing of the currency caused inflation. Sumptuary laws were imposed in 1827 against prostitution, alcohol, gambling, and luxuries. Merchants exploited the poor and gained wealth. Infanticide kept the population at about 32 million. During a famine in 1837 former magistrate Oshio led a revolt against the merchant houses in Osaka that failed.

Nanboku wrote erotic and scary melodramas that thrilled audiences. The self-educated peasant Ninomiya Sontoku helped farmers and urged mutual aid. Aizawa’s New Proposals began arousing nationalism in 1825 and after they were published in 1857. Hirata Atsutane believed in making Shinto the national religion and the Emperor sole ruler, but he was arrested in 1841.

The number of schools in Japan greatly increased prior to 1867. New religions began appearing. In 1814 Kurozumi Munetada founded a sect based on worship of the sun goddess Amaterasu, and in 1838 healer Nakayama Miki started the Tenri movement. The Konkokyo sect also emphasized mutual aid. The provinces Choshu and Satsuma used commercial profits to develop military capability. Famine provoked increasing revolts starting in 1836. Takano Nagahide opposed the exclusion policy and was arrested but escaped in 1844. Takashima demonstrated guns in 1841, and Torii Yozo imprisoned him. Shogun Ieyoshi (r. 1837-53) let senior councilor Mizuno continue to govern, and after Ienari’s death in 1841 he implemented various reforms. Abe Mashiro replaced Mizuno and Torii in 1845, allowing western military technology. Sakuma Shozan advised numerous improvements with the slogan, “Eastern ethics and western science.” He was arrested on Perry’s ship in 1854, was imprisoned until 1862, and was assassinated two years later. Yokoi Shonan led the Practical Party and also favored western science.

The US warships of Commodore Perry forced Japan in 1854 to make a trade treaty that was followed by agreements with the British, Russians, and Dutch. More concessions were made in 1858, and Japanese envoys were sent abroad. Terrorist attacks against foreigners in Japan began in 1860. Tokugawa Nariaki was blamed and executed, and in revenge tairo Ii Naosuke was assassinated in Edo. In 1864 Chosu forces defended the Emperor from the Bakufu. The next year allied ships and the Bakufu forced the Emperor to sign the treaties. The 14-year-old Mutsuhito became emperor in February 1867, and Shogun Keiki resigned to be the Emperor’s prime minister in November; but in January 1868 Satsuma, Choshu, and Tosa forces made Keiki surrender, and Tokugawa lands were confiscated to finance the Meiji restoration of the Emperor.

Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868. Kido Koin and young leaders from the provinces and the imperial court persuaded the daimyos to surrender their titles to the Emperor. They agreed to settle political issues by public discussion, and a modern government was formed. Feudalism was abolished, and the sale of girls as prostitutes or geishas was banned. In 1873 twenty-year-old males were conscripted for military service with some exceptions. A new banking system was based on the United States Federal Reserve with the yen as a decimal currency. The central government had most of the power and taxed land directly. The social classes were dissolved into commoners except for the daimyos and courtiers (kwazoku). Iwakura led a mission of envoys abroad that hired many foreign experts. Christian missionaries were allowed into Japan in 1873, and western civilization accelerated its enormous impact. Leaders divided on whether to threaten Korea with war, but a revolt of 2,500 Hizen samurai led by Eto was suppressed in 1875. The rebellion led by Saigo in Satsuma with 22,000 samurai was crushed by 65,000 troops and marked the final demise of Japanese feudalism in 1877.

Japan annexed the Ryuku Islands in 1879. Okuma proposed a parliamentary system, but the Emperor dismissed him. Itagaki led a People’s Rights Movement and founded the Liberal party in 1881. The number of newspapers greatly increased. Yamagata used German advisors to improve the army’s morale. Okuma helped organize the Constitutional Progressive Party, but laws prohibited public meetings. Ito Hirobumi went to Europe in 1882 and was especially influenced by German ideas. When a mob attacked Japanese in Seoul, Japan won compensation from Korea. After Japanese diplomats consulted with Kim Ok-kyun, who tried to murder the Korean cabinet, the Chinese garrison attacked the Japanese. Ito and Li Hongzhang signed a treaty in April 1885. Finance minister Matsukata sharply reduced government expenditures to stop inflation; but this helped the capitalists and hurt poor peasants because most revenue was from land taxes. Local elections stimulated democracy, and people petitioned for more rights. Emperor Meiji was influenced by Confucian advisors, and traditional morality was emphasized in the schools.

Mori Arinori reformed education from 1884 until he was murdered in 1889 by a zealot of Shinto. Ito organized a cabinet system and became prime minister, and the government was dominated by men from Choshu and Satsuma. After Okuma dismissed these oligarchs, he was maimed by a terrorist bomb. Ito’s commission submitted a constitution that was adopted in 1889. The Emperor was recognized as divine, and the Diet was elected by the wealthiest one percent of the people. An Imperial Rescript was memorized by students and encouraged them to sacrifice themselves for Japan. Prime Minister Yamagata persuaded the Diet to appropriate more money for the Army and Navy, but he was criticized by Ito and resigned in 1991. Ito prorogued and dissolved the Diet and insisted on a fair election in 1894. Using colloquial language, Futabatei’s The Drifting Cloud in 1886 was Japan’s first modern novel.

After learning Dutch and English and traveling widely, Fukuzawa Yukichi published many books on western science and customs. He recommended practical rather than moralistic education and believed in human equality. He published his book on civilization in 1875. He suggested that by learning from the west they could overthrow the nobles. He urged individuals to improve themselves by education, and he considered international law essential to world peace; but for Japan he advocated its independence as the first priority. Fukuzawa founded News of the Times in 1882, and he taught at an innovative school. He was pragmatic and valued human freedom, and he condemned private vengeance and suicide. He criticized traditional Confucian relationships, and he emphasized the equality of women. He argued that government is a social contract to protect people and their rights.

In 1894 during the Tonghak rebellion in Korea, Japan sent more troops than China, and they stayed to reform the Korean government. Japan declared war on China and drove them out of Korea. The Japanese army invaded the Shandong peninsula and massacred people at Port Arthur. Japan negotiated the Shimonoseki Treaty with Li Hongzhang, and China recognized Korea’s independence and ceded Taiwan and opened seven ports to Japan. Thousands died subduing Taiwan in 1895, and Japan greatly increased its military spending. Japanese swordsmen killed Korea’s Queen Min but were not punished. Kanai’s disciple Kuwata Kumazo taught progressive economics at Tokyo University, and Kitasato discovered the bacilli for bubonic plague, dysentery, and tetanus. The Ashio Copper Mine polluted rivers, and large protests led to litigation. The Meiji civil code was modernized in 1898. Yamagata became prime minister, and the military gained influence. They banned labor unions. Japan and Russia made agreements in 1898, but during the Boxer rebellion Russians occupied Manchuria. General Katsura was prime minister from 1901 to 1905 and built up the Navy. In 1902 Japan made an alliance with the British. Primary schooling was made free and became universal.

Japan demanded that Russia withdraw from Manchuria or recognize Japan’s interests in Korea. In February 1904 Japan attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur, and both sides declared war. Japanese forces took over Korea and invaded Manchuria in May. The Japanese besieged Port Arthur for 242 days before the Russians surrendered. The largest battle in history so far was fought at Mukden in March 1905. The Japanese won this and the first sea battle with steamships in the Tsushima Straits. This war showed that torpedo-boats, battleships, hand grenades, machine-guns, and floating mines were effective. Japan ended the war and accepted the southern half of Sakhalin Island and the Liaodong peninsula by signing a treaty mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt. Both sides agreed to withdraw from Manchuria. Pro-war patriots protested in Japan, and police repression led to riots that were quelled. In the secret Taft-Katsura agreement the United States and Japan agreed to recognize each other’s interests in the Philippines and Korea. Japan’s victory over Russia astounded the world and encouraged many Asians.

Katayama organized a socialist party in Japan, but it was banned in 1907. Japan and Russia agreed to divide Manchuria and linked their railways at Harbin. Japanese novels became more realistic, and later confessional novels were popular. In 1904 Japan took more control over Korea and established Ito as resident-general, and in 1907 they forced King Kojong to abdicate and disbanded the Korean army. Yamagata planned for the conquest of Manchuria and China, and in 1910 Japan annexed Korea as a colony. At home Japan punished radicals, hanging eleven in 1911, and they arrested those advocating universal suffrage. Prime Minister Saionji tried to control military spending. Nishida Kitaro wrote a popular book on ethics. Saionji’s cabinet sold arms to the Manchu regime while Mitsui and other private companies aided the Chinese revolutionaries. Sun Yat-sen got loans from Japan. Emperor Meiji died, and the Taisho era (1912-26) was run by ministers. Katsura became prime minister again, but a democracy movement forced him to resign. Admiral Yamamoto became premier and built up the Navy before riots led to his resignation in 1914.

Japan joined the war on the side of the British and took Qingdao and islands in Micronesia from the Germans. Japan issued China the infamous 21 Demands and sent more troops to Manchuria and Shandong. Yuan Shikai humiliated China by acceding to Japan’s demands. Japanese elections became campaigns dominated by bribery. Japan secretly loaned 145 million yen to the Chinese warlord Duan Qirui. High rice prices caused massive riots across Japan in 1918. The commoner Hara Kei became the first prime minister for a majority party government in September 1918, and more men were allowed to vote. Exports during the Great War helped turn Japan’s national debt to a surplus. Prices went up 130%, but wages went down 32%. Sixteen trade unions formed in 1919 and won the eight-hour workday. More Japanese colonized Manchuria, and Japan sent forces to fight the Bolsheviks in Siberia and did not withdraw until 1922. Japan used force to suppress the massive Korean independence movement in April 1919, and the Versailles Peace Conference let Japan keep the territories they had taken from Germany.

Japan was one of four nations with a permanent seat on the Council of the League of Nations. Premier Hara blocked a vote on universal suffrage and financed the Navy, railways, roads, and communications by telephone and telegraph. Workers and intellectuals opposed the policies that were dominated by aristocrats, capitalists, and the military. Japan accepted the  limits of the Washington Naval Conference in 1922 and agreed to the Open Door Policy of the Nine-Power Treaty. The US Immigration Act of 1924 excluded the Japanese. The Kanto earthquake on September 1, 1923 killed 140,000 and destroyed much of Tokyo and Yokohama, causing instability. Shidehara established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1925, and all males over 25 were granted the vote. Military spending declined, but Japan refused to agree to banning chemical and bacteriological weapons. Hirohito became emperor on December 25, 1926. Tanaka became prime minister in 1927 and promoted industry and agriculture. Jiang (Kai-shek) visited and promised Japan control north of the Great Wall, and Tanaka supported Zhang Zuolin in Manchuria. Troops were sent to defend the Japanese in Jinan in May 1928, and they drove out Jiang’s Nationalist army. A Japanese team killed Zhang, and his son Zhang Xueliang opposed Japan. Victorious Jiang did not renew China’s trade treaty with Japan. Tanaka had suspected Communists arrested, and the press was censored. Prime Minister Hamaguchi favored diplomacy and was shot by a militarist.

Japan's Imperial Wars 1931-1949
Wakatsuki became prime minister in 1931 and also resisted the vocal militarists. The Guandong Army in Manchuria began planning military action on their own. In September they falsely blamed the Chinese for an incident and attacked them. The Japanese commander Hayashi sent the Korean army into Manchuria, and China appealed to the League of Nations. While Doihara moved Puyi to Mukden to be a puppet ruler. Japan arrested conspirators, but most were released. Wakatsuki and his cabinet resigned in December, and Inukai of the Seiyukai party became premier. He helped capitalists by taking Japan off the gold standard and asked Emperor Hirohito to approve reinforcements in Manchuria. Japan captured Jinzhou on January 3, 1932, violating open China. Hirohito praised the Guandong Army. Fighting broke out in Shanghai, and Japanese planes bombed Chapei. The Seiyukai party won the February election, and Chinese collaborators set up the Manzhouguo state under Puyi on March 1. The Chinese accepted a cease-fire mediated by the British on March 5,  ending China’s boycott of Japan. The League of Nations Assembly did not recognize Manzhouguo. Inukai opposed large military budgets and was assassinated on May 15. The Emperor and Saionji appointed Admiral Saito Makoto, who doubled the military budget that year. His government agreed to defend Manzhouguo and secretly controlled it. Thousands of teachers and dissidents were arrested for criticizing Manzhouguo or militarism. In early 1933 the Guandong Army invaded Jehol, and Japan withdrew from the League of Nations.

Propaganda in films and the press promoted the Japanese empire and militarism. A textile scandal caused Saito to resign. Japan did not ratify the Geneva Convention on prisoners and abrogated its naval treaties. The Japanese sold opium products in northern China. In 1935 the Japanese army pushed Chinese forces out of Hebei and Chahar. Japanese imperialists argued over strategy, whether to strike the Soviet Union in the north or the United States in the south, and the Emperor favored the latter. Demoted Col. Aizawa killed his boss Nagata, and during his court martial, a coup attempt using a mutiny killed some top officials but failed. In the February election the democratic party had defeated the fascists. Kempeitai commander Tojo set up Qin Dechun to govern Inner Mongolia, but Zhang Xueliang defeated him. Japan continued to industrialize its economy and increased exports. Japan signed a pact with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union in November 1936. General Hayashi became prime minister in February 1937, but after Jiang sent forces into Shanghai, his party was defeated by a coalition that made Konoe Fumimaro premier.

In July 1937 Japanese soldiers near Beijing provoked an incident with Chinese troops that led to Japan sending reinforcements. Emperor Hirohito authorized the use of chemical weapons, and aerial bombing helped the Japanese take Beijing. General Tojo was ordered to invade Inner Mongolia in August. During negotiations fighting broke out in Shanghai, and Japan attacked. China mobilized, and Japan sent more divisions in November. The Chinese army retreated from Shanghai, but two days of saturation bombing caused Nanjing to fall. The Japanese troops slaughtered another quarter million Chinese and raped tens of thousands of women. Japan set up a Provisional Government in Beijing, and armies advanced south. Jiang had dykes destroyed so that the Yellow River would flood. Japan captured the Wuhan cities and Guangzhou and stayed to occupy much of China.

After some battles in the north Japan signed a truce with the Soviet Union. Japan stayed out of the European war and used the collaborator Wang Jingwei to help them govern China from Nanjing. In 1940 Japan pressured French Indochina to stop trading with the Nationalists at Chongqing. Japan announced their Co-Prosperity Sphere in Greater East Asia, and they signed a pact with Germany and Italy on September 27, 1940. Japanese political parties dissolved, and they organized an imperial association. Japan exploited China and planned the economy with rationing.

Japan helped Thailand take territory from Indochina. The United States cracked the Japanese code and tried to negotiate. In June 1941 the Dutch stopped selling Japan oil and strategic materials, and in August the United States stopped all trade with Japan except for cotton and food. US Secretary of State Hull insisted on the acceptance of four principles as basic to any agreement. Prime Minister Konoe would not approve war against the US and resigned in October. War minister Tojo succeeded him and insisted they needed oil reserves to keep from becoming a third-class nation. The US would not support Japan’s occupation of China, and the two sides could not agree. Kido believed submitting to the US would cause civil war in Japan, and they planned surprise attacks. Admiral Yamamoto believed that unless the war was short, Japan would lose to America.

As Japan was declaring war, two waves of Japanese planes from aircraft carriers devastated the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. On the same day Japan attacked Malaya, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, capturing Manila on January 2, 1942. Japanese forces took 85,000 prisoners at Singapore on February 15 and held 260,000 from Malaya for three years. After the Japanese won a naval battle, the Dutch surrendered Java on March 9. The Japanese army took Rangoon on March 8 and Mandalay on May 1. After the US bombed Tokyo, Hirohito broke his truce with Jiang, and Japanese troops killed another 250,000 Chinese in Zhejiang. The first naval battle with planes from aircraft carriers in the Coral Sea in May was a standoff, and the Americans ended Japanese naval supremacy by defeating them at Midway in June. In August the US Marines began fighting on Guadalcanal, and the Japanese finally withdrew after six months. US submarines sank cargo ships, and Lockheed began producing P-38 Lightnings that were superior to Japanese Zeros.

In 1943 Japan tried to negotiate, but Jiang would not agree. Tojo promised self-determination to the nations they had conquered. That year Japan lost 6,203 planes and 4,823 airmen. The Americans attacked the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, but General MacArthur bypassed large concentrations of Japanese troops who were left to starve. Admiral Nimitz directed the attacks in Micronesia. In March 1944 Japanese forces invaded Assam with Indian recruits under Subhas Bose, but they were forced to retreat in July. A spring and summer offensive by the Japanese conquered more territory in China, but the Allies regained the Burma Road. In hard fighting the Americans took over Saipan, Guam, and Tinian, which the US used for long-range bombers. Premier Tojo resigned in July, and his successor General Koiso could find no negotiating partners. US planes bombed Taiwan, the Philippines, and the East Indies. Americans defeated the Japanese Navy in the largest naval battle in history and landed 200,000 men in the Philippines. Japan lost 336,352 men trying to defend the Philippines, and Manila fell on February 24, 1945. The Japanese began using suicidal kamikaze pilots. The Americans took over Iwo Jima in March and Okinawa in June. Starting in February, US planes dropped thousands of tons of bombs on Tokyo and industrial targets in Japan. The United States had eighty times the industrial resources of Japan and destroyed their planes, ships, and finally their factories.

US planes dropped leaflets, and Hirohito authorized negotiation in June. President Truman and Churchill issued the Potsdam Declaration that demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan’s armed forces and threatened “utter destruction.” When Premier Suzuki ignored this, the US used the first atomic weapon to destroy Hiroshima on August 6, instantly killing about 70,000 people. Even more would die later from burns, disease, and radiation. Two days later the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria. The next day a plutonium bomb devastated Nagasaki. Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Suzuki agreed to the surrender on August 14. A coup attempt failed, and many high-ranking Japanese committed suicide. Hirohito spoke on radio for the first time and explained the war was over. Japan lost 480,000 men in the China War and 1,565,000 men in the Pacific War, and they estimated 4,470,000 were wounded or ill. Another 393,000 Japanese civilians were killed by air raids. An estimated 19 million Chinese may have died in their long war against Japan.

On September 2, General MacArthur signed the surrender documents and expressed the hope that humanity would learn how to end war and that Japan would become constructive. The Japanese government destroyed many records of war crimes before the Occupation forces arrived. Cases of US soldiers raping Japanese women were reported early in the occupation, and brothels were organized with 70,000 women; but they were disbanded in March 1946 to stop spreading venereal disease. As Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), MacArthur put Japan under martial law, but he was persuaded to let the Japanese government carry out the Occupation policy that emphasized demilitarization and democratization. Japanese troops were demobilized, and American ships returned 6.5 million Japanese troops and civilians to Japan. About a half million Japanese died in Soviet labor camps. More than a million Koreans were repatriated from Japan. The Japanese struggled to survive and rebuild. The Emperor supported democracy and pacifism and was not prosecuted. MacArthur cancelled repressive laws but imposed censorship. The cabinet resigned, and Shidehara became prime minister. Japanese politics and economics were restructured to increase democracy and promote education, women’s rights, and labor unions. Books and radio programs taught the Japanese how militarism had brought about the devastating war. The Emperor admitted he was not divine, and imperial ideas were renounced.

Women were allowed to vote, and some were elected. Unions grew, and employees bargained for more participation. Ultranationalist and militarist groups were abolished, and hundreds of thousands of individuals were purged from government and schools. The royal family lost its wealth, and women could inherit. Schools were improved, and textbooks were revised. MacArthur supervised the revision of the Meiji Constitution, and Shidehara proposed an article renouncing war. The Liberal party won the most seats in the 1946 election, and Yoshida became prime minister. The Diet adopted the new constitution that guaranteed equal rights, education, and social welfare. The Diet passed the Farm Land Reform Law, and in four years more than two million landlords sold about five million acres to nearly five million tenants. MacArthur stopped a general strike in early 1947, and Communism was deterred; but the Labor Standards Law guaranteed the eight-hour day, vacations, sick leave, safety protection, and limits on hours for women and children. In April 1947 the Socialists won the most seats and formed a coalition with the Democratic party. The next year the Liberals formed a coalition with the Democrats, and Yoshida became prime minister again. The Americans held on to Okinawa for military bases. The large cartels were to be broken up, but the advent of the Cold War rolled back this policy. Immunization reduced diseases and the death rate.

In the first war crimes trial Generals Yamashita and Honma were convicted and executed in the Philippines. In the major trials using the Nuremberg Principles more than five thousand Japanese were tried. The Emperor and his family and those who worked on bacteriological and chemical weapons were given immunity. Of the 28 Class A war criminals 23 were executed; two were sentenced to prison, and two died during the trial; and Okawa was declared insane. The Indian judge Pal voted against the convictions and condemned the American use of atomic weapons. Of the others 2,944 were sentenced to prison, and 1,018 were acquitted; 984 death sentences were upheld. The Japanese had maltreated and killed many prisoners, especially in Borneo, and in their ruthless war they left many to starve. The public trials helped the Japanese people to realize the consequences of their imperialistic war for others as well as by the defeat they experienced themselves.

Philippines
On the first voyage around the world Magellan was killed in 1521, and Legazpi began settlements on the Philippine islands in 1565. Despite Spanish invasions the southern islands remained Muslim, but others converted to Christianity. From 1593 to 1815 Spain required all commerce from the Philippines to go through Acapulco, Mexico. Spaniards and the Dutch battled over trade until they made a treaty in 1648. Spaniards claimed the Mariana Islands in 1669 and conquered the Chamorros. In the Philippines corrupt alcalde-mayors were allowed to engage in trade and business from 1751 until 1844. The British navy sacked Manila in 1762 and stayed for two years while native Filipinos rebelled against unpopular Spanish overlords. The Philippines fought an expensive war against Muslim raiders between 1778 and 1793.

The Philippines prohibited foreigners from retail business in 1828, but Manila was opened to world trade in 1834. In the 1840s Filipinos began to struggle for racial equality. Gunboats bought from the British were used to defeat the Muslims on Mindanao in 1848. In 1850 Chinese immigration was allowed again. The Jesuits returned to the Philippines in 1859, and by 1863 the Philippines had free public education. In 1869 a new Spanish constitution brought to the Philippines universal suffrage and a free press. In 1872 striking workers were joined by some mutinying soldiers; thirteen, including three prominent priests, were executed while others were imprisoned or fled.

Filipinos began publishing La Solidaridad in 1889 to encourage education and political reforms. Masonic lodges formed and worked for representative government. Jose Rizal learned many languages and became an ophthalmologist in Germany. His 1887 novel Noli Me Tangere criticized the friars and explored a possible revolution; it was banned in the Philippines. After the Dominicans expelled his family from Calamba, Rizal’s 1891 novel El Filibusterismo was a stronger call for revolution but also a warning against violence. Rizal returned to Manila in June 1892 and with Andres Bonifacio organized the Philippine League. Eleven days later Rizal was deported to Mindanao, and Bonifacio with revolutionaries formed the secret Katipunan. Jacinto edited their newspaper Freedom (Kalayaan) that came out in March 1896 and advocated revolt. The Government closed the press, but Katipunan membership increased to 30,000. Bonifacio began the revolution on August 30, and Rizal, who opposed its violence, was arrested and executed on December 30.

BECK index
                            Summary and Evaluation
by Sanderson Beck
Qing Decline 1800-1912
China's Long Revolution 1912-49
Korea 1800-1949
Japan's Modernization 1800-1930
Japan's Imperial Wars 1931-1949
Philippines
Pacific Islands
Evaluating East Asia 1800-1949
This chapter has been published in the book EAST ASIA 1800-1949.
For ordering information, please click here.

Qing Decline 1800-1912
Emperor Jiajing (r. 1799-1820) tried to reduce the massive corruption that had spread in China during the administration by Heshan. Taxes fell heavily upon the poor, who often lost their lands. Most of the grain from the Yangzi provinces was shipped to Beijing by the Grand Canal. The White Lotus rebellion was crushed in 1805, but its Heavenly Reason sect revolted in 1813. The Triad Society rebelled in the south. China collected tribute from its neighbors, and exporting tea to the English brought in much silver. Shen Fu’s autobiography, Six Records from a Floating Life, describes the life of a poor scholar who found happiness from married love and literary pleasures.

Li Ruzhen completed his Daoist fantasy novel, Flowers in the Mirror, in 1827. Set during the Tang dynasty, Empress Wu while drunk orders all the flowers to bloom on one day in winter. A hundred flower fairies incarnate on Earth and eventually pass the exams for women that the Empress institutes. Tang Ao rejects an imperial rank and has fantastic travel adventures to bizarre places. He finds the flower spirits while organizing the revolt against the usurping Empress. The extraordinary countries that Tang Ao and his relatives visit portray various spiritual lessons. Tang Ao stays in the Country of Immortality. After the women pass the exams at the capital, the rebels overcome the temptations of the empire and depose Empress Wu. This novel contains much Daoist folklore and suggests that women can be emancipated through education.

Emperor Daoguang (r. 1821-50) was influenced by the conservative Cao Zhenyong until he died in 1835. In Mongolia, Prince Toghtakhu Toro implemented reforms and improved education. Jahangir of Kokand led a jihad in western Xinjiang from 1817 until his capture in 1828. The Manchus realized by 1835 that discouraging commerce there was counterproductive. The English sold more opium from India, and by 1826 China’s trade surplus had become a deficit. Competition increased after the British East India Company ended its monopoly in 1833. Qian Yong criticized religious festivals. Corruption and tax resistance reduced the Qing treasury to eight million taels by 1850. Wei Yuan (1794-1856) recommended various reforms such as shipping rice by sea, using European military methods, eliminating graft, improving accounting, and allowing emigration to Xinjiang. Chinese coolies were shipped overseas under exploitive contracts. Christian missionaries increased their evangelical and medical efforts in China.

The increased opium traffic cost China 38 million taels of silver between 1828 and 1836 while one in five officials had become addicted. In 1837 the Qing government tried to crack down on the illegal opium, but in 1838 a record 2,800 tons were imported. Lin Zexu proposed a comprehensive program and was appointed imperial commissioner. He blockaded Guangzhou (Canton) factories in March 1839, and the English turned over three million pounds of opium that were destroyed. Lin appealed to international law and wrote to Queen Victoria about the pernicious trade. The British retreated to barren Hong Kong, while English merchants lobbied for warships. In 1840 a British fleet blockaded Guangzhou and Ningbo, seizing Zhoushan. The English navy destroyed war-junks and shore batteries, and Guangzhou paid a ransom to avoid being bombarded. Pottinger arrived with more warships, and others brought 10,000 men from India. Chinese ships and guns were inferior to the iron steamships and flintlock rifles of the English. In 1842 the British captured abandoned Shanghai and blocked the Grand Canal. Nanjing’s viceroy Yilibu surrendered and signed a treaty promising to pay $12 million, abolish the Cohong monopoly, cede Hong Kong, and allow trade at Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai. The British gained “favored nation” status so that any concession made to another country applied to them also. China made treaties with the United States, France, and Russia, who all got the same concessions and judicial immunity. Opium was still illegal but was a thriving business, especially at Shanghai.

Young Xianfeng became emperor in 1850 and promoted xenophobic officials, who refused to negotiate. In 1856 the British claimed their flag had been insulted and began bombarding Guangzhou. After an election the British sent Lord Elgin. British and French forces stormed Guangzhou and in the north captured the Dagu forts and Tianjin, where in 1858 a treaty was made that opened ten more ports, allowed inland trade, gave access for missionaries, and required more indemnities. An incident provoked more fighting, and in 1860 Anglo-French forces captured Beijing. The Qing emperor fled, but Prince Gong accepted the Convention of Beijing with even more concessions. Russia also consolidated its new territory and got a trade treaty in 1862.

Increasing taxes and poverty provoked banditry and a rebellion in 1847. Grand Canal silting caused flooding and a famine in Guangxi in 1849. Visionary Hong Xiuquan, Feng Yunshan, and Yang Xiuqing converted thousands to their Society of God Worshippers. Claiming to be in contact with God and Jesus Christ, they enforced the ten commandments and puritanical laws. They considered women equal but separated them. In 1850 people shared their possessions and lived in collective camps. They defeated the Qing forces sent against them and in 1851 proclaimed Hong king of the Heavenly Kingdom of the Great Peace (Taiping Tianguo). They denounced Manchu laws and customs, and their army seized the city of Yongan. They gained weapons, boats, and silver from Yuezhou and Wuchang. In March 1853 they captured Nanjing and made it their capital. In September a Triad society took over Shanghai, but the Taiping leaders rejected their immoral habits. French troops helped the Qing army drive the rebels from Shanghai in 1855.

Qing general Zeng Guofan organized his Xiang army to fight the Taiping rebels. Hong sent a Taiping army north, but that campaign failed. The Taiping laws were strict, and land reform could not be implemented amid civil war. In 1856 Yang tried to depose Hong and was assassinated. North King Wei had 5,000 of Yang’s followers massacred, quarreled with Assistant King Shi Dakai, and was defeated and killed. Shi left with an army of 200,000 and was eventually defeated in Sichuan. Hong’s cousin Ren’gan tried to reform the Taiping government, and the military victories led by Loyal King Li Xiucheng extended the war; but Europeans now helped the Qing empire. Zeng besieged Nanjing in 1862. Qing general Li Hongzhang captured Suzhou in 1863. After Hong’s death Nanjing succumbed in July 1864, and a hundred thousand Taiping believers were massacred. More than twenty million people died during the Taiping revolution.

Poverty, taxes, and flooding of the Yellow River in 1855 also caused others to join the bandits of the Nian rebellion that started in 1851. Qing general Senggelinqin defeated 200,000 Nian forces and captured their leader in 1863, but the rebels defeated and killed Senggelinqin two years later. Li Hongzhang became imperial commissioner and with Zuo Zongtang’s help defeated the Nian rebels in 1868. Muslims in Yunnan also rebelled against the Chinese in 1855. Du Wenxiu founded a southern kingdom that lasted until they were finally defeated in 1873. A Taiping general aroused Muslims in the northwest to revolt against the Qing in 1862. Zuo Zongtang led an imperial army against them in 1867, but they did not surrender at Suzhou until 1873. Ya‘qub Beg was ruling independently in Xinjiang, and he made a treaty with the Russians in 1872. Zuo had to borrow money from British banks and did not pacify Xinjiang until 1878.

When a five-year-old became Emperor Tongzhi in 1861, his mother Cixi won the power struggle with help from Prince Gong. The local gentry assumed much authority during the rebellions, and they wanted more self-government. The generals Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang applied Confucian principles to economic recovery. Zeng released his army in stages and promoted agriculture by reducing land taxes. Robert Hart became inspector-general of customs and raised large revenues from duties on local transport of merchandise. Scholar Feng Guifen recommended using western science and technology to surpass the westerners. Zeng and Li applied this policy of self-strengthening. Prince Gong and war minister Wenxiang established the Zongli Yamen as a foreign office to purchase western weapons and encourage technology by education and foreign contacts. Li Hongzhang founded gun factories at Shanghai in 1862 and with Zeng the Jiangnan Arsenal in 1865. Books on science and technology were translated. Li founded the Chinese Steamship Company in 1872.

The new treaties enabled missionaries to own land, and they competed with the Confucian gentry in offering education and social services. Judicial immunity did not prevent them from pressing claims in Chinese courts. In 1870 Chinese suspicions about how the French treated orphans escalated into violence at Tianjin, and twenty foreigners were killed. Zeng and then Li were assigned to settle the case. Foreigners were tried by their own laws and judges. In 1871 China made a treaty with Japan. An incident in the Ryukyu Islands provoked the Japanese to invade Taiwan in 1874, and China paid Japan 500,000 taels. In 1875 the Emperor died, but Empress Cixi got her three-year-old nephew recognized so that she could act again as regent.

After British consul Margary ventured up the Yangzi River and was murdered, Li Hongzhang negotiated for China to pay in indemnity of 200,000 taels and conceded commercial advantages. Guo Songdao advised applying European advances, but conservatives blocked the building of railways. Guo and others worked on improving China’s law codes, and some studied international law. Li promoted military and industrial technology and sent students abroad for military education. Zuo Zongtang supplied the frontier armies with European weapons, and after making an 1881 treaty with Russia, Xinjiang became a province in 1884. In 1882 the United States began discriminating against Chinese immigrants. As the French moved into Vietnam, they came into conflict with China; but after a brief war they made a treaty in 1885, and the French withdrew from Taiwan and the Pescadores. Regent Cixi replaced Prince Gong with other princes.

While China was busy with the French, the Japanese began moving into Korea. In 1884 China and Japan agreed to withdraw troops from Korea, but Yuan Shikai became Chinese resident. During a religious rebellion in 1894 Korea appealed to China and Japan for troops. This provoked the Sino-Japanese War over Korea that Japan won. In the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki the Chinese recognized Korea’s independence and agreed to pay Japan 200 million taels. Japan gained Taiwan and the Pescadores. Li Hongzhang negotiated a treaty in Russia. In 1897 Germans seized Jiaozhou in Shandong and were given a 99-year lease. Russia then grabbed Dairen and Port Arthur, forcing China to let them build the Southern Manchuria Railway. The British leased Weihaiwei and Kaulung, and France rented Guangzhou Bay. Christian missionaries gained more influence in China. Zhang Zhidong recommended studying Western politics.

Kang Youwei was a brilliant reformer with extremely advanced ideas. His esoteric Universal Principles of Humanity and Book of Great Unity foresaw a future of equality, democracy, world government, peaceful cooperation, and universal education and health care. He opposed discrimination by race, sex, nation, class, family, occupation, or species. Kang began submitting memorials on how to improve China in 1888, and he organized study societies, especially in Hunan where his reforms were first implemented. In 1898 Emperor Guangxu began studying his memorials, and during the summer Kang’s reforms were implemented by imperial decrees, affecting education, administration, agriculture, industry, and commerce.  They were resisted by Manchus, conservative officials, scholars, the military, eunuchs, and monks. Empress Cixi objected and took over the administration by force in September. Kang and his chief disciple Liang Qichao fled to Japan, and several reformers including young Tan Sitong were executed. Tan had written On the Study of Humanity, and he agreed with Kang that Confucius was a humanitarian reformer who was betrayed by later followers trying to protect the status quo. Yan Fu and Lin Shu translated influential books by Europeans.

Some Chinese resented the proselytizing Christian missionaries. Secret societies of Boxers using martial arts and swords attacked foreigners and Chinese Christians. Empress Cixi was persuaded to use the Boxers as militias against foreign encroachments, and soon half the Army had joined them. On June 10, 1900 the Boxers stopped a train that was going from Tianjin to Beijing with 2,100 British soldiers. Boxers attacked foreigners and Christians in Beijing, and European forces took over the Dagu forts. China declared war on the foreign powers on June 21, but Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, and Yuan Shikai protected foreigners from Boxers in their provinces. Foreign soldiers took control of Tianjin, and in August an international force of 18,811 troops marched from Tianjin to Beijing and relieved the besieged legations. Cixi fled with Emperor Guangxu, and China agreed to pay an indemnity of 450 million taels over 39 years. The Americans persuaded the Europeans to accept its Open Door Policy, and they agreed not to seize Chinese territory. About 200,000 Russian troops had invaded Manchuria; they promised to leave in three stages, but soldiers became railway guards.

Empress Cixi began to allow political reforms in 1901 that modernized education, administration, and industry. In the next four years foot-binding was banned; tobacco and liquor were taxed; schools were improved; silver currency was standardized; railways were built; punishments were moderated; civil service exams were abolished; a constitution was planned; and thousands of Chinese studied in Japan. Emperor Guangxu died one day before 73-year-old Cixi on November 15, 1908. Prince Chun ruled as regent for 3-year-old Puyi. By 1909 the number of schools had increased dramatically, and millions signed petitions for a constitutional parliament. In 1910 the Qing army invaded and annexed Tibet, and military expenditures grew to a third of the budget.

Sun Yat-sen became a medical doctor but turned his efforts to organizing revolution. After the Chinese legation in London held him prisoner for twelve days in October 1896, he became famous. Sun wanted to overthrow the Qing dynasty, and he disagreed with Kang Youwei who favored a reformed monarchy. Both traveled around the world raising money for their causes. Liang Qichao lived in Japan and published Public Opinion 1898-1902 and The New People’s Miscellany 1902-07. Zou Rong wrote The Revolutionary Army and died in prison at age 19. Qiu Jin founded The Chinese Women’s Journal in Shanghai and advocated equal rights for women. She joined a revolt and was executed. Sun Yat-sen founded the Revolutionary Alliance in August 1905, and Huang Xing published The People’s Report, explaining the difference between revolution and reform. Huang worked with Sun, but numerous revolts failed.

In February 1911 Chinese students in Tokyo called for the armed self-defense of China against Europeans. Sun Yat-sen raised $70,000 for an uprising in Guangzhou that failed in April. Prince Chun appointed a cabinet of thirteen in May with only four Han Chinese, and he ordered the railways nationalized. Railway investors stopped paying taxes, and counties in Sichuan began declaring independence. Imperial troops were sent from Hubei and were overcome by armed bands of peasants. The Revolutionary Alliance had infiltrated the New Army.

After revolutionaries exploded a bomb accidentally and were arrested, the revolution began on October 10 with a mutiny in Wuchang. Revolutionaries seized the arsenal in Hanyang, and a mutiny in Hubei set up a military government under commander Li Yuanhong. While the Qing court called on retired Yuan Shikai, the revolution spread to Shaanxi, Hunan, Shanxi, Jiangxi, and Yunnan. Yuan Shikai sent imperial forces that regained Hankou from revolutionaries led by Huang Xing on November 2, but then Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong joined the revolution. Prince Chun and the premier Prince Qing resigned, and a provisional national assembly elected Yuan Shikai premier. The revolutionaries took over Shanghai and Nanjing, forming a provisional government on December 14. After persuading the English to stop loaning the Qing regime money, Sun Yat-sen returned from abroad and was elected provisional president of the Chinese republic. He offered to let Yuan be president if he accepted the parliament’s constitution. Yuan did so, and Emperor Puyi abdicated on February 12, 1912. Yuan Shikai managed to keep Beijing as the capital.

China's Long Revolution 1912-49
President Yuan Shikai appointed Sun Yat-sen director of railways and consolidated his power as revolutionaries resigned. Sun and Huang Xing formed the National People’s Party (Guomindang), and they won the most seats in the December 1912 elections. Song Jiaoren criticized Yuan and was assassinated on March 20, 1913. Yuan borrowed £25 million from the Five-Power Banking Consortium in April and used the money to suppress widespread rebellion that began in July. Thousands were executed in the next year. Yuan promoted Confucian religion and education. On October 7 he recognized Tibet’s autonomy, and the British recognized the Chinese republic. Yuan was elected president for five years, and he expelled Guomindang members from Parliament, which was dissolved on January 4, 1914. In May a Constitutional Compact gave President Yuan much power, and he imposed press censorship. Sun Yat-sen formed the secret Revolutionary Party in July. Early in the Great War the Japanese pushed the Germans out of Shandong, and their 21 Demands asked China for control over Shandong, Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, the southeast coast, and the Yangzi Valley. Despite protests Yuan signed the treaty on May 25, and he prohibited the boycott of Japanese products. Sun Yat-sen was criticized for negotiating with Japan and for eloping with his secretary Song Qingling. Yuan planned to become emperor in 1916, but protests turned into independence movements. Yuan Shikai died on June 6, 1916.

Vice President Li Yuanhong succeeded Yuan and appointed Duan Qirui premier and Feng Guozhang vice president. These and other warlords struggled for power for several years. About 200,000 Chinese went overseas to work for the Allies during the war. Sun Yat-sen governed Guangzhou, but Lu Rongting controlled Guangxi and Guangdong. General Zhang Xun became governor of Zhili. Li resigned, and Duan borrowed money. Warlords got revenue from the increasing opium trade. Feng Guozhang gained power with the Zhili clique. Feng Yuxiang was a Christian warlord who tried to ban vice. Xu Shuzheng led the Anfu Club, and in 1918 they used bribes to win a majority in the Parliament. Sun was defeated by Lu and fled to Shanghai. Zhang Zuolin governed Mukden and took control of three provinces in Manchuria. China developed industry during the World War, but foreign investors controlled most of the assets.

An active student movement developed at Beijing University after Cai Yuanpei became dean. Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao wrote progressive articles in New Youth and the Weekly Critic. Hu Shi studied philosophy with John Dewey and promoted writing in plain language (baihua). When the Versailles peace conference granted Shandong to Japan in April 1919, Beijing students organized protests on May 4. Anarchists burned the house of the hated Cao Rulin, and 32 were arrested. A student union was formed, and student demonstrations erupted in other cities. Students lectured in the streets, and 1,150 were arrested by June 4. In Shanghai 13,000 striking students were joined by 60,000 factory workers. China rejected the peace treaty with Germany but joined the League of Nations. A manifesto was published, and females were admitted into Beijing University in 1920. Mao Zedong in Hunan and others studied Marxism, and Hu Shi advocated practical reforms. Liang Qichao suggested that Eastern ways could be an antidote to the European trend toward massive violence.

Qu Qiubai wrote about the Russian revolution, and Comintern agents came to China. Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai helped start the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921. They opposed the warlords and the plutocrats, and they helped workers organize unions. In 1923 they defined political and economic reforms. Liang Shuming advocated adopting Western institutions. The Guomindang promoted independence and federalism, but General Wu Peifu crushed this in 1921. Chinese diplomats tried to improve foreign relations and signed the Nine-Power Treaty in 1922. Wu tried to unify China by making Li Yuanhong president; but his government went broke, and he was replaced by Cao Kun in 1923. Several warlords invaded; but Feng Yuxiang turned against Wu and joined with Zhang Zuolin to form the National People’s Army, appointing Duan Qirui.

In November 1920 the Guomindang resolved to implement Sun Yat-sen’s three people’s principles of independence, democracy, and socialism in a constitution with the traditional executive, legislative, and judicial branches along with the Chinese civil service exams and a censorate. In his Plan for National Reconstruction Sun suggested that capitalism and socialism could work together. Sun accepted Comintern advisors and Communists into the Guomindang, and the Comintern urged Chinese Communists to work with the Nationalists for a bourgeois revolution first. Sun came into conflict with Chen Jiongming at Guangzhou. The first Guomindang national congress met in January 1924, and Sun appointed Jiang (Kai-shek) head of the Huangpu military academy in May. Peng Pai and Mao Zedong organized and taught farmers and peasants. Sun wanted fair treaties, but Duan confirmed the “unequal treaties.” Sun Yat-sen died of liver cancer in March 1925 and is revered as the father of modern China.

A labor dispute in Shanghai led to the killing of eleven protesting students on March 30, 1925, and this atrocity provoked a general strike by 160,000 in Shanghai. The movement spread, and the Guomindang and CCP greatly increased their membership. That summer some in the Guomindang met at Sun Yat-sen’s tomb and resolved to drive out the Communists. Huangpu cadets also studied Sun Yat-sen and were anti-Communist. In 1926 Zhang Zuolin allied with Wu Peifu and removed Duan Qirui. Meanwhile Jiang shut down Communist newspapers in Guangzhou and began his northern expedition in July, first conquering Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Fujian while Guangxi and Guizhou came to terms.

In 1927 Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) moved the Guomindang to the right and turned on the Communists. Zhou Enlai and Li Lisan organized strikes in Shanghai, and 800,000 workers fought the warlord Zhang Zongchang. After Zhang’s troops withdrew from Nanjing, Jiang’s Nationalist army occupied the city. Jiang’s troops entered Shanghai, and in April they attacked suspected Communists in both cities, massacring thousands. Jiang extorted money from capitalists, and Wang Jingwei agreed in July to expel the Communists from the Guomindang. The Wuhan cities were put under martial law. Some Communists led by Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong tried to revolt, but they were defeated. After being defeated by the warlord Sun Chuanfang, Jiang went to Japan and married Song Meiling. Her brother T. V. Soong persuaded Wang to resign. The Comintern directed Qu Qiubai to order a Communist insurrection in Guangzhou in December, but it failed. Jiang gathered several armies led by himself, Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan, and later Bai Chongxi. Jiang clashed with the Japanese in Shandong and retreated. Japan’s prime minister Tanaka arranged for Zhang Zuolin to withdraw from Beijing, and Yan’s Shanxi army entered Beijing on June 8, 1928. Hu Hanmin drafted a constitution, and Jiang became president, ending all unequal treaties.

The Nationalist government’s deficit spending was organized by T. V.  Soong. They built railways, roads, and telephone lines and educated an elite class in colleges and universities. Peasants and workers suffered from low wages and miserable conditions. Most provinces were ruled by generals, and fascist organizations grew. Reorganizationists and rightists rebelled, and millions of people died in the civil wars and flooding in 1930-31. In the fall of 1931 the Japanese invaded and took over Manchuria.

China suffered from the depression in the early 1930s, but then the Nationalists built 14,000 blockhouses to attack Communists. Jiang’s war effort was helped by German companies and Mussolini, and his fascist New Life propaganda was spread in the schools and media. The Nationalist government controlled 70% of banking assets. Jiang announced his opposition to the Japanese and gained more nationalist support. After Zhang Xueliang held Jiang hostage, he agreed to a united front with the Communists in February 1937 to fight the Japanese; but Zhang was kept under arrest.

The peasant unions had millions of members, and Mao Zedong wrote an incisive report on the successes of the peasant movement in Hunan. In 1927 landlord militias killed about 380,000 peasants in Hunan. As the Guomindang split, small groups of Communists were led by Peng Pai, Zhu De, and Mao, who promised democratic methods and fair treatment. In December an insurrection in Guangzhou resulted in thousands of Communists being massacred. In 1928 Mao and Zhu De set up a Soviet base on the Hunan-Jiangxi border. In 1929 Nationalist attacks forced them to move east, and Mao began his rectification campaigns for party discipline. In 1930 a few thousand suspected counter-revolutionaries were executed, and the purge continued until the end of 1931. Zhu De’s army of 40,000 defeated 100,000 Nationalists, but in 1931 Jiang led 300,000 Nationalist troops against the Communists. The Chinese Soviet Republic was formed on November 7, 1931, and by 1933 the Red Army had grown to 500,000.

The CCP declared war on Japan in April 1932. Fujian set up a People’s Revolutionary Government in October 1933, and Jiang’s army attacked them. The Red Army killed thousands of landlords and rich peasants. In October 1934 they began the long march southwest, and in January 1935 Mao Zedong became chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council. They met troops led by Zhang Guotao and then went north to Shaanxi where they could fight the Japanese as well as for social revolution. They tried to negotiate a united front with the Nationalists; but this did not work until after Zhang Xueliang captured Jiang in December 1936.

Lu Xun became a writer to try to help the Chinese spiritually transform themselves. His pessimistic stories portray the physical and spiritual poverty of many Chinese during the era of the warlords. Lu also wrote essays, noting the male hypocrisy on chastity and protesting the persecution of writers by the government.

Mao Dun wrote novels portraying the suffering of the poor who were exploited by the wealthy and of the difficulties that revolutionaries faced. Lao She wrote satirical novels that exposed the social and political problems in China’s turbulent era of wars. His Rickshaw Boy was successful in the United States, and he was later persecuted by the Communists. Writer Ba Jin was influenced by the anarchists Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, and Vanzetti. His novels exposed the problems in human relationships, especially in traditional Chinese families.

Ding Ling was a student in the May Fourth movement and became an anarchist. She was sexually liberated, and after bearing children for two men who died, she became a Communist and lived at Yan’an. She wrote about how liberated women can work for all humanity. Shen Congwen was influenced by European literature, and he knew Ding Ling. He was so independent that his novels were banned by both the Nationalists and the Communists. As a pacifist he opposed the violence of both sides.

Pearl Buck was raised in China by American missionaries, and she wrote novelistic biographies of both her parents. She wrote many novels about Asia, most of them set in China. The Good Earth was an extraordinarily successful novel and film that introduced many to Chinese life. Her novels portrayed the plight of women in Chinese society during this difficult period. After moving to the United States in 1935 Pearl Buck helped raise money for China relief. Her novel Dragon Seed was set during the war with Japan and portrays a strong woman who learns how to read. Other novels described the Empress Cixi, the history of Korea, and the Cultural Revolution.

Japanese encroachment in China provoked a major war in July 1937. Japanese forces invaded Shanghai in August, killing 250,000 Chinese soldiers by October. The Chinese retreated to Nanjing, but it was abandoned on December 12. Japanese soldiers massacred more than 200,000 Chinese while raping about 50,000 women in Nanjing. Jiang Jieshi retreated and set up a new capital at Chongqing in Sichuan. His engineers destroyed the dikes of the Yellow River, changing its course and flooding out two million people. Factory equipment was moved west as the Japanese occupied eastern and northern China. Japan set up puppet governments and used the unemployed in their armies. Jiang led the Nationalist government and had the Burma Road built. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controlled Shaanxi and was allied with the Nationalists against Japan. Mao Zedong insisted on the Communists remaining independent. They helped poor peasants, and party membership greatly increased.

China borrowed money from the Soviet Union and made a non-aggression pact that lasted until April 1941. Britain and the United States also aided China. Jiang got military advice from Germans and Italians. The Japanese bombed Chongqing, and the American Flying Tigers helped the Chinese. Wang Jingwei became an occupation leader for the Japanese from 1940 until his death in 1944. Dai Li used more spies and Blue Shirts, and the Nationalists began blockading the Communists. Liu Shaoqi taught people how to be good Communists, and Mao Zedong taught strategy. The Communists let everyone over eighteen vote, but only 8% of those elected were women. The Communists learned to be self-sufficient, and in 1941 they were attacked by Nationalist forces.

As an ally of China the United States increased its lend-lease aid during the war against Japan. In 1942 more than two million Chinese died from famine in Henan. Many Nationalists defected to the Japanese and protected them from the Communists. Xinjiang’s Governor Sheng Shicai expelled Soviet advisors and sided with Jiang. The authoritarian Nationalist government used monopolies and censorship. Mao began a rectification campaign and was recognized as the top Communist leader followed by Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Commander Zhu De. The Allies ended their “unequal treaties” with China. Jiang had General Stilwell replaced, and General Patrick Hurley was anti-Communist. In June 1944 American B-29s began bombing runs from Chongqing. A Japanese offensive defeated the Chinese army in Henan. Millions of Chinese were drafted into the army and deserted or died in miserable conditions. Jiang rejected an alliance with the Communists, whose armies grew. Stalin promised not to side with the Communists but to support Jiang. The Communists held a congress in the spring of 1945 and held territory with 95 million people. The Soviet army entered the war on August 8 and invaded Manchuria. Nearly twenty million Chinese died in the war against Japan.

The Allies ordered the Japanese to surrender to the Nationalists in China and to Soviet forces in Manchuria, but departing Russians left weapons for the Communists. Jiang tried to take over Manchuria and appointed Chinese governors. Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai met with Hurley and Jiang to try to avoid civil war, and they made an agreement. George Marshall tried to mediate; but the Guomindang changed the constitution without the approval of the Communists, and Jiang mobilized his army in June 1946. Mao complained that the Americans were helping the Nationalists.

As the Nationalist army took over territory, Mao Zedong called for a war of self-defense by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Marshall warned Jiang, who continued fighting and convened a National Assembly. Nationalist forces took over Yan’an, and Mao had to retreat. Marshall ended mediation in January 1947. Lin Biao led PLA troops in Manchuria. The Nationalist government tried to suppress dissent; but even massive US aid could not control inflation while the rich were protected. As many defeated Nationalist troops went over to the Communists, Mao called for a united front that included businessmen to overthrow the dictatorial Jiang. T. V. Soong implemented a new currency in August 1948, but huge government deficits caused more inflation. In January 1949 Lin Biao’s troops captured Tianjin and Beijing, and Mao announced his eight-point surrender program that called for democracy and land reform. Millions of peasants were given land and joined the PLA. Jiang fled to Taiwan, and the Communist army crossed the Yangzi River to defeat Li Zongren in the south. Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949.

Mao Zedong was from a peasant family but studied ethics and was influenced by the May Fourth student movement. After studying Marxism he worked organizing workers and peasants in Hunan. He helped found the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and he wrote a radical report on the Hunan peasant movement. After Jiang betrayed the Communists, Mao believed that a long war would be needed for a socialist revolution. During the long march in 1935 he became the recognized leader. During the years at Yan’an he studied Marxism and wrote about strategy and the relationship between theory and practice. He urged dedication to the revolution and criticized selfish liberalism and sectarian tendencies. Mao adapted socialism to China’s situation. He noted that in past Chinese revolutions the peasants had been badly led and that feudalism remained. Mao published On New Democracy in 1940 and recommended people’s congresses by towns, districts, counties, provinces, and for the nation. Land should be confiscated and distributed to the peasants. In 1945 he proposed coalition government, but the Guomindang government rejected their democratic reforms. As they won the revolution in 1949 he wrote how the working class would lead the masses in solidarity with the world proletariat. Women would have equal rights, and universal education would help them reach their goals.

Korea 1800-1949
Dowager Queen Chongsun acted as regent for young Sunjo (r. 1800-34), and Catholics were persecuted in 1801. That year 66,067 government slaves were emancipated. When Chongsun died in 1802, the Andong Kim clan regained control and ended the persecution. Chong Yag-yong (1762-1836) lived in exile and wrote brilliantly about Practical Learning in prose and poetry. The yangban class grew in numbers and lost status. Unpaid officials overtaxed people to make up for the bribes needed to gain office. Some individuals prospered with the developing commerce, and others formed local collectives to survive. Many suffered unemployment and turned to fire-field farming or banditry. Rebellions broke out in 1804 and 1811. Floods and a cholera epidemic were devastating during the 1820s. While Honjong (r. 1834-49) was king, three priests and eighty Korean converts were executed in 1839. Under King Ch’olchong (r. 1849-63) the Andong Kim clan regained power, and the number of Catholics in Korea increased to 23,000. Writers criticized discrimination based on social class and called for opening up to western ways. Ch’oe Che-u (1824-64) had mystical experiences and started a new religion called Tonghak (Eastern Learning) in 1860. He taught the unity of God with humanity and proclaimed everyone equal. Ch’oe Che-u was arrested for sedition and beheaded in 1864, but his successor Ch’oe Si-hyong fled with followers into the mountains.

When young Kojong became king in 1864, his father governed as the Taewon’gun (Grand Prince). He appointed officials from all four colors and tried to end the corruption of the Andong Kim clan. He taxed the yangban class and imposed surtaxes to pay for the reconstruction of the Kyongbok palace. Debased coins caused inflation, but eventually punishing of corrupt officials led to increased revenues. Like China, Korea resisted foreign trade. After seeing what happened to the Chinese in the Opium Wars, they defended themselves from aggressive westerners even more. In 1866 the Taewon’gun executed nine French missionaries and about 8,000 Korean Catholics. In 1871 the Taewon’gun angered Confucians when he closed most of their academies. Queen Min got his regency ended, and he retired in 1874. Koreans had so far defended themselves from encroaching westerners, but in 1876 they were forced to make a friendship treaty with modernizing Japan.

Traditional Confucians criticized the opening of Korea, and some leaders were punished. Unpaid soldiers mutinied in 1882 and attacked the Japanese legation, and Korea agreed to pay the Japanese reparations. King Kojong restored the Taewon’gun, who was abducted by Chinese forces. In the next four years Korea made unequal treaties with the United States, England, Germany, Italy, Russia, and France. In 1884 Japanese soldiers supported a coup attempt that wanted reforms, but 1,500 Chinese soldiers defeated them. In 1885 Japan and China agreed to withdraw their troops from Korea, and the Russians promised to protect Korean territory. Japan increased its imports from Korea and gained fishing rights and coaling stations.

In 1894 Chon Pong-jun led a revolt by Tonghak believers that began in Kobu county and spread. Korea asked China for help, and they sent 3,000 soldiers; but Japan sent 7,000 men and drove out the Chinese before quelling the Tonghak rebellion. China in the 1895 Shimonoseki Treaty recognized the independence of Korea. The Japanese restored the Taewon’gun and enacted 208 new laws to implement major reforms, ending slavery, torture, punishment of relatives, and discrimination against widows and illegitimate sons. The Taewon’gun opposed them and was forced to retire. King Kojong appointed Pak Yong-hyo, and on January 7, 1895 they proclaimed fourteen guiding principles for Korea that established the power of the King and the Ministry of Finances. An army was to be conscripted, and law codes were to be reformed. Most district officials were dismissed, and the Japanese assassinated Queen Min on October 8. The pro-Japanese government of King Kojong and Kim Hong-jip was restored. Russians guarded King Kojong, and an armed uprising broke out against foreigners. A pro-Russian cabinet gave economic concessions to Russians but also to Americans, the French, and Germans as well as the Japanese. Pak persuaded So Chae-p’il to return from the United States, and he organized an independence  movement until he was deported in 1898. The Russians continued to advance, but in 1904 they were attacked by the Japanese and were defeated the next year.

In exchange for their recognizing Japan’s influence in Korea, Japan accepted the empires of the United States, Britain, and Russia. Korea became a protectorate of Japan with Ito Hirobumi as Resident-General. Koreans complained, and in 1906 the Independence News began publishing. The Japanese reacted to protests with military force in 1907. They took over Korean farms from the poor; 2,000 Japanese were in the Korean government by 1909, and 170,000 Japanese lived in Korea by 1910. All the public schools had Japanese teachers. The small Korean army was disbanded, provoking a guerrilla movement that was defeated by 1910. Some went into exile to organize resistance. A Korean assassinated Ito on October 26, 1909. Japan formally annexed Korea in August 1910. The Japanese reorganized the Korean government and increased law enforcement. Many Koreans lost their land to Japanese companies and individuals. The Japanese took over industries and imposed government monopolies. Very few Koreans went to school, but Korean literature portrayed the oppression and suggested progressive reforms. Yi Kwang-su’s Heartless expressed feminist themes. Han Yong-un published On the Revitalization of Korean Buddhism in 1913.

Hawaiian Islands 1836-76
A ban was put on Catholics in December 1837. Less than 1,200 Hawaiians had been accepted as members of the Calvinist communion, though a hundred times that many attended church. After a tidal wave drowned thirteen people in November 1837, evangelist Titus Coan began a dramatic revival that admitted 3,200 natives as members in the next six months. Within a few years the church had more than 6,000 members. By 1839 the entire Bible had been translated into Hawaiian. French captain Laplace had won indemnities in Tahiti because of the wrongs against Catholics, and he arrived at Honolulu in 1839 to do the same. He demanded religious freedom for Catholics and a bond of $20,000 to assure compliance, threatening to bombard Honolulu. The chiefs immediately submitted, and Kamehameha III negotiated a commerce and friendship treaty with France that allowed them to import wine and brandy; French residents were to be tried by juries appointed by the French consul and approved by the Hawaiian government. The bond was returned in 1846.

In 1839 Kamehameha III proclaimed religious toleration and a declaration of human rights. The next year the government took over the common schools and gained a constitution. Charlton once hit Polynesian editor James Jarvis with a horsewhip. Charlton departed in 1842, leaving behind confused consular archives, unsupported children, debts, and a lawsuit over land he claimed. The next British consul, Alexander Simpson, sent a message that brought the frigate Carysfort commanded by George Paulet to Honolulu in February 1843, intimidating the courts to return Charlton’s property and use British law. Kamehameha III appealed to French consul Jules Dudoit but gave in to British demands. Finance minister Gerrit Judd sent the American James Marshall to explain this outrage to the British. Paulet insisted on a relaxation of vice laws, and former medical missionary Judd resigned from the commission. Judd withheld money from the Queen’s Own Regiment until a Carysfort officer forced him to hand it over. Admiral Richard Thomas arrived from South America and reprimanded Paulet for going beyond his instructions, enabling the King to reclaim sovereignty in a speech in the Kawaiahao church. His statement in Hawaiian meaning “The life of the land is preserved by righteousness” became the motto of Hawaii. The Queen’s Own Regiment was disbanded. The United States recognized Hawaii’s independence but did not join a similar agreement by Britain and France in order to avoid entangling alliances.

Ladd & Co. speculated in land but went bankrupt in 1844. That year the Polynesian, a weekly newspaper, became the official publication of the Government. The United States Commercial Agent, Peter Brinsmade, started the opposition paper, the Sandwich Islands News. King Kamehameha III appointed the American lawyer John Ricord attorney general. William Richards was in charge of public instruction for a year before he died; in the next twelve years Richard Armstrong made the common schools less sectarian. In 1845 Jarvis editorialized for teaching English; but large prayer meetings were held on Maui, and thousands of signatures on petitions protested the influence of foreigners. By 1846 the national debt had been paid, and the Board of Land Commissioners began settling disputes. The King and chiefs gave some of their land to the Government in exchange for titles. Land was surveyed, and commoners had to pay a fee for their titles. The Government began selling land to private citizens at low prices. The process took several years. Crown lands totaled nearly a million acres, and the chiefs had a million and a half, but the commoners merely 30,000 acres of agricultural land. Foreigners and native Hawaiians had the same rights to own land. In 1848 the judiciary was established with William Lee as chief justice of the supreme court. Four circuit courts replaced the old governors’ courts, and there were 24 district courts.

In 1849 Kamehameha III asked France to recall Consul Dillon, who sent for Rear Admiral Legoarant de Tromelin. He posted circulars threatening to attack Honolulu, and the next day French sailors wrecked the fort and did $100,000 worth of damage. Tromelin left in September, and a French crew took Kamehameha III’s royal yacht to Tahiti. Judd went to England and Paris with crown prince Alexander Liholiho and his brother Lot while Jarvis made a treaty with the United States. French consul Emile Perrin left Honolulu in 1851 and returned two years later to agree on a treaty. After the California gold rush, Sam Brannan led a filibuster movement that wanted to take over Hawaii; but after rowdy sailors set a fire that could have destroyed the whaling ships in the harbor, several ringleaders were given prison terms. A new constitution was adopted in 1852 in which every male adult could vote for representatives in the lower house of the legislature.

By 1853 the population had been reduced to 73,134 with 2,119 foreigners, but 56,840 were Protestants. The board now allowed their missionaries to acquire land and become permanent residents, and the new organization was called the Hawaiian Evangelical Association. In 1863 they included Hawaiian clergy. Mormon missionaries had begun arriving in 1850, and in 1864 their leader Walter Murray Gibson was expelled from the church for trying to take over church lands at Palawai. A smallpox epidemic devastated the islands as thousands of Hawaiians refused vaccinations. Influential Gerrit Judd and Richard Armstrong were blamed for negligence and were dismissed from the Health Commission. Judd tried to remain as finance minister, but Kamehameha III made him resign. Californians still wanted to annex Hawaii, and the Committee of Thirteen planned a coup in 1854. The two princes had suffered from racism while visiting the United States and opposed annexation. Foreign minister Robert Wyllie got guarantees of independence from Miller, Perrin, and Gregg, the representatives of Britain, France, and the United States. Chief Justice William Lee cleverly insisted that Hawaii be admitted as a state rather than a territory, knowing that the racist US Senate would never approve of giving rights to native Hawaiians. The King and chiefs also wanted large annual pensions. This delayed negotiations, and Kamehameha III died in December 1854.

Alexander Liholiho was inaugurated as Kamehameha IV in January 1855. The whaling industry brought Honolulu and Lahaina much business until the US Civil War. Washington was spending $150,000 a year for the relief of American sailors in Hawaii. The King established the Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu in 1860 and ordered prostitutes to register and be medically inspected. He was protective of his sister and jealous of his wife Emma, and in 1869 he seriously wounded his private secretary, Henry Neilson; but he was not prosecuted. The King had been impressed by the Anglican religion in London and donated land and money for an Episcopal church; Bishop Staley arrived to head the mission. Kamehameha IV died in 1863 and was succeeded by his brother Lot as Kamehameha V. He mistrusted universal suffrage and imposed a new constitution in 1864 that required property and literacy for voting and holding office. The King’s appointed nobles compromised the independence of the legislature. Mark Twain visited the islands in 1866 and quipped that sin did not flourish there in name but in reality; he criticized the missionaries as “fifty years behind the age.”

Sugar mills helped that industry begin expanding in 1838, and 750,000 pounds were exported in 1850. The next year David Weston’s centrifugal machine was introduced to separate sugar from molasses. Exporting of coffee began in 1845. During the 30-year reign of Kamehameha III, the native population had been reduced by half. In the early 1850s three hundred Chinese laborers were contracted to work for five years. The sugar business boomed during the US Civil War, reaching 7,750,000 pounds in 1866, but the next year a precipitous drop caused bankruptcies. By 1869 Hawaii’s overall exports surpassed their imports, and by the mid-1870s their annual exports were valued at $1,500,000. Several thousand Chinese had been brought in to work, and many stayed after their contracts expired. American warships patrolled Hawaiian coasts and left only while the Hawaiian legislature was ratifying the treaty of 1867. The next year Kaona had strange visions of destruction and attracted two hundred followers. After ordering his followers to kill a sheriff and a constable, he was tried and sentenced to ten years hard labor. In 1870 the United States Senate rejected the treaty. The next year Hawaii made a treaty with Japan. In 1872 the national debt doubled as the Hawaiian Hotel was built, and construction began on a large government building.

Kamehameha V died on his fortieth birthday in December 1872. “Whiskey Bill” Lunalilo was elected over David Kalakaua on the first day of 1873. About five hundred lepers were taken to the Molokai station in order to prevent the spread of the skin disease. Henry Whitney proposed leasing Pearl River lagoon to the United States in exchange for no duties on sugar. That September about forty native soldiers refused to obey orders of Austrian drillmaster Joseph Jajczay and were dishonorably discharged. Lunalilo died of tuberculosis in February 1874, and David Kalakaua was selected by the legislators over Queen Dowager Emma. Her followers rioted, and the Household Troops had been dismissed because of the mutiny. British and American marines were called in from warships to make the arrests. Kalakaua promised to help the Hawaiians to advance in agriculture and commerce while saying he was not against foreigners. He opposed ceding Pearl Harbor, but he was the first monarch to visit the United States. He made a reciprocal treaty that freed the products of each from customs duties, and he promised not to allow any other nation such privileges. The US Senate ratified the treaty, and it went into effect in 1876.

Hawaii and the United States 1876-1900
The Belgian priest Damien Joseph de Veuster came to Molokai in 1873 and served the lepers. After many years he came down with leprosy and died in 1889. Sugar baron Claus Spreckels gave King Kalakaua $10,000 and a $40,000 loan at 7% so that the King could pay his debts that had 12% interest. In exchange Spreckels got a lease on 24,000 acres at Wailuku Commons on July 8, 1878. Hawaii’s sugar exports increased from 25 million pounds in 1875 to 500 million pounds in 1897. Kalakaua replaced his entire cabinet in 1878. Spreckels gave the King a personal loan, persuaded him to appoint a sympathetic cabinet, and then was granted water rights for thirty years at $500 a year. Construction began on the second Iolani Palace at the end of 1879; it took three years to build and cost more than $300,000.

In 1881 Kalakaua spent ten months traveling around the world, becoming the first ruling monarch to do so. Princess Ruth Keelikolani claimed she inherited half the crown lands amounting to a half million acres worth $750,000, but she sold her questionable rights to them to Spreckels for $10,000. The legislature investigated the deal but approved it in July 1882. Spreckels had formed a partnership with W. G. Irwin and Company in 1880, and now they controlled almost the entire Hawaiian sugar crop. Between 1877 and 1890 more than 55,000 immigrant laborers came to Hawaii; half of them were Chinese, and about 8,000 of those came from California. In 1882 Frank Damon described the miserable living conditions of the Chinese workers under former missionaries and sons of missionaries.

The ambitious Walter Gibson became friends with King Kalakaua and was appointed to numerous positions including premier in 1882. The prohibition against giving natives liquor was repealed. Spreckels and Gibson persuaded the King to buy a million dollars’ worth of silver coins for $850,000. Spreckels and Irwin opened a bank in Honolulu, but the legislators discovered many discrepancies in the accounts of Gibson and defeated the bank bill 35 to 2. Spreckels still held more than half the national debt and the mortgage on Gibson’s Palawai land. Hawaii’s debt increased from $388,900 in 1880 to $2,600,000 in 1890. In 1886 the Government negotiated a new loan from London capitalists, and Spreckels was paid off; but it cost Hawaii $250,000 plus the interest on the million-dollar loan. Everyone in Kalakaua’s cabinet was replaced except for Gibson. King Kalakaua had imperialistic ambitions, and Gibson persuaded him to send John E. Bush and envoys on the Kamiloa in December to Samoa; the captain was an alcoholic, and the crew mutinied. None of the Polynesian islands wanted to be controlled by Hawaii. In 1886 a treaty was made to allow Japanese laborers, and about 180,000 Japanese were brought to Hawaii by 1908.

By 1886 Lorrin A. Thurston and Sanford Dole had become the leaders of the opposition party in the Assembly. The physician S. G. Tucker urged them to stop the corruption of Kalakaua and Gibson, and in January 1887 they organized the Hawaiian League to work for “efficient, decent and honest government in Hawaii.” Members were inducted secretly, and they soon had four hundred; but none of them were native Hawaiians. Volney Ashford suggested killing the King, causing Thurston, Dole, and two others to resign from the Committee of Thirteen. Col. Ashford had more than two hundred men trained by June. The King had agreed to opium importation in 1886 over Thurston’s objections. Tong Kee (Aki) gave the King a total of $75,000 for the opium license, but the cabinet sold the contract to the merchant Jun Long (Chun Lung) for $80,000. Kalakaua then told Aki he had used his money to pay his debts. This scandal broke in May at the same time the imperialistic ambitions were failing in the Pacific.

On June 27, 1887 the US minister George W. Merrill persuaded King Kalakaua that he had to get rid of Gibson, and that night all the cabinet ministers were asked to resign. The Honolulu Rifles patrolled the streets, but Dole knew that they were obeying the League. On June 30 a massive protest meeting was held in the armory on Beretania Street. The Committee of Thirteen told Kalakaua that a new constitution was needed. He agreed, and on July 1 a new cabinet made up of League members was formed with William Green as premier and minister of Finance, Godfrey Brown as Foreign Affairs minister, Thurston as Interior minister, and Clarence Ashford as Attorney General.

They wrote the “Bayonet Constitution,” and on July 7 Kalakaua became a constitutional monarch. Cabinet ministers could not be dismissed without approval by the legislature, and acts by the king had to be approved by the cabinet. The king could veto bills, but the legislature could override it with a two-thirds vote. No legislator could hold a public office. The right to vote was extended to foreigners who swore loyalty to the constitution, but the financial qualification for voting excluded two-thirds of the Hawaiians.

Gibson was charged with embezzlement, but on July 12 he was allowed to leave for San Francisco, where he died of tuberculosis six months later. The new Reform party won the special election in September 1887. The treaty with the United States was renewed, and in November a supplementary convention gave the US the exclusive use of the naval station at Pearl Harbor. The armed forces were put under the minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Hawaiian navy was abolished. The opium law was repealed. The King had a personal debt of about $250,000, and trustees were put in charge of his finances. All English-language public schools were free of tuition. In 1888 the Department of Public Instruction was established, and teacher-training classes were begun.

King Kalakaua was supported by the native Hawaiians who formed the Hui Kalaiaina (Political Economy party). Robert W. Wilcox had a Hawaiian mother and an American father, and he was educated at a military academy in Turin, Italy. He opposed the Reform party and the new constitution. Wilcox formed the Liberal Patriotic Association, and on July 30, 1889 at three in the morning he and about 150 followers surrounded the palace and government buildings. The King was not there, and the cabinet acted to suppress the revolt with the Honolulu Rifles. US Marines also came ashore to protect the American embassy. Seven rebels were killed by gunfire, and about a dozen were wounded. Seventy were arrested, but only three men were prosecuted. Albert Loomis was convicted of treason but was deported after a year in jail, and the Chinese journalist Ho Fon was fined $250 for conspiracy. A jury acquitted Wilcox of treason by a vote of nine to three. In his Hawaiian-language newspaper John E. Bush implied that the native Hawaiians had been murdered by whites who seized guns.

The Hui Kalaiaina joined with the Mechanics’ and Workingmen’s Political Protective Association to form the National Reform party. The Reform party lost its majority in the Assembly in the 1890 election, and a compromise cabinet led by the King’s friend John A. Cummins was appointed on June 17. Kalakaua became ill and in November went to San Francisco, where he died on January 20, 1891. His sister Liliuokalani acted as regent and was proclaimed queen on January 29 at the age of 52.

US President Benjamin Harrison, a Republican, signed the McKinley Act, which removed the tariff on raw sugar entering the United States and paid a bounty on domestic sugar. This went into effect in April 1891 and devastated the Hawaiian sugar business. Wilcox and Bush felt abandoned by Queen Liliuokalani and formed the Liberal party. Early in 1892 the American attorney Henry E. Cooper persuaded Thurston to form the Annexation Club. The US Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Tracy, told Thurston that the Harrison administration would favor the annexation of Hawaii. Thurston believed they would be supported by foreign investors, permanent settlers, and the native leaders of the Liberal party. With three parties none gained a majority in the 1892 elections. Wilcox secretly organized the Hawaiian Patriotic League to overthrow the government; but he and Volney Ashford were arrested before the legislative session opened. Ashford had to leave the kingdom, but Wilcox was allowed to take his legislative seat. Queen Liliuokalani appointed cabinets from the National Reform party, but a coalition of the Reform and Liberal parties voted them out twice. In November she chose members of the Reform party, but the Liberals joined with her party to defeat them and to pass the opium and lottery bills to raise revenues.

Queen Liliuokalani signed the lottery act and the opium license act, and on January 14, 1893 she closed the legislative session. She planned to proclaim a new constitution that would restore royal power to appoint nobles and limit voting to Hawaiians. When her ministers refused to sign it, she announced a postponement. Learning of this plan, the Annexation Club met in the law office of William O. Smith and formed a Committee of Safety. On Sunday the 15th Thurston persuaded Interior Minister John F. Colburn and Attorney General Arthur P. Peterson to announce that the new constitution would not be invoked. On Monday about 1,500 people gathered at the armory to listen to the Committee of Safety talk about ending the monarchy. Only sugar planter Henry P. Baldwin proposed using constitutional methods, and he was hooted down. That afternoon Captain Wiltse ordered troops from the USS Boston to come ashore. Colburn and Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Parker protested to the US minister John L. Stevens.

Sanford Dole agreed to accept the presidency on Tuesday, and the ill Thurston wrote a proclamation to end the monarchy. A provisional government was to be established until they could make an agreement with the United States. When Hawaiian police tried to stop John Good from bringing guns into the armory, he shot one in the shoulder. At the same time the committee walked into the government building and took over. The Queen surrendered to the power of the United States because Stevens declared that US troops would support the provisional government; but she issued a protest that concluded,

Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces
and perhaps the loss of life,
I do under this protest, and impelled by said force,
yield my authority until such time
as the Government of the United States shall,
upon the facts being presented to it,
undo the action of its representatives
and reinstate me in the authority which I claim
as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.2
Thurston traveled to Washington, but the Democrat Grover Cleveland had been elected president again. In February the US Congress declined to accept the drafted annexation treaty, and President Cleveland withdrew it in March. House Foreign Relations chairman James H. Blount went to Honolulu and reported back that Stevens had helped overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy. Secretary of State Walter Q. Gresham advised Cleveland to restore the monarchy. Albert S. Willis was dispatched to do so if the Queen would pardon the revolutionaries; but she wanted the death penalty or at least banishment. So Willis asked Dole and the provisional government to restore the monarchy, but they would not agree. The US Senate held hearings, and the Morgan Report blamed the Queen.

The provisional government repealed the opium and lottery laws, and they established a national guard and a fire department. They required any man voting for delegates to the constitutional convention to swear allegiance to the new government and that he would oppose restoring the monarchy. The government appointed nineteen delegates, and eighteen were elected. The convention met on May 30, 1894, and the republican constitution devised mostly by Dole and Thurston declared Dole president through 1900. Naturalized Japanese and Chinese were excluded from voting because Japan and China did not have naturalization treaties with Hawaii. The ability to speak, read, and write English was also required for voting. The new constitution was proclaimed without a plebiscite, and Dole was inaugurated as president on July 4, 1894. President Cleveland, Queen Victoria, and other foreign leaders soon recognized the new republic. In the 1890 elections 13,500 people had been registered to vote, but in 1894 only 4,447 were registered. The new American Union party won the elections. The US Congress repealed the McKinley Act in 1894, and Hawaiian sugar was favored again in the American market.

Some rebels gathered guns and bombs, and in December editor John Bush and others were arrested. On the night of January 6, 1895 police looking for guns in Waikiki were shot at, and the annexation commissioner Charles L. Carter was mortally wounded. The attempted revolution was suppressed in two weeks, and Robert Wilcox and Volney Ashford were among those arrested. On the 16th Liliuokalani was put under house arrest, and she signed an abdication. The military commission sentenced her to five years and a fine of $5,000. Of the 191 prisoners tried, 5 were acquitted, 64 got suspended sentences, and the rest were sentenced to prison. All but one of the prisoners were released by the end of the year. Liliuokalani was given citizenship in November and freedom of movement. She wrote the words and music for more than two hundred songs, including the revered “Aloha Oe.” President Dole got the Land Act of 1895 passed to help Hawaiians lease and purchase homes. That year the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association was organized, and they began an Experiment Station that would solve many agriculture problems in the years ahead.

After the Republican William McKinley was elected president of the United States in 1896, a new treaty was drafted. The Hawaiian Senate ratified it in September 1897 and sent President Dole to Washington. Lorrin Thurston published A Handbook on the Annexation of Hawaii. The US Senate was not able to get a two-thirds vote for the treaty; but after the Americans declared war on Spain in April 1898 and destroyed their fleet in Manila harbor, the US Congress passed a joint resolution in July to annex Hawaii. In 1897 three shiploads of about 1,200 Japanese immigrant laborers had been forbidden to land at Honolulu, but now the United States persuaded Hawaii to pay Japan a $75,000 indemnity to resolve the immigrant labor dispute. In a ceremony on August 12, 1898 the republic of Hawaii was proclaimed a territory (colony) of the United States, which did not pass the Organic Act providing for the government of Hawaii until April 30, 1900.

Hawaii under the United States 1900-49
Hawaii officially became a territory of the United States on June 14, 1900, and the citizens of the former Republic of Hawaii became citizens of the United States. However, the definition of citizenship excluded Oriental immigrants. Robert Wilcox led the Home Rule party, and they won thirteen of fifteen seats in the Senate and fourteen seats in the House to nine Republicans and four Democrats. Wilcox was elected Hawaii’s delegate to the US Congress. President McKinley appointed Sanford Dole the first governor. The Organic Act required the legislators to conduct their business in English, but the Home Rulers used Hawaiian. They released native prisoners, licensed kahunas as physicians, and lowered the tax on female dogs. In 1901 an income tax was enacted.

The Home Rule party declined, and the Republicans, who favored business interests and the wealthy, dominated the Hawaiian legislature. Between 1902 and 1940 Republicans were eighty percent of the legislators. In 1902 the Republicans elected Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole as delegate to Congress; he was re-elected nine times and served until his death in 1922. He introduced the first bill for statehood in 1919. After expensive dredging, Pearl Harbor was the main naval base for America’s Pacific fleet, and Schofield Barracks also on Oahu became the largest army post in the United States. The College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts began classes in 1908; it became the College of Hawaii in 1911 and the University of Hawaii in 1920. In 1917 the United States seized the German ships that had taken refuge in Oahu’s harbors in 1914. Oahu had forty percent of the legislators; but each census reapportionment was defeated even though in 1940 Oahu had more than sixty percent of the people in Hawaii.

In 1900 Hawaii had a population of 154,000 with 61,111 Japanese, 39,656 Hawaiians, 25,767 Chinese, and about 18,000 Portuguese. The US Chinese Exclusion Act began affecting Hawaii in 1898, and so in the next nine years about 75,000 Japanese laborers came to Hawaii. In January 1900 fires were used to try to control an outbreak of bubonic plague in Chinatown that was infested with rats, lice, fleas, cockroaches, and flies, but the fire got out of control and destroyed 38 acres, sending about seven thousand Chinese, Japanese, and Hawaiians into quarantined camps for months. Chinese businessmen asked for $3,000,000 in damages but were awarded $1,500,000. In 1907 a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” ended the immigration of Japanese workers into the United States; but Japanese “picture brides” kept coming to Hawaii until 1924 when the US Congress passed the Japanese Exclusion Act.

Japanese workers were paid $18 a month, but Portuguese and Puerto Ricans were getting $22 or $23. So in 1909 about five thousand Japanese workers went on strike for higher wages. Families of strikers were evicted from company homes. Nippu Jiji editor Yasutaro Soga and leaders of the Japanese Higher Wage Association were arrested for conspiracy. Strikers could not afford to hold out and went back to work for the same wage.

Ten years later field hands were being paid only 72 cents a day. The Japanese on Oahu could not get concessions from the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association, and in December 1919 two unions demanded $1.25 for an eight-hour workday with overtime on Sundays and holidays and paid maternity leaves. The Filipino Federation of Labor led by Pablo Manlapit went on strike on January 19, 1920 and were joined by the Japanese Federation of Labor on February 1; but a week later Manlapit sent his union back to work because he said the Japanese were trying to take over the industry. Thousands of Japanese workers and their families had to leave the plantation camps and find places to stay in the countryside and in Honolulu during the influenza epidemic that the Board of Health reported had 6,000 cases. Reverend Albert W. Palmer proposed a compromise; but the planters rejected it and hired Portuguese strikebreakers for $4 a day and Koreans and Chinese for $3 a day; the striking workers had to give in after five months. Before the strike 24,791 Japanese worked on the plantations, but by 1924 only 12,781 remained. Concessions were made, raising the minimum wage by fifty percent and removing the racial wage difference.

Although the first generation (issei) of Japanese immigrants could not become citizens, their children, the second generation (nisei) born in Hawaii, were citizens from birth. Some Americans resented the Buddhists schools that taught Japanese. Beginning in 1921 the Department of Public Instruction required teachers to use English and to teach American history. The attempt by the Government to regulate the foreign-language schools was ruled unconstitutional by the Ninth Appellate Court in San Francisco in 1926, a decision upheld by the US Supreme Court the following year. In 1920 only three percent of voters were Japanese, but by 1936 the Japanese made up one quarter of voters.

In 1922 the haole George Wright from the American Federation of Labor began the interracial United Workers of Hawaii, but Governor Wallace R. Farrington (1921-29) denied them a charter, saying it was “un-American.” On April 1, 1924 Manlapit led a strike by three thousand Filipino sugar workers. In September the strikers captured two strike-breakers in their camp at Makaweli on Kauai. They handed them over to the police; but while they were leaving, a fight broke out that resulted in sixteen strikers and four policemen being killed. Farrington sent in the National Guard with machine guns, and they arrested more than a hundred Filipinos. Sixty were sentenced to jail, and Manlapit was banished from Hawaii. Jim Dole believed that educated Filipinos were trouble, and in 1928 some literate Filipinos were sent back to the Philippines; but by 1932 more than a hundred thousand Filipinos had been brought to Hawaii.

In 1905 leaf hoppers caused a $3,000,000 loss to sugar cane production; but entomologists found parasites from Australia, Fiji, and China that controlled the leaf hoppers. The Scolia wasp was imported from the Philippines to stop the Anomala beetles, and in 1932 toads brought from Puerto Rico began eating all kinds of insects. The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 helped native Hawaiians lease small parcels of agricultural land. James D. Dole began the Hawaiian Pineapple Company in 1901, and he bought almost all the island of Lanai in 1922 for more than a million dollars. The lucrative sugar industry was controlled by the Big Five companies, and in 1932 they took over Hawaiian Pineapple. That year the Pineapple Producers Co-operative Association was formed to plan production for the industry. Hawaiians complained that they did not get an equal share of federal money for roads, education, child welfare, and other public projects. So in 1923 the territorial legislature passed “Hawaii’s Bill of Rights” asking for equal treatment, and the US Congress extended their benefits the next year. The Christian minister Takie Okumura opposed strikes and promoted the Americanization of the Japanese in Hawaii. He organized annual conferences from 1927 to 1941 to develop community leaders.

On September 12, 1931 Thalia Massie was beaten up and claimed that she was raped by four Hawaiians; but evidence of rape was lacking, and the publicized trial resulted in a hung jury. On January 8, 1932 her mother, her husband Lt. Thomas Massie, and two others abducted the dark-skinned defendant Joe Kahahawai and killed him with a gun. In his last trial the famous Clarence Darrow defended them, arguing temporary insanity. They were convicted of second-degree murder and were sentenced to ten years. The sheriff took the four across the street, and Governor Lawrence M. Judd (1929-34) commuted their sentences to one hour. This sensational case caused many to question Hawaiian society and government even though Hawaii had no more crime than other places.

In 1934 the US Congress passed the Jones-Costigan Act that reduced Hawaii’s quota for sugar by nearly ten percent. When the bill went into effect in January 1935, Delegate Samuel Wilder King introduced a bill that would allow Hawaii to frame a state constitution. A House subcommittee visited the islands and held public hearings. Two years later a joint Congressional committee of 25 members held more hearings in Hawaii, and the Big Five sugar companies were criticized. By then Hawaii had 150,000 Japanese, and 113,000 were citizens. John F. G. Stokes tried to warn the committee of a Japanese conspiracy, but he had little evidence. The committee decided on a plebiscite, and in 1940 the Hawaiians voted two to one for statehood. Hawaii had 68,600 registered voters out of a population of 423,000.

In 1938 a strike against the Inter-Island Steamship Company was suppressed with police violence that wounded fifty picketers, but after an investigation no one was indicted. In 1940 the National Labor Relations Board allowed unions to organize. In July waterfront workers at two ports on Kauai began a strike that collapsed after ten months. However, the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) increased its membership and negotiated contracts at ports on Kauai and Hawaii in 1941.

On Sunday December 7, 1941 a surprise attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor killed 2,403 Americans and wounded 1,178. The Japanese had 64 men killed and lost 29 planes and 5 midget submarines while destroying 188 planes, 8 battleships, 3 cruisers, 3 destroyers, and 4 other American ships.

During the emergency Governor Joseph Poindexter was persuaded to declare martial law under General Walter Short, and President Roosevelt approved. Many suspected that Japanese Americans must have aided the surprise attack, and by nightfall tuna fisherman and others had been arrested. General Delos Emmons took military control on December 16. Thousands were questioned by loyalty boards, and about 1,400 Japanese were arrested along with a few Italians and Germans. Hawaii had about 160,000 Americans of Japanese Ancestry (AJA), but this was too many to intern or deport. Yet on the west coast of the United States 110,000 Japanese Americans were interned. Aliens in Hawaii were ordered not to live near military bases and to turn in anything that could be used for spying or sabotage. Newspapers and radio stations using Japanese were censored. Japanese candidates withdrew from politics. On January 2, 1942 the Office of Civilian Defense distributed a half million gas masks to every person. That month John Burns organized the Police Contact Group to tell Japanese Americans personally that they were to go all out for America. As US troops arrived in 1942, the population of Oahu increased from about 200,000 to a half million. Oahu still had 254,000 troops in July 1944.

In 1942 the War Department dismissed 317 Japanese guardsmen. University ROTC students formed the Varsity Victory Volunteers and did manual labor for the Army Corps of Engineers. About 1,400 in Hawaii’s National Guard formed the Hawaii Provisional Infantry Battalion and were shipped to Oakland, California in June. These AJAs became the famous 100th Infantry Battalion that performed so bravely in the European War. Other AJAs volunteered and became the 442nd Regimental Combat Team that was celebrated in the book and movie Go For Broke. In the later stages of the war many Japanese Americans served in the Pacific as interpreters. Half of those inducted into the armed forces by the draft in Hawaii up to 1946 were Japanese Americans. The reality was that the Japanese Americans were very loyal, and the only two people who were convicted of spying were Germans employed by the Japanese government.

Martial law was strictly enforced and was exploited by employers. General Order No. 91 required a 44-hour work week, suspended union contracts, froze wages, and could imprison an employee who quit without permission from military authorities. In 1942 about 22,000 people were brought before the provost court in Honolulu, most without lawyers, and only 359 were acquitted. The provost courts collected more than a million dollars in fines, and some had to work off their sentences or donate blood. Ingram Stainback became governor of Hawaii in August 1942 and tried to moderate martial law. In February 1943 Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes got 181 General Orders rescinded, and trial by jury was restored. Federal Judge Delbert Metzger and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco restored habeas corpus in 1943, and President Roosevelt ended martial law on October 24, 1944. The Lloyd Duncan case reached the US Supreme Court on December 7, 1945, and they ruled that military courts should not have supplanted the civil courts. On February 25, 1946 the Supreme Court decided by a 6-2 vote that the martial law imposed on Hawaii had been unconstitutional.

In 1943 agencies of the Big Five sugar producers formed the Hawaii Employers Council, and unions for agricultural workers were banned until the Hawaii Employment Relations Act was passed in 1945. Jack Kawano had begun organizing the agricultural workers in late 1943. About 21,000 workers on 33 plantations began a strike on September 1, 1946 that lasted 79 days. Scores of picketers were arrested, and plantation agencies imported about 6,000 workers from the Philippines. The ILWU workers got a raise, and the controlling perquisites of company housing and food were converted to cash; but the ILWU failed to get a closed shop with compulsory union membership. By the end of 1946 the ILWU had gained contracts for all sugar and pineapple workers as well as for longshoremen. The ILWU set up a political action committee, and Democrats were elected to half the thirty seats in the lower house. By 1947 the ILWU had more than 30,000 members.

In the spring of 1947 Army Intelligence warned Governor Stainback about Communists in the ILWU, and later that year the former Communist Ichiro Izuka published the pamphlet The Truth About Communism in Hawaii. John Reinecke was called pink in the book, and he and his wife lost their jobs as teachers. After an inquiry the decision was announced on October 30, 1948, the day that Republican Senator Hugh Butler of Nebraska arrived to investigate Communist penetration in Hawaii. At their territorial convention in 1948 the Democrats led by the ILWU overcame the conservative wing of the party. On May 1, 1949 about two thousand dock workers went on strike, affecting many businesses. Stainback signed a dock seizure act on August 6, and the Government took over the stevedoring companies. Yet ILWU workers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle refused to load or unload ships trading with Hawaii. In the settlement on October 23 the longshoremen got a raise in pay.

Notes
1. Quoted in Mau by Michael J. Field, p. 157 and in Lagaga by Malama Meleisea, p. 137.

2. Quoted in The Betrayal of Liliuokalani by Helena G. Allen, p. 294.

Copyright © 2007 by Sanderson Beck
This chapter has been published in the book EAST ASIA 1800-1949.
For ordering information, please click here.

Qing Decline 1799-1875
Qing Dynasty Fall 1875-1912
Republican China in Turmoil 1912-1926
Nationalist-Communist Civil War 1927-1937
China at War 1937-1949
Korea 1800-1949
Japan's Modernization 1800-1894
Imperial Japan 1894-1937
Japan's War and Defeat 1937-1949
Philippines to 1949
Pacific Islands to 1949
Summary and Evaluation
Bibliography
ETHICS OF CIVILIZATION Index
BECK index

In February 1872 the war resumed, and the Americans of the Central Polynesian Land and Commercial Company (CPLCC) bought 300,000 acres from Samoans who wanted money to buy weapons. That year US Navy Captain Meade arranged for shipping rights in Pago Pago harbor. President Grant sent Col. Albert Steinberger, who was connected to the CPLCC. In May 1873 Steinberger and the British and American consuls mediated a peace between Laupepa and Talavou, and Laupepa was proclaimed king of Samoa. Steinberger then visited Hamburg and made a secret agreement with the Germans to help the Godeffroy company negotiate with the Mulinu’u government. In 1875 Steinberger became the first premier of Samoa’s new government. Fourteen nobles were appointed by the King, and nineteen representatives were elected from districts. Each district had a governor to enforce laws and collect taxes. New laws restricting the sale of liquor were disliked by the traders at Apia.

A Samoan delegation to Fiji in 1877 asked the British to declare Samoa a protectorate, but Governor Gordon wanted annexation. So they sent an ambassador to Washington, and on January 17, 1878 the Americans signed a treaty with Samoa for the use of Pago Pago. One year later the Germans signed a treaty with Samoa, and in August 1879 Gordon made a treaty for the British. They cooperated, and Apia was governed by three consuls. After King Malietoa Talavou died in 1880, the Americans helped avert a civil war over the throne as Laupepa became king and Tupua Tamasese vice king. When the Germans supported Tamasese, he set up his throne at Mulinu’u. Other Samoans did not like the Germans, and in 1884 they twice petitioned Queen Victoria to declare Samoa a British protectorate. When German consul Weber learned of this, he claimed the land at Mulinu’u. In 1885 German sailors took down Laupepa’s Samoan flag at Apia. Weber brought Tamasese to Apia and got the Samoans to accept him as king. The German captain Eugen Brandeis worked for Tamasese and collected taxes.

In 1887 Tamasese’s forces attacked Laupepa, who declined to fight and was exiled to the Marshall Islands. The capable Mata’afa Iosefa gained Laupepa’s followers and had the support of a majority of Samoans and the Americans. On August 31, 1888 the Tamasese-Brandeis government ordered German sailors to attack Mata’afa’s camp; but they were defeated, and in September the Mata’afa forces expelled Tamasese from Mulinu’u. On March 15, 1889 a hurricane destroyed three American warships and three German warships at Apia, but the British Calliope escaped by putting out to sea. Samoans swam out to rescue as many as they could, but 92 Germans and 63 Americans died. On April 29 a meeting in Berlin agreed on a tripartite government again, and the Lands Commission granted Germany 75,000 acres, England 36,000 acres, and the US 21,000 acres. The Germans would not accept Mata’afa, and so Laupepa returned to be king. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote long letters on behalf of Mata’afa’s kingship. In early July 1893 civil war broke out, and Laupepa’s forces defeated Mata’afa and his allies. Stevenson wrote an account of the short war that ended before Captain Bickford arrived on July 16. Stevenson suffered from poor health and died at his home in Vailima on December 3, 1894 at the age of 45.

King Malietoa Laupepa died in 1898 and was succeeded by his son Malietoa Tanumafili I. His claim was challenged by Mata’afa, but the Supreme Court chose Tanumafili. Mata’afa and his followers believed the Samoans had not consented to the establishment of the Court, and on January 1, 1899 they drove Tanumafili’s forces out of Apia. American warships had shelled Apia, and the three consuls recognized Mata’afa’s government; but in May a joint commission sent by the three powers ordered the surrender of arms and proclaimed Tanumafili king. When missionaries persuaded the 19-year-old Tanumafili to go to college in Fiji, the commissioners abolished the kingship. On November 14 they agreed to divide Samoa. Germany was granted western Samoa, and Americans were given eastern Samoa with the Pago Pago harbor at Tutuila. The British got Tonga, Niue, and most of the Solomon Islands. Kaiser Wilhelm II was proclaimed king of Samoa, and Mata’afa was declared paramount chief.

Samoa Divided 1899-1949
Germany promoted their consul Dr. Wilhelm Solf, and he governed Western Samoa 1900-10. The Germans disarmed the Samoans, collecting 1,500 rifles by the end of 1901. Beginning in 1903 indentured Melanesian laborers were brought to Samoa. A Chinese consul began looking out for the rights of Chinese in 1908, and the Chinese were treated much better than Melanesians, who were allowed to be beaten with whips. That year Lauati from the island of Savai’i led a revolt to restore the Samoan kingship, but in 1909 the Germans banished him and nine other chiefs to Saipan in the Marianas. After Mata’afa died in 1912, the Administrator abolished the position of paramount chief and appointed two Samoan advisors (fautua).

In August 1914 New Zealand sent a force that was accompanied by three British cruisers and took over Western Samoa from the Germans. In order to block interracial sexual relationships Governor Robert Logan made it illegal for an indentured Chinese to enter the house of a Samoan. The British government stopped allowing the use of indentured Chinese in British territory in 1916. Planters in Samoa complained, and the New Zealand government persuaded the British to permit it again. More Chinese arrived at Apia in 1920, but in 1923 the Samoan administration yielded to criticism and announced that the Chinese remaining would not be in indentured status.

On November 7, 1918 the steamship Talune arrived at Apia with influenza aboard. The ship had been quarantined in Fiji; but the deadly disease was allowed to spread in Samoa, and Governor Logan declined medical help from American Samoa. As a result 7,542 people died out of a population of 38,302. New Zealand’s laws banning the importation of liquor angered Europeans. Like the Germans, their laws banned Samoan customs such as the right to banish law-breakers. A new ordinance allowed the Administrator to take away matai titles from Samoans and banish them, and 53 matai were punished in five years. Brigadier General George S. Richardson became administrator in 1923 and treated Samoans like children. The successful businessman Olaf Frederick Nelson founded The Samoan Guardian and criticized him.

Samoans began using non-cooperation to agitate for autonomy in 1926. On March 19, 1927 the Samoan League called “O le Mau” was formed to express their views and work by nonviolent means to reform their laws. When Richardson banished the Samoan leaders Faumuina and ’Afamasaga to Apolima, the Mau gained support. New Zealand appointed a Royal Commission to investigate, but their findings resulted in Nelson and two Europeans, E. W. Gurr and A. G. Smyth, being deported. The Mau movement grew, and four hundred leaders were arrested. In April 1928 Richardson was replaced by a lawyer, Col. Stephen S. Allen. Nearly 8,000 Samoans signed a petition to the League of Nations, but in June the Mandates Commission listened to New Zealand’s diplomats and denied Nelson a hearing. That year Nelson published The Truth About Samoa. On December 6 Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III was sentenced to six weeks in jail for refusing to pay his poll tax, and a Samoan Defence League was formed to support their prince. The Supreme Court in Auckland ruled that Samoans under the League of Nations had no right of habeas corpus. Western Samoa had no debt in 1920; but by 1929 it was up to £160,000, and Nelson accused Richardson of corruption. The two Fautua were added to the Legislative Council.

Tupua Tamasese returned in June 1929 and was greeted by thousands, and on December 28 a procession of three thousand people welcomed Gurr and Smyth back from exile. The police were prepared with machine guns, and the day became known as Black Saturday. When they tried to arrest the Mau secretary Mata’utia Karauna, Samoans surrounded him. During the scuffle police fired their revolvers, and eleven Samoans eventually died of their wounds. The chiefs Tupua Tamasese, Faumuina, and Tuimaleali’ifano were wounded while trying to restore peace. Before he died, Tupua Tamasese said,

My blood has been spilt for Samoa.
I am proud to give it.
Do not dream of avenging it,
as it was spilt in maintaining peace.
If I die, peace must be maintained at any price.1
The Samoans were angry, but they did not retaliate. Instead, they decided to declare their independence.

New Zealand sent in marines in March 1930. About four hundred chiefs and orators were arrested. In court the elderly chief Tuimaleali’ifano said that the whites had brought Christianity to Samoa, but now they were acting like heathens in shooting men and using bayonets. The Samoan men retreated into the mountains, and the women led by Tamasese’s widow Alaisala and other prominent wives carried on the Mau movement with demonstrations in Apia.

Nelson and other European and part-European Maus were exiled in Auckland. Nelson came back with Gurr in May 1933, but the following March he was sentenced to prison for eight months and exile for ten years. New Zealand’s Labour government allowed him to return to Apia in 1936. The ordinance allowing the Administrator to ban Samoans and deprive them of their titles was repealed, and the number of Samoans on the Legislative Council was doubled to four. The Labour Government also sent home the Chinese after their indentured contracts expired. Nelson was elected to the Legislative Council in 1938; but after his death in 1944, Samoans were divided.

Nationalist leaders demanded independence when New Zealand’s Governor-General Cyril Newall visited Western Samoa in 1944. Prime minister Peter Fraser came to Samoa in December and suggested they grow into self-government by cooperating with New Zealand on developing education and better living standards. He appointed Col. F. W. Voelcker as the new administrator, and he began building roads and making other improvements. Fraser worked with the forming United Nations to develop its trusteeship policy, and on December 18, 1945 the New Zealand cabinet decided to put Western Samoa under international trusteeship. Voelcker presented a draft trusteeship agreement to the Samoan fautua and Legislative Council on October 29, 1946. The Fono of all Samoa met two weeks later, but most of them wanted the United States to take care of them. However, Tamasese, Malietoa, and a few others asked New Zealand to remain their protector. On November 18 Tamasese and 45 other chiefs petitioned the United Nations for self-government with New Zealand functioning as England did for Tonga.

Eventually Tamasese and Voelcker persuaded others to accept a UN trusteeship with a High Commissioner responsible to the New Zealand government, and the Samoan Amendment Act went into effect on June 1, 1948. High Commissioner Voelcker set up committees on finance, health, education, and public works with three Samoans, one European, and the head of the department on each, and the Council of State was composed of the high commissioner and the high chiefs Tamasese and Malietoa. G. R. Powles succeeded Voelcker in March 1949, and his compassionate approach was appreciated.



The title of the US Navy commandant was changed to governor in 1905, and Tutuila was renamed American Samoa in 1911. Margaret Mead visited American Samoa while she was a graduate student in Anthropology, and in 1928 she published Coming of Age in Samoa. This controversial book described Samoan culture, especially the sexual mores of the young who told her that they were sexually active from a young age before marriage with the exception of women of high rank. Signs that virginity had been maintained were often displayed after the wedding, but this could be avoided by many. Mead believed that Samoans had more healthy attitudes about sex; but as Christian morality was adopted, this became more problematic. The Mau movement was led by Samuel Sailele Ripley, a veteran of World War I. He went to the United States for meetings but then was not allowed to return to American Samoa. The US Navy suppressed the Mau movement.

In 1940 the military base at Pago Pago was used for training and preparing US Marines. A Japanese submarine shelled Pago Pago on January 12, 1942. From March of that year until December 1943 about 10,000 American troops occupied Upolu. They hired about 2,600 Samoans who became suddenly prosperous, causing some teachers to walk out of their classrooms to take these jobs. After the war the Samoan chiefs led by Tuiasosopo Mariota defeated an attempt by the US Congress to incorporate Samoa. They created a local legislature, the American Samoa Fono, which meets in Fagatogo.

Tahiti
The experience of Alexander Selkirk living for five years on Islas Juan Fernandez off the coast of Chile until 1709 inspired Daniel Defoe to write the immensely popular Robinson Crusoe in 1719. Rousseau’s philosophy of the “noble savage” helped inspire the romantic movement, and Diderot also piqued interest in France by publishing his Supplement to Bougainville’s Voyage in 1796.

In Polynesia in 1722 Jacob Roggeveen found Rapanui (Easter Island), Bora Bora, Maupiti, and Samoa; but the Dutch Company confiscated his ships because they had not authorized his venture. Whaling ships got supplies from the Marquesas Islands in the 1790s.

In 1767 British captain Samuel Wallis of the Dolphin led the first exploration of Tahiti. He fired cannons at the southern side of the island and then went to Matavai Bay in the north. So many Tahitians surrounded his ship on canoes that he ordered more firing and later the destruction of all the canoes on the beach. After this bad start, the British soon learned that the Tahitians were very friendly and did not have sexual inhibitions. Sailors traded nails and later shirts for sexual favors. Although the ship surgeon claimed they currently did not have any syphilis or gonorrhea, these venereal diseases would eventually spread. Tahiti had several local chiefs, and Purea was regent for her young son Tu.

For Tahitians the main taboo was to be unkind, but they did not recognize private property and would take things. Their generosity and gift exchanges gradually degenerated into bartering for better bargains because the Europeans had things they wanted such as iron, muskets, and rum. Young Tahitians practiced free and open sexual play, and even the married were not jealous and shared their spouses with others. Their arioi were priests who excelled in entertaining by music, dance, plays, wrestling, and lascivious games. Because they did not want children, the arioi practiced infanticide. The supreme God of the Tahitians was called Te Atua and was impersonal and transcendent, but the son Oro had come down to Earth on a rainbow for a beautiful girl.

Soon after the British left, Louis Bougainville and two French ships arrived at eastern Tahiti in April 1768. The crews were suffering from scurvy but soon recovered, and Bougainville claimed the island for France.

The London Royal Society wanted the transit of Venus to be observed in 1769 because the phenomenon would not recur for a century. So the British sent Captain James Cook and the wealthy young botanist Joseph Banks on the Endeavour. Purea liked Banks, but she began to abuse her increased power, making her people construct a large temple. Other chiefs allied against her, and she was defeated. Cook had Fort Venus built at Matavai Bay, and he imprisoned five chiefs until two marines who had run off with women were returned. Banks persuaded Cook to take Tupia and his servant back to England. After his second voyage to Tahiti in 1774 Cook took Omai, bringing him back on his third voyage in 1776. Tuteha and Vehiatua had overthrown Purea; by the time of Cook’s return they had died, and the younger Vehiatua had become friendly with Tu. The girls were bartering for dresses, and a taboo was put on the diminishing pigs. Tu acquired new tools and became the most powerful chief.

Spaniards visited Tahiti three times and left two priests on the island in 1774. They spent their time guarding their possessions; their mission failed when they could not cure the ill Vehiatua.

Banks became president of the Royal Society and proposed that breadfruit plants be taken from Tahiti to the West Indies to supply a cheap food for the slaves there. In 1787 Captain William Bligh and the Bounty sailed to Cape Horn before going east, stopping only at the Cape of Good Hope on the way to Tahiti. Tu joined the Arioi and married Itia; their first child was killed, but then he quit the society to have children. Tu became regent and took the name Pomare. Bligh had three deserters captured, flogged, and put in irons. He left Pomare in power with a few muskets and pistols. Near Tonga, first-mate Fletcher Christian wanted to desert in a boat but learned that about half the crew wanted to join him. So they put Bligh in a boat with eighteen others but had to keep four who wanted to go with them on the Bounty. Bligh’s boat found an island the next day, but then Bligh sailed 3,600 miles to the nearest European settlement on Timor. The Bounty went to Tubuai; they built a fort but did not get along well with the natives. Christian went to Matavai Bay and by lying managed to get 460 pigs, 50 goats, and fowls. Sixteen men from the Bounty stayed in Tahiti despite the danger, and Pomare gave them land with houses. They built a schooner, and their muskets helped Pomare become ruler of all Tahiti. When the HMS Pandora arrived, fourteen mutineers were arrested. Four drowned when the ship sank in the Torres Straits. After a trial four were acquitted, three were pardoned, and three were hanged. Meanwhile Captain Bligh had successfully transported the breadfruit.

The London Missionary Society (LMS) sent the first missionaries to Tahiti in 1795. Two years later eighteen Calvinist missionaries came and criticized the infanticide and free sexuality. When the Nautilus arrived, the missionaries tried to stop the bartering for muskets. After Tahitians stripped off their clothes, eleven missionaries decided to leave on the Nautilus. The number of Tahitians had dwindled from over a hundred thousand to 16,050.

Whaling ships got supplies from the Marquesas Islands in the 1790s, and sandalwood traders depleted those forests between 1815 and 1820. The whaling industry increased in the Pacific. The United States had 200 whaling ships in 1828 and 571 by 1844, but the first drilling of petroleum in 1859 soon diminished the need for the precious whale oil. In the early 1860s Peruvians captured or manipulated some 3,500 Polynesians and Micronesians for cheap labor. Protests from other nations demanded the “slaves” be returned; but by 1866 only 257 were still alive, and only 37 made it home. Diseases brought by Europeans wiped out most of the Polynesians. For example, the population of Rapanui (Easter Island) went from about 3,000 in 1863 to 111 in 1877 because of smallpox epidemics that followed a Peruvian slave raid in 1862.

Pomare I had unified Tahiti about 1788. He abdicated in 1791 but continued as regent until his death in 1803, fighting frequent wars while about fifty European deserters also terrorized the island. European diseases had reduced the population by as much as ninety percent. Ten more missionaries came, but not one Tahitian had converted. Pomare’s son Tu became Pomare II in 1803 and attempted to conquer all of Tahiti, but in 1808 he had to flee to Mo‘orea with missionary Henry Nott. The next year all but three of the missionaries left. Pomare II asked to be baptized in 1812, and hundreds of his followers became Christians. These Christians won the war for Tahiti, and after the traditional banquet all were forgiven. Nott had learned the Tahitian language, and he adapted the ten commandments into Pomare’s new law code in 1819. Missionaries imposed laws against sex outside of marriage, alcohol, dancing, wrestling, plays, and even music except for hymns. Naturally these continued but in secret. Pomare II drank excessively and died in 1821. His son died a short time later, and his sister Aimata became Pomare Vahine IV in 1827. Money was introduced, and many girls became prostitutes. Charles Darwin visited in 1835 and thought that prohibiting flutes and dancing was foolish.

Two Catholic priests came to Tahiti in 1836, but Queen Pomare had them deported. Belgian Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout built up a prosperous trading business. He acted as consul for the United States but then became consul for France. In 1838 he persuaded Admiral Abel du Petit-Thouars to demand 2,000 Spanish dollars in compensation. Queen Pomare appealed to Queen Victoria, but the British did not want to start a war with France. A French gunboat forced acceptance of the Catholic missionaries. In 1842 Petit-Thouars seized the Marquesas Islands for France. While Queen Pomare and British consul George Pritchard were away, Moerenhout intimidated four Tahitian chiefs into accepting a French protectorate. Herman Melville had joined a mutiny on a whaling expedition and was freed from a Tahitian jail during this crisis; he later wrote the novels Typee and Omoo about his experiences. In November 1843 Petit-Thouars overthrew the monarchy and occupied Tahiti militarily. The Queen fled to Ra‘iatea, and Pritchard was deported. France’s King Louis Philippe was concerned about international opinion and in 1844 declared that Tahiti was only a protectorate. The Tahitians resisted the French occupation for two years until they realized it was futile destroying what they were trying to preserve. The other chiefs were killed or imprisoned.

Queen Pomare IV got France to promise not to annex the Leeward Islands—Huahine, Ra‘iatea, and Bora Bora. In 1866 the French persuaded the Assembly to adopt the Code Napoleon. Pomare was allowed to retain her ceremonial title until her death in 1877 when her son became Pomare V. The French envoy Isadore Chessé persuaded him to abdicate and accept a pension in 1880, when Tahiti became a French colony. Pomare V died of illness in June 1891. The painter Paul Gauguin came to Tahiti that year, and he described the funeral. With the exception of 1894 in Brittany, Gauguin lived in Tahiti until 1901 before spending his last two years in the Marquesas.

A series of French governors ruled Tahiti. In 1893 Cassaignac cancelled the election of five chiefs to the General Council because he believed they were anti-French. Chessé returned to Tahiti and was sent to Ra‘iatea, where he used his charm on the queen of Avera. Teraupo was chief at Opoa, and he agreed to a protectorate under specified conditions; but Chessé was recalled. Governor Gustave Gallet arrived in 1896 and intended to use soldiers to make the rebels submit. In 1897 the French began their conquest of the Leeward Islands by attacking Ra‘iatea, and Gallet returned in 1898. Of 3,000 Ra‘iateans 359 fought the French; but they were defeated, and about two hundred prisoners were sent to the Marquesas. In 1899 the Leeward Islands were annexed into the Colony of French Polynesia.

The French and other Europeans were drawn to the romantic Tahiti. In 1923 premier Albert Sarraut published a book recommending association instead of assimilation for the Polynesians. In 1945 the French granted Tahiti a Representative Assembly that was elected by universal suffrage. The people of French Polynesia became citizens of France in 1946 and could elect representatives to the National Assembly, the Council of the Republic, and the Assembly of the French Union.

Hawaiian Islands to 1836
Polynesians from the Marquesas Islands first settled in the Hawaiian Islands perhaps as early as 400 CE. According to legend, about 1100 the priest Paao sent a messenger to Tahiti or Samoa, and Pili came to overthrow the bad ruler and become chief. Many migrated from Tahiti in the 12th and 13th centuries, bringing food plants, dogs, pigs, chickens, and paper-mulberry trees. Pili’s descendants and other new chiefs became dominant and established their religion on the larger islands of Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, and Kauai. Their religious concept of kapu is similar to tapu (taboo). Women were not allowed to eat with men nor partake of bananas, coconuts, pork, and some kinds of fish such as shark.

While looking for a northwest passage from the Pacific Ocean in January 1778 Captain James Cook on the Resolution and with the Discovery came upon Kauai. The islanders were friendly and traded fish, pork, and sweet potatoes for brass and iron. When one took a meat cleaver, men from the Discovery fired guns at him. Lt. Williamson shot dead a man who was trying to take a boat hook. Concerned about spreading venereal disease, Cook tried to limit contact to only his healthy men. They estimated there were about 30,000 people on Kauai and five hundred on Niihau. Cook named the archipelago the Sandwich Islands after the Lord of the British Admiralty.

In the spring Cook went north but could not find an opening in the ice. In November they returned for the winter and found that venereal disease had already spread to Maui.  During this season the Hawaiians celebrated the return of Lono, and they seemed to believe that Cook might be a reincarnation of the god. Cook was greeted by about ten thousand Hawaiians at Kealakekua Bay. In February 1779 a large boat was stolen, and Cook went ashore to abduct the chief Kalaniopuu until it was returned. When a crowd of more than two thousand gathered, Cook changed his mind. Meanwhile his men blockading the canoes had killed a chief. When the crowd began throwing stones, Cook shot twice, killing one man. After the marines fired a volley, Cook was struck down and killed in the tide. Four marines were also killed. Captain Clerke fired cannons at the crowd and later negotiated for Cook’s bones.

After Kalianopuu died in 1782, he was succeeded by his son Kiwalao; his nephew Kamehameha became guardian of the war god Kukailimoku. These two factions quarreled over land, and in a battle Kamehameha’s ally Keeaumoku killed Kiwalao. The most powerful chief was Kahekili on Maui. He invaded Oahu, sacrificed his foster-son to the war god, and tortured other Oahu chiefs to death. Kahekili’s half-brother Kaeokulani ruled Kauai. Fur traders traveling between America and Guangzhou (Canton) began stopping to trade, and the Hawaiians wanted muskets. John Kendrick of the Lady Washington and others sold guns and ammunition to chiefs. Hogs were made kapu to foreigners unless they paid with weapons. Some sailors venturing on shore were killed. In 1790 at Honuaula on Maui the American merchant Simon Metcalfe on the Eleanora killed some Hawaiians in revenge for one sailor’s murder. The fighting escalated, and Metcalfe’s men killed or wounded more than a hundred. When his son Thomas Metcalfe arrived later, chief Kameeiamoku and his men killed him and four others. Another chief allowed Isaac Davis to live. Kamehameha took possession of the ship. He put a kapu on the bay and abducted boatswain John Young when the Eleanora returned.

Kamehameha did not let Davis and Young leave, and they became his allies, helping him with cannons to defeat the army at Maui. Kamehameha had to fight Keoua on Hawaii until Keeaumoku treacherously murdered Keoua at a negotiation. British merchant William Brown discovered the valuable harbor Honolulu in Oahu and was promised this island by Kahekili for military aid. Cook’s former midshipman, George Vancouver, made three voyages to the Sandwich Islands. He brought sheep and cattle, but he refused to sell arms to Kamehameha and tried unsuccessfully to stop the civil wars. Kamehameha put a kapu ban on slaughtering cattle for ten years. When Kahekili died in 1794, his son Kalanikupule with Brown’s help defeated Kaeokulani of Kauai and Maui. In celebrating the victory, Brown fired a salute to the Lady Washington. The cannon was mistakenly loaded, and Kendrick and some of his crew were killed. A month later natives killed Brown and some of his crew, and Kalanikupule took over two ships until George Lamport and their crews regained control. Lamport warned Young and Davis, and in 1795 Kamehameha invaded Maui and Oahu, chasing down and killing Kalanikupule.

The next year Kamehameha had to give up invading Kauai to go back and put down a revolt on Hawaii. He invited leading chiefs to reside at his court where he could watch them. He appointed governors for the other islands and had a fleet of 800 vessels built to transport an army of several thousand. He traded for muskets and cannons.

In 1802 Kamehameha’s armada invaded Maui and moved on to Oahu in 1804. A black plague killed many chiefs and warriors, but Kamehameha survived. Foreigners helped build more than forty ships at Waikiki. In 1810 he met Kaumualii of Kauai at Honolulu and made him a tributary governor. Isaac Davis stopped a conspiracy to poison Kamehameha but was poisoned himself.

Kamehameha I ruled the Hawaiian islands with a royal monopoly on trade, and haole (foreign) sailors were seduced to desert by Hawaiian women. Kamehameha offered land and wives to skilled navigators, sail-makers, blacksmiths, armorers, and carpenters. The American Oliver Holmes succeeded Davis as governor of Oahu, where Honolulu was becoming a major port. John Young governed Hawaii while Kamehameha was away. Francisco de Paula Marin, knowing Spanish, French, English, and Hawaiian, became Kamehameha’s interpreter and trade manager. Kamehameha gave the Winship brothers a monopoly on sandalwood for a quarter of the sales, but the War of 1812 ruined this business venture. Georg Anton Schaffer of the Russian-American Company got a similar deal in 1815, but his plotting with Kauai’s Kaumualii got him expelled two years later. On the foreign ships especially the women often disobeyed the kapu traditions, though in 1817 several people were executed for violating kapu bans.

Kamehameha died in 1819 and was succeeded by his 22-year-old son Liholiho, who became Kamehameha II. His father’s favorite wife Kaahumanu was designated kuhina nui and claimed she was fulfilling the will of her late husband. She persuaded the new king to abandon the kapu system that restricted women. She and his mother Keopuolani arranged a feast that lasted two days and broke kapu. Kamehameha II and the high priest then ordered temples and idols destroyed. Kekuaokalani, guardian of the war god, tried to save the old religion. However, he was killed in battle along with his wife, and the rebellion was suppressed in a few months.

In 1809 young Opukahaia and a few Hawaiian children had been taken to Connecticut and were educated by missionaries. Opukahaia died of typhus but inspired others to go to Hawaii in 1819. The next year Kamehameha II allowed the married young American missionaries to begin their work on probation for a year. Kamehameha II brought Kaumualii from Kauai to Oahu, where the widow Kaahumanu married him and his tall son. Kaahumanu became ill and was nursed back to health by Hiram Bingham’s wife, making her more receptive to Christianity. Kamehameha II drank excessively and went into debt buying sailing ships and furniture while the people worked hard chopping and carrying sandalwood. In 1822 the first printing in the Hawaiian alphabet provided reading lessons. Missionary William Ellis had worked in Tahiti for six years and learned Hawaiian quickly. Vancouver’s promise was fulfilled when a ship was delivered to Honolulu, and Kamehameha II expressed a wish to be protected by the British monarch. In 1823 he left to visit George IV in England, where his queen and he died of measles in July 1824. Their bodies were returned to Honolulu in May 1825, and the next month several chiefs asked to be baptized. Bingham was preaching to 3,000 natives every Sunday.

Kaahumanu and chief Kalanimoku governed for young Kauikeaouli, son of Kamehameha I. They were eager to become Christians and in 1825 decreed laws against vices such as drunkenness, debauchery, stealing, gambling, and violating the Sabbath. Whalers such as Captain William Buckle objected to the kapu on women at Lahaina, and his sailors threatened missionary William Richardson. English captain George Anson made suggestions for self-governing laws, and jury trials were adopted in 1825. In December of that year Kaahumanu, Kalanimoku, and a few others were given communion. Kalanimoku and Hiram Bingham wanted the ten commandments to be laws, but Oahu governor Boki had been to London and argued against that. Elisha Loomis published the ten commandments and fourteen rules for Christians. British consul Richard Charlton and US agent John Coffin Jones also criticized the religious laws. During the 1820s the sandalwood trade was declining as it was depleted; but whaling was developing. Americans tried to collect their debts, and in December 1826 the chiefs passed their first tax law, requiring each man to provide sandalwood or four Spanish dollars and each woman to supply a woven mat, tapa fabric, or one Spanish dollar. Two French Catholic missionaries arrived at Honolulu in 1827; the Protestant missionaries tried to have them deported, but chief Boki offered them protection.

The chiefs passed laws against murder, theft, and adultery, but the decrees against selling liquor, gambling, and prostitution were postponed. Charlton threatened to kill Kaahumanu and bullied others. He killed cattle that wandered onto his land; but when someone shot a cow of his that was trespassing, he put a noose around his neck and dragged him to town behind his horse. Boki disappeared on a ship going after sandalwood to pay his debts. Kaahumanu let her brother Kuakini govern Oahu, and he prohibited gambling and the sale of liquor. Meanwhile more missionaries were arriving and gaining converts; by the early 1830s they were educating 50,000 people in more than a thousand schools.

In 1832 Kaahumanu died, and Kauikeaouli began ruling the next year as Kamehameha III. His bringing back the hula, revelry, and other pastimes discouraged Christian ways. He was castigated for sleeping with his sister Nahienaena and tried to commit suicide when she was separated from him. In 1835 he let the chiefs implement laws against the crimes of homicide, theft, adultery, fraud, and drunkenness, and he put Kinau in charge of enforcing them. Nahienaena was excommunicated, had a child that died, and died herself in 1836.

BECK index
                                        Pacific Islands to 1949
by Sanderson Beck
Micronesia
Melanesia
Fiji and Tonga
Samoa to 1899
Samoa Divided 1899-1949
Tahiti
Hawaiian Islands to 1836
Hawaiian Islands 1836-76
Hawaii and the United States 1876-1900
Hawaii under the United States 1900-49
This chapter has been published in the book EAST ASIA 1800-1949.
For ordering information, please click here.

Micronesia
Micronesia is in the northern Pacific Ocean. The Mariana Islands were taken over by the Philippines in 1669, and in 1857 the Spanish government made them a prison. Spaniards also explored the Caroline Islands in the 16th century; Jesuits tried to evangelize them, starting in 1710; and they were colonized in the 19th century. In 1788 the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands were named after the two British captains who discovered them. American missionaries and Hawaiian converts began proselytizing in the Carolines in 1852 to redeem them from the vices caused by the whaling expeditions. The American missionary, Dr. Hiram Bingham, came to the northern Gilbert Islands in 1857 and stayed in the region until 1875. He learned Gilbertese, compiled a dictionary and a grammar, and translated the Bible. In 1875 the Spanish governor of the Philippines imposed taxes and licensing on foreign traders in the Carolines. The Germans tried to annex the Carolines in 1885. Spain appealed to Pope Leo XIII, who ruled that Spain had sovereignty but should allow Germans freedom of trade. That year Germany annexed the Marshalls, and in 1886 the British let them control the phosphate island of Nauru. The British were in the Gilberts and declared a protectorate in 1892.

After the Great War broke out in August 1914, the Japanese navy occupied eastern Micronesia in October. When the League of Nations was formed in 1919, President Wilson insisted that mandates over territories be demilitarized, and Japan was given a Class C mandate in Micronesia. Because it is south of the equator, Nauru went to the British, who systematically exploited its minerals. The Japanese tried to assimilate the Micronesians by using education, propagation of Shinto, organizing the young, and arranging for leaders to tour Japan. Natives were only given five years of education. Japan began militarizing their bases in 1939 by conscripting Korean laborers under the Military Manpower Mobilization Law. Naval bases and airfields were constructed in 1940, and in February 1941 the Fourth Fleet commander established headquarters at Truk. Japanese submarines gathered at the Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands to prepare for the attack on Hawaii. On December 10 they bombed Ocean Island and raided the Makin and Tarawa atolls in the Gilbert Islands. Most of the Europeans fled to Fiji, and in the next few months the Japanese tried to capture any remaining Europeans in the Gilberts and executed them at Tarawa.

On January 31, 1944 American forces landed on Kwajalein atoll, and within four days they had taken control of the Marshall Islands away from the Japanese. Fifteen United States battleships began shelling Saipan in the Marianas on June 13, and two days later more than 8,000 US Marines landed on the west coast, followed by an infantry division the next day. The first two nights the Japanese counter-attacked but were repulsed. Eventually 67,451 US troops defeated 31,629 Japanese soldiers, killing about 24,000 and capturing 921 prisoners while about 5,000 Japanese committed suicide. The Americans had 3,426 killed and 13,160 wounded while about 22,000 civilians died on Saipan. The US invaded the island of Tinian on July 24. The largest air base in the world was constructed on Tinian and was used for 19,000 combat missions by the “superfortress” B-29 bombers in 1945, including the planes that bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A few Japanese held out on Saipan and did not surrender until December 1, 1945.

The US Navy administered the Marianas and the Marshall Islands until 1951. President Harry Truman and the US Congress decided to put the islands of Micronesia (except for  Guam) under United Nations trusteeship with the United States as the administrator, and this became effective on July 18, 1947. The four major goals of the Trustee Agreement were to foster the development of political institutions and to promote the economic, social and educational advancement of the inhabitants. However, the Agreement also allowed military bases. The United States began atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946 and at Enewetak in 1948.



Guam is the largest island at the southern end of the Marianas. Captain Henry Glass commanded the USS Charleston during the American war against Spain and captured Guam on June 20, 1898, but his convoy did not take possession of any other islands and departed two days later. In the treaty signed on December 10 Spain ceded Guam to the United States. In 1899 Germany bought the Palaus, Marianas (except for Guam), Carolines, and the Marshalls from Spain for 18 million German marks. Richard Phillips Leary was the first US Navy captain to govern Guam, and he proclaimed separation of church and state, guaranteeing freedom of worship. His aide Lt. William Edwin Stafford wrote the first textbook on the  Chamorro language in English and books on the history and plants of Guam. In 1900 Governor Seaton Schroeder allowed the celebration of saints’ feast days in villages, but he abolished the Spanish ecclesiastical tribunals.

Captain Willis W. Bradley Jr. (1929-31) issued a bill of rights for Guam and reconstituted their Congress, but he was squeezed out by Depression budget cuts. US Navy expenditures for education in Guam decreased from $16.09 per pupil in 1934 to $14.10 in 1941, but public health improvements lowered the death rate from 28 per 1,000 in 1905 to 12 in 1940. Gangosa and leprosy were eradicated. In March 1941 the US Congress appropriated $4,700,000 to improve Guam’s harbor with defense projects.

The Japanese air force began bombing Guam at dawn on December 8 a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese troops landed at 2 a.m. on December 10, and Governor George J. McMillin surrendered five hours later. The Japanese occupied Guam with about 6,000 troops using a civilian affairs section called Minseisho, which offered a poor exchange rate before banning US money and the English language. The Japanese brought in 42 “comfort women” who were mostly Koreans and used about fifteen local “Monday Ladies” to set up five houses of prostitution.

On February 22, 1944 twelve American planes from an aircraft carrier raided Guam. That month Japan added about 15,000 more troops to defend the island, and soon food was lacking to support them. Heavy bombing by US B-24s began in May, and on June 11-12 a carrier task force destroyed 150 Japanese planes. Three days later while US Marines were invading Saipan, 46 US Navy fighters and 96 dive bombers attacked Guam. From June 18 to 20 in what was called the Battle of the Philippine Sea officially or the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” by some US pilots the US Navy defeated the Japanese Navy, which lost three aircraft carriers and 476 planes. American bombardment of Guam increased on July 18 to prepare for the invasion by the US Marines that began on July 21. A total of 54,891 US troops defeated 18,500 Japanese combatants. On the night of July 25 more than 3,500 Japanese attacked two beachheads, and General Takashima Takeshi was  killed three days later. On August 10 General Roy Geiger announced that organized Japanese resistance had been overcome. The Americans lost a reported 1,769 men while 6,053 were wounded. About 18,000 Japanese were killed as only 485 surrendered. Guam was also used for B-29 bases.

By the end of the war the US military on Guam had opened 21 schools for 7,000 students, more than had been in school in 1941. By then Guam was crowded with 201,718 military and 21,838 civilians, but ten months later the military population had been reduced to 36,923. The United States built permanent military bases on Guam, considering it a US territory rather than a trusteeship. In June 1947 Guam’s landowners complained that only 190 out of 1,519 claims for rent were being paid. On August 7 Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan proclaimed that the Guam Congress could legislate and override the governor’s veto with a two-thirds vote in both houses. On September 7, 1949 President Truman announced that the administration of Guam would be transferred to the Department of the Interior, and the Guam Organic Act went into effect on July 21, 1950.

Melanesia
Papuans had been living on New Guinea for about fifty thousand years, and Austronesians migrated there about 4,500 years ago. Portuguese navigator Jorge de Meneses discovered New Guinea in 1526. Three years later in the Treaty of Zaragoza the Portuguese claimed the western Pacific and let Spain claim the eastern Pacific. Alvaro de Mendaña de Neira from Peru named the Solomon Islands in 1568, hoping that gold would be found there. In 1606 Pedro Fernandes de Queiros landed in the New Hebrides and was expelled by the natives. Two French vessels were shipwrecked on the Solomon Islands in 1788.

Melanesia is named for its dark-skinned people and was exploited for its sandalwood in the first two decades of the 19th century until the forests were depleted. The Dutch asserted control over western New Guinea in 1828 and 1848. The biologist Alfred Wallace was living on an island off New Guinea in 1855 when he explained the development of racial characteristics as a “self-actuating process” in which the fittest survive. German traders came to Melanesia in the 1870s, and English missionaries began arriving in 1871. Four years later the wealthy William Macleay from Sydney collected natural specimens from the southern coast of New Guinea, and other scientific investigators came from Italy, Russia, and England. In 1883 Queensland premier Thomas McIlwraith tried to annex the British portion of New Guinea, but the Colonial Office repudiated his claim as unconstitutional. Representatives of Australia’s provinces and of Fiji met in December and resolved that any foreign acquisition in the south Pacific would be injurious to the British empire. Burns Philp & Company at Sydney had £750,000 and began investing in New Guinea and the New Hebrides. In 1887 a joint naval commission of British and French officers agreed to share the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). In 1906 it was declared a British-French condominium, and the combined government began the next year.

In December 1884 the Germans claimed the north coast of eastern New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago. The Neu Guinea Kompagnie prohibited the sale of alcohol, opium, and firearms to natives but allowed coercive discipline on plantations. In 1888 the British annexed the southeastern quarter of New Guinea, and Dr. William MacGregor governed it until 1898. The Dutch had long held the western half of New Guinea (West Irian). In 1895 the Dutch and British territories on New Guinea were divided by the 141st degree of longitude and the Fly River. When the Neu Guinea Kompagnie failed in 1899, the German government took over northeastern New Guinea and gave the Kompagnie money and land in compensation.

In April 1901 Reverend James Chalmers was murdered by natives of Goaribari Island. When Governor C. S. Robinson tried to arrest suspects, his ship was attacked with arrows. He ordered his men to fire their rifles, and a commission was ordered to investigate this atrocity. After Captain F. R. Barton replaced him, Robinson committed suicide. Catholic missionaries came and were established at Merauke by 1905. The Australian Commonwealth took over British New Guinea in 1906 and named it Papua. Hubert Murray was governor from 1908 to 1940 and continued the indentured labor system. Of about 300,000 natives of Papua no more than 10,000 could be indentured each year. Education was left to the missionaries and was not supported by the government.

In September 1914 Australia sent a force that took control of the German portion of New Guinea. The League of Nations granted Australia a C-class mandate, and the administration changed from military to civilian in 1921. Murray wanted to amalgamate New Guinea with Papua, but Hughes kept it separate as the Territory of New Guinea. In 1933 the Australians learned that about three-quarters of a million people were living in the interior valleys.



New Zealand sent Anglican missionaries to the Solomon Islands in the 1850s. By then the people of New Georgia were already trading for iron axes. In the 1860s Melanesians were taken to work on sugar plantations in Queensland and Fiji. In the half century ending in 1914 an estimated 100,000 Pacific islanders served as indentured laborers in Queensland, Fiji, Samoa, and New Caledonia, and about a third of them were from the Solomon Islands. In 1871 some abducted Solomon Islanders tried to escape from the Carl, and fifty were shot dead by the crew; their bodies and twenty who were wounded were thrown to the sharks. This atrocity stimulated the British government to pass the Pacific Islanders Protection Act the next year.

By 1889 New Georgians were insisting on trading for guns and ammunition. In 1893 a British Protectorate was proclaimed over the Southern Solomons, and three years later Charles Woodford became resident commissioner. In 1899 he took twenty policemen in a government yacht and a captured war canoe to suppress headhunting, and the violent practice ceased in most places by 1900. Other factors also persuaded the New Georgians to give up headhunting; they realized that counter raids affected their copra production, and Christian missionaries were teaching them a more peaceful ethics. When Europeans were murdered, police were sent out to arrest and punish the perpetrators. In 1902 Methodist missionaries began bringing better medical care to New Georgia. In 1922 the Solomons government began imposing a Native Tax and established the Native Administration that paid district headmen £12 a year, village headmen £3, and constables £1 10s. In 1939 the Australians strengthened the Navy’s coast-watcher service and extended it to Nauru and to the New Hebrides. In April of that year the British, New Zealanders, and Australians held a defense conference at Wellington. New Zealand agreed to garrison Fiji, and they landed troops at Suva and Lautoka on November 1, 1940.

In 1843 the French put Catholic missionaries at the port of Balade in New Caledonia. They survived a native rebellion in 1847, and three years later an expedition explored the coasts and the interior. In 1853 Napoleon III claimed sovereignty over New Caledonia. Ten years later it was designated as a place for convicts, and after the Paris Commune of 1871 it held political prisoners during a cattle boom that doubled the free population. Gold had been discovered in New Caledonia in the 1860s and attracted European settlers. Nickel was found in 1864, copper in 1872, and cobalt in 1875. The French and other Europeans continued to exploit the minerals, and in 1940 New Caledonia had about 17,000 Europeans. Most of the residents supported De Gaulle’s Free French, but the administration tried to accommodate the Vichy regime in Indochina. Henri Sautot, the French délégué from New Hebrides, successfully challenged them on September 19 at Nouméa with the support of the Committee of De Gaulle led by Raymond Pognon and an Australian warship. Sautot took over the administration, and on April 19, 1941 he signed an agreement with the Australian government in the name of the Free French.

On January 23, 1942 the Japanese captured Rabaul, the administrative capital of New Guinea, and most of the civilian Europeans in the Solomon Islands fled on the Malaita, the Kurimarau, and the Morinda. About 100,000 Japanese were stationed at Rabaul, and the Australians were not able to defeat them before the end of the war. New Guinea’s civil administration at Port Moresby stopped functioning in February and was not restored for three years. In March 1942 the Japanese occupied the Shortlands, and in May they took over Tulagi and Guadalcanal. The Japanese soldiers forced people to provide food and labor. The Battle of the Coral Sea prevented the Japanese Navy from taking Port Moresby by sea. In July the Japanese landed near Buna in eastern New Guinea and marched over the Owen Stanley Range toward Port Moresby, but they were turned back in September by Australian troops. The Japanese had lost their naval domination after the Battle of Midway in June, and American marines began invading Guadalcanal in August. The battle for Guadalcanal lasted six months while the natives lacked medical care and suffered hunger. In February 1943 Japan evacuated 13,000 troops to Bougainville, and Guadalcanal became a major American base. In June a massive invasion of Allied forces liberated Rendova, Munda, Vella Lavella, and Mono in the western Solomons. Alu, Fauro, and parts of Choiseul were left to be “mopped up” by the Australians.

In 1943 British administrators set up the Solomon Islands Labour Corps and paid them £1 per month. However, the Americans gave people more than this and became much more popular. Americans also sympathized with their colonial problems and suggested self-government. Nori and Aliki Nono’ohimae and later Timothy George organized meetings on the island of Malaita. Their movement was called the Maasina (Brotherhood) Rule, and it spread to other islands. In August 1945 Major W. F. M. Clemens, the district officer in New Georgia, told the assembly of headman that “a new age had dawned” in which whites and blacks would be one, but the headmen were skeptical. At a large meeting in November 1946 at ’Aoke the Maasina Rule leaders set £12 a month as the wage they wanted for laborers. The following February a Maasina Rule chief from Lau was arrested. Maasina Rule leaders announced a labor boycott, and 7,000 people met at ’Aoke in June 1947. In August the Government used a western Solomons militia to arrest the Maasina leaders of Malaita, Guadalcanal, and San Cristobal. As the Government prepared a census for the hated head tax, many refused to cooperate. Hundreds were arrested for this and later for not paying taxes. The Maasina Rule wanted an all-Malaita Council, but by the end of 1949 the movement was losing momentum.

In 1947 Mathew Belamatanga founded the Society for the Development of Native Races in the Ndi-Nggai region on Guadalcanal. He had been educated by Americans and wanted the four freedoms of speech and religion and from want and fear. Like the Maasina Rule, some of the followers tried to coerce others into joining. Belamatanga and other leaders were also imprisoned for sedition. Silas Eto was a Methodist who wrote to President Roosevelt, asking the Americans to take over the Solomons. Reverend John Francis Goldie sent Eto back to the Kusaghe region of New Georgia, and Eto’s Christian Fellowship Church led a protest movement. War damage effectively broke up most of the plantations in the Solomons, and most European planters who had abandoned their workers did not return.

In 1945 Australia’s Labor minister E. J. Ward began to restore civil government to New Guinea, and he urged a shift from indentured labor to free labor under government management. In 1946 the French set up a research institute in New Caledonia. In 1947 the South Pacific Commission was organized by the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, France, and the Netherlands to solve political issues and provide security for the islands in Micronesia and Melanesia, and the next year its headquarters was established at Nouméa on New Caledonia. Australia committed to paying 30% of its budget and New Zealand promised 15%.

Fiji and Tonga
The Fiji islands are in eastern Melanesia and probably were a stepping off point for many who migrated further east to Polynesia. Fijians had no written language until the 19th century. Fear of epidemics caused them to strangle the sick in the 1790s. In 1801 Oliver Slater told of the sandalwood in western Vanua Levu in the Fiji islands, and for the next thirteen years traders shipped this product to Port Jackson in Australia. In 1822 trade began in a large sea cucumber called beche-de-mer or trepang because it was very popular in China. The first effective missionaries to Fiji were Wesleyan and arrived at Lakeba in 1835. By 1851 the church had 2,322 members and 535 being tested for membership. Two Catholic priests had arrived in 1844, and the Fijians observed contentious competition for converts. Ma’afu came to Fiji from Tonga in 1847, and his cousin Tupou (King George) made him a governor in 1852. Cakobau succeeded his father Tanoa as the Vunivalu of Bau in 1853. King Siaosi promised to help him if he became a Christian. Cakobau converted the next year but assassinated his cousin Tui Kilakila. In March 1855 Siaosi arrived from Tonga with forty drua (ships) and 10,000 warriors, turning Cakobau’s siege of Kaba into a victorious charge. After some ambassadors were killed on the shore, the Tongans on their way home killed 300 people at Rabe. In 1857 the United States made a treaty with Fiji in order to protect their citizens.

In 1858 W. T. Pritchard came to Fiji from Samoa. Cakobau offered to cede Fiji to the British if they would take on the American debt. Pritchard put Robert Swanston in charge before sailing for England. Pritchard argued that 200,000 Fijians were an adequate labor supply. In 1860 Lt. Col. W. T. Smythe visited Levuka and questioned Cakobau’s claim to be king of Fiji. He doubted whether the Fijians would do plantation work. He noted that Fiji was not on the commercial route from Australia to Panama nor on the one from Panama to China and India. The Duke of Newcastle applied the lessons of the Maori war, and the British rejected the proposal in 1862. Smythe also criticized Pritchard for interfering with Fijians and throwing the northern coast of Vanua Levu into disorder. Ma’afu denied he had land and said that his only role in Fiji was to control the Tongans for King Siaosi. In 1861 Consul Pritchard on a British warship ordered Ma’afu’s lieutenant Wainiqolo to leave Macuata. In 1865 British consul H. M. Jones and Wesleyan missionaries proposed that the chiefs of Bau, Rewa, Lakeba, Bua, Cakaudrove, Macuata, and Nadi form a confederation to govern all of Fiji and resolve the conflicts between Cakobau and Ma’afu. In 1867 Ma’afu stood for president, causing those preferring Cakobau to withdraw. Ma’afu then formed the Lau confederation in northern and eastern Fiji, and Cakobau was formally crowned as the constitutional monarch of Bau.

The cotton income in Fiji accelerated from a mere £400 in 1863 to £92,700 in 1870. During the same period coconut oil leveled off at about £5,000, and beche-de-mer dwindled down to nothing. In the second half of the 1860s Fiji imported 1,649 laborers. In 1868 settlers acquired 235,000 acres for the cotton boom. That year the Polynesia Company offered to take over Fiji’s debt to the United States for a grant of 200,000 acres. Cakobau reluctantly accepted. King Siaosi had declined to take Fiji with the debt, declaring Ma’afu a Fiji chief. In 1869 the town of Levuka began publishing the Fiji Times. Cakobau’s secretary, W. H. Drew, organized 500 Europeans to fight rebellious cannibals in the Viti Levu interior. The next year citizens of Levuka obtained a charter from Cakobau to levy taxes for a municipal government of eleven elected householders.

By 1871 most settlers accepted Cakobau’s government, though resentment against European abuses led to the murder of Bishop John Patteson. Queensland made a law to protect recruited laborers in 1868, but others were not protected until 1872. Planters and settlers rebelled and formed their own vigilante groups, even calling one the Ku Klux Klan for a while. In January 1873 John B. Thurston sent a letter to the British government asking if they would consider accepting the kingdom of Fiji. Thurston also persuaded New South Wales governor Hercules Robinson to send a ship to quell a rebellion by planters, who were deported from Fiji. Finally in 1874 Ma’afu joined with Cakobau, and they ceded Fiji to the British. Robinson became the first governor and rejected Thurston’s sixteen conditions. The British required an unconditional cession, and Cakobau agreed.

Arthur Gordon governed the colony of Fiji from September 1875 to 1880. Imposing money taxes had been used to draw Fijians into the labor market, but Gordon allowed them to pay taxes in copra, cotton, candlenuts, tobacco, corn, and coffee. Between 1877 and 1911 about 23,000 Melanesians were imported for plantation labor, but most died of dysentery and tuberculosis. In 1879 the first ship of Indian laborers arrived from Calcutta, and in the next 35 years 60,969 indentured laborers came from India. That year the Colonial Sugar Refining Company of Sydney made an agreement with Thurston, purchased a thousand acres, and invested £50,000 in a mill at Nausori. By 1900 Fiji was exporting 32,961 tons of sugar. The Indians were obligated to work for five years and received free passage home after ten years. Most Indians sent money back to India and were resented for not contributing to the local economy. Gordon became the first high commissioner of the western Pacific in 1877. Thurston governed 1888-97 and tried to protect the rights of the Fijians while many Europeans hoping to make fortunes went bankrupt. In 1905 the Legislative Council, which was composed of six Europeans and two Fijians, declared Fijian land alienable, and 104,412 fertile acres of accessible land were sold by 1908. European settlers also gained long leases on another 170,000 acres.

In 1910 the Australian Methodist missionary, Dr. J. W. Burton, published a book criticizing Fiji’s indenture system as immoral. Workers suffered from poor housing, bad sanitation, inadequate food, low wages, diseases such as hookworm, dysentery, and syphilis, and from having too many males that caused promiscuous polyandry. Gandhi’s English friend Charles F. Andrews took up their cause and in 1917 advocated abolition. The Australian government financed a study in 1919, and Fiji’s Governor Cecil Rodwell cancelled the indenture system on the first day of 1920. In 1921 Fiji had 84,275 Fijians, 60,000 Indians, 3,878 Europeans, 2,781 mixed European-Fijians, and less than a thousand Chinese. A Department of Education was established in 1916, and in 1924 the Indian Reform League was organized to promote adult education. Fiji’s sugar production reached a peak of 98,382 tons in 1917. By then the price was £15 per ton; the highest price was £29 per ton in 1920, but in the 1930s the price dropped to £9 per ton. Sugar exports fell to 72,985 tons in 1920 but reached a high of 140,864 tons in 1936.

The social gap between Fijians and Indians is indicated by the small number of intermarriages. Only the Marist Brothers schools were not segregated. In 1928 marriage by Hindu rites was given civil status, and child marriage was banned. Muslim polygamy had never been permitted. Ratu Sukuna was a traditional leader, and he argued that Fijians were better off not participating in the alien Legislative Council. Other Fijians wanted to elect their own members to the Council. They believed that the Indians were under the British, and in 1933 they resolved that Indians should not be eligible to sit on town councils. Vishnu Deo was a Hindu leader of the reformist Arya Samaj movement, and he demanded equality for Indians. He was accused of publishing an obscene attack on orthodox Hindus and was barred from election to the Council until 1937. That year the number of Fijians and Indians on the Legislative Council was increased to five unofficial members each; but the Europeans still had five unofficial members and sixteen official members. According to the 1936 census they were supposed to represent 4,028 Europeans, 97,651 Fijians, and 85,002 Indians. With few exceptions the schools were segregated, and very few Fijians married Indians. In early 1940 copra producers met in Australia and formed the Pacific Marketing Board. The British Ministry of Food agreed to buy all of Fiji’s sugar during the war. Also in 1940 the chief Lala Sukuna became Native Lands Reserves Commissioner, and he set up the Native Land Trust Board to help the Fijians lease their lands with a central trust. Governor Philip Mitchell (1942-45) called it “one of the greatest acts of faith and trust in colonial history.”

After Japan began the Pacific war on December 7, 1941, Fiji became a communication link between Australia and the United States. Lala Sukuna recruited 6,000 Fijians to fight in the Pacific War. Many Indians refused to enlist or go overseas because they were not granted equal pay, increasing resentment. A major sugar strike divided people in 1943, and on August 26 Alport Barker moved for an unofficial majority in the Legislative Council to push for self-government. The proposal was for each community to elect six members to the council with women voting. However, Barker’s motion was buried in a committee. The Indians were split by a Muslim demand for representation. Lala Sakuna was knighted for his war service and was the main Fijian leader. The European officials kept out of Fijian affairs, and the Fijians tended to dominate politics. Yet by 1946 Fiji had 120,083 Indians and 117,488 Fijians, and it was called “Little India of the Pacific.” A. D. Patel asserted that the Indians did not wish to dominate but would not tolerate being dominated.



Tonga is a Polynesian group of islands southeast of Fiji. On the island of Tonga in 1616 the Dutch killed natives with muskets after encountering hostility and fled from what they called Traitor’s Island. In 1799 three missionaries were murdered there during a civil war, and the other seven missionaries fled.

In 1831 Wesleyans converted Tonga chief Taufa‘ahau, and he ended the tribal wars. He changed his name to King George Tupou I in 1845 and proclaimed the Methodist faith the religion of Tonga. In the 1850s he tried to mediate the political conflicts in Fiji. When his envoys were attacked by natives at Levu, the Tongans joined the side of Cakobau and helped him win a battle at Kaba. Tonga’s 1850 law code was revised and made more sophisticated in 1862. The Government implemented a budget with regular taxation, compulsory education for children, land distribution, and the liberation of Tongan serfs. In 1875 King George proclaimed a constitution with an elected legislature. Reverend Shirley Waldemar Baker had been in Tonga since 1860, and in 1880 he resigned from the Australian Conference to become prime minister. In 1885 he set up the Free Church of Tonga whose members were expected to be loyal to King George. After some escaped convicts tried to shoot the King, Baker blamed the Wesleyans and deported the remaining hundred to Fiji. The high commissioner Charles Mitchell criticized Baker, and John Thurston investigated and exiled Baker to New Zealand in 1890. King George Tabou I died in 1893 at the age of 95 and was succeeded by his great-grandson who became George Tabou II.

In 1900 the British established a protectorate over Tonga and concluded a treaty of friendship, but the native government continued. In 1904 High Commissioner Everard im Thurn deported to Fiji the Tongan premier and treasurer so that the British agent and consul could supervise Tonga’s finances. The treaty was revised the next year giving the British agent veto power over the budget and expenditures. King George Tabou II died on April 5, 1918 and was succeeded by his 18-year-old daughter who became Queen Salote and ruled until her death in 1965. Her husband Uliame Tungi had been educated in Australia and became premier in 1922. In 1924 the Rockefeller Foundation funded a successful campaign against hookworm, and a Central Medical School was established at Suva in 1929. Tongans maintained their independence, and in the 1930s there were still no European planters in the kingdom. After 1932 Tonga had only two Europeans in the cabinet. Tonga supported the British during World War II and accommodated 10,000 US troops in 1942 at Tongatapu. The Tonga defense force was built up to 2,700 troops. The population of Tonga reached 50,000 by 1950.

Samoa to 1899
Samoa is a Polynesian group of islands northeast of Tonga. Austronesians migrated to Samoa about two thousand years ago. The language of the Samoans may be the oldest in the Polynesian group. In 1768 Louis de Bougainville saw Samoans sailing far from land, which he called the Navigator Islands. Explorer Lapérouse had a difficult encounter in 1787, and Samoans killed twelve of his men. Lapérouse was unable to punish the perpetrators and restrained himself from attacking the innocent. Four years later the HMS Pandora, while looking for Bounty mutineers, was attacked and used guns to kill many Samoans. These incidents apparently discouraged other ventures. By the 1820s a few sailors had become beachcombers and taught some Samoans about Christianity. A Samoan who had traveled to other islands and Australia founded the Sio Vili cult, and European missionaries began arriving in 1828.

John Williams began working for the London Missionary Society (LMS) in 1816 at Ra’iatea and went to Rarotonga in 1823. Lacking funds, he built a ship called the Messenger of Peace. In 1830 he sailed with Charles Barff and eight teachers from Tahiti and Rarotonga and at Tonga was joined by the Samoan Fauea, who guided them to the Malietoa’s residence in Samoa. They learned that the chief Tamafaiga had been assassinated for taking a virgin, and Tamafaiga’s relative Malietoa Vainu’upo of Savai’i was fighting a war of vengeance against Aiga-i-le-Tai of A’ana that lasted three years. Vainu’upo claimed to be only the third Tafa’ifa since Salamasina in the 15th century. After exchanging gifts, Fauea explained the sacred mission of Williams, and Vainu’upo accepted the eight teachers. Williams said that European ships would not come to trade unless the Samoans became Christians. Samoans were forbidden to eat certain species of birds, animals, and fish that were sacred aitu. To show their conversion to Christianity, they publicly ate their aitu and stopped worshipping idols. In 1832 Williams came back with a chief from Rarotonga and a teacher for the people of Manono. Two years later Barff returned with the first books printed in Samoan.

Wesleyan missionary Peter Turner came to Samoa from Tonga in 1835 to fulfill the request of the sacred chief Lilomalava. In his book Missionary Enterprise in the South Seas, Williams stated his belief that the Wesleyans had agreed to let the LMS have Samoa. The Wesleyan authorities made Turner leave in 1839, but he claimed 13,000 Samoans had become Methodists. That year Williams was killed in Vanuatu (New Hebrides), and his body was eaten; the natives were upset with Europeans who had raided their sandalwood and abducted laborers. In 1839 the first Samoan newspaper was published, and a school was founded at Malua three years later. The New Testament was printed in Samoan in 1848 and the Old Testament in 1855.

Tonga’s King George Tupou visited Samoa in 1842 and 1847. He asked the English to send Wesleyan missionaries to Tonga, but they did not do so until 1857. George Brown was a successful missionary in Samoa during the 1860s and at New Guinea in the 1870s. Two Catholic priests arrived in 1845, and they converted Tuala Taetafe three years later. Samoans called Christians Lotu and Catholics Lotu Pope. The Catholics tolerated tattooing but were more strict about marriage and divorce than the Protestants. A Catholic training college was founded in 1875. By then the LMS Congregational Church in Samoa had 75,679 members compared to 33,180 Catholics, 23,864 Methodists, and 11,886 Latter Day Saints (Mormons).

In 1842 Malietoa Taimalelagi defied the missionaries and went to war with the support of Manono, Tuamasaga, and most of Savai’i against Satupa’itea and Palauli. In 1847 George Pritchard became the first British consul. The next year the A’ana people and their Atua allies were aided by European-built gunboats in their war against Manono and their fast canoes. A truce was supported by the missionaries in 1851, but it did not last. The war went on until 1857 when foreign consuls established a mixed court and laws for Apia. Malietoa Taimalelagi died in 1858 and was succeeded by Malietoa Vianu’upo’s son Malietoa Moli. He suffered frequent abductions by European settlers; they held him hostage until they captured Samoans who had offended them. In 1849 George Pritchard’s son William had established a store at Apia, which became a popular port of call for sailors and others seeking liquor and a good time. William Pritchard succeeded his father as British consul in 1856. He accused an American squadron of burning down an entire village and complained that the British were being laughed at for their leniency. The Samoan chiefs agreed to the Vaimauga code of laws in 1860. Chiefs at Apia Bay formed a Samoan police force and had a prison built. Foreigners organized the Association for the Mutual Protection of Life and Property.

The German company J. C. Godeffroy & Sohn began plantations and trading in the 1850s and grew quickly. Their manager Theodore Weber became the consul for Hamburg and later Germany. They encouraged the growing of coconuts and made copra their chief export, though cotton exports increased in the late 1860s. Copra exports reached a value of £121,369 in 1875. Samoans sold their land carelessly to more than one buyer. In 1868 Moli’s son Malietoa Laupepa became king, and the next year his supporters formed a confederation at Apia; but they were opposed by Malietoa Talavou and his followers. Talavou’s side invaded Laupepa’s headquarters at Matautu and tore down the British flag.

Two days later Hirohito went to see MacArthur, and in a private meeting they seemed to form a working relationship for cooperation. MacArthur was surprised and impressed that the Emperor accepted “sole responsibility for every political and military decision made and action taken by my people in the conduct of war.”6 Later MacArthur gave Hirohito credit for playing “a major role in the spiritual regeneration of Japan.” The main post-war prime minister Yoshida believed that not prosecuting and executing the Emperor was the greatest single factor that made the occupation a success.

On October 4 MacArthur issued a civil liberties directive that abolished the Peace Preservation Law, the National Defense Security Law, and the special higher police. Learning that several thousand officials would be dismissed, the Higashikuni cabinet resigned in protest the next day. Three days later MacArthur imposed censorship on Tokyo newspapers and radio. He approved the Emperor’s choice of 74-year-old Shidehara Kijuro as prime minister. On October 10 display of the sun flag was banned, but people were allowed to sing the national anthem “Kimigayo.” The next day GHQ freed about five hundred political prisoners, mostly Communists, and announced the “five great reforms” that would emancipate women, promote labor unions, and democratize politics, education, and the economy. Political parties began to organize, and Communists could criticize the Emperor publicly. On October 22 GHQ dismissed all teachers who had advocated militarism or opposed occupation policies.

The issue of the Emperor abdicating was discussed, but it was argued that he was needed to carry it out the Potsdam Declaration. GHQ revealed that Hirohito’s financial assets were more than 16 billion yen. He went on a tour by train and began to meet the people.

GHQ began breaking up the huge zaibatsu conglomerates in early November. The chief holding companies were required to sell their stocks to the public, beginning the Tokyo stock exchange. Later an anti-monopoly law was passed that prohibited trusts, cartels, interlocking corporate controls, and agreements restraining trade. Agrarian land reform was also initiated. In the first purge of the Diet the Progressives lost about 93% of their seats and the Liberals about 45% of theirs. The Diet had 16% of its members purged compared to 80% of military officers and less than 1% of civil servants. Weapons research was banned. The Japanese atomic program was abolished, and scientists were arrested. All five cyclotrons were destroyed in November even though MacArthur had approved their use for medicine, metallurgy, and agriculture. The headquarters of the Navy and Army had been dissolved in October, and on December 1 those two ministries were abolished and became the First and Second Demobilization Ministries. In June 1946 these ministries became bureaus of the Demobilization Board. Also in December the Pauley Report recommended removing all equipment from Japan’s war industries and reducing severely their capacities in steel, machine tools, and shipping. Later these punitive measures were moderated.

GHQ’s Civil Information and Education (CIE) section prepared propaganda to persuade people that militarism had caused them to lose the war. “A History of the Pacific War: The Destruction of Deceit and Militarism in Japan” was translated into Japanese, and the first installment was published in all national newspapers on December 8, 1945. The articles detailed the terrible consequences of the Japanese war crimes and blamed military cliques while the Emperor and the people were portrayed as deceived victims. The Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) broadcast on radio a version called “Now It Can Be Told” for thirty minutes three times a week until February 10, 1946. Masunaga Zenkichi hired Mainichi newspaper reporters to write The Twenty-Year Whirlwind: Exposing the Inside Story of the Showa Period to reveal the secret history of the war. The first volume covering 1926 to 1936 was published on December 15 and sold 100,000 copies in the first week. The second volume which went to the end of the war was published on March 1, 1946 and soon sold more than 700,000 copies. The Twenty-Year Whirlwind stayed on the best-seller list through 1947.

On December 15 SCAP ordered the disestablishment of the Shinto religion with its directive “Abolition of Government Sponsorship, Support, Preparation, Control, and Dissemination of State Shinto.” After much negotiation with religious leaders SCAP allowed some shrines to have government support as cultural treasures. In his New Year’s message Hirohito warned the people against “the false conception that the emperor is divine and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world.”4 He advised people to follow the Meiji Charter Oath of his grandfather as a better precedent. MacArthur tried to promote Christianity and encouraged American missionaries to come to Japan. At his urging ten million Bibles were imported, but the pages of many were used for cigarette papers.

American Occupation of Japan 1946-49
Women were given the right to vote on December 17, 1945 and the voting age was lowered from 25 to 20. In the provinces 23 women were elected to prefectural assemblies, 74 to city councils, and 707 to town assemblies. Wives were given the right to own property and the equal right to divorce. Primogeniture was abolished, and daughters could inherit as much property as sons. Males at age 18 and females at 16 could marry without their parents consent, ending contract marriages and concubinage. The high schools became coeducational, and 26 women’s universities were started. In January 1946 SCAP abolished “public” prostitution as a violation of women’s rights, but by the time this took effect months later nearly ninety percent of RAA women were infected with diseases. One unit in the US 8th Army had 70% of its men detected with syphilis and 50% with gonorrhea. In 1948 there were still 670 licensed houses of prostitution in Tokyo and about twice that many private ones. Birth control gradually gained popular support even though Margaret Sanger was barred from speaking in Japan. Abortion was legalized in June 1949. In September 1946 the Diet passed a law increasing the autonomy of cities, towns, and villages.

On December 22, 1945 the Diet passed a Trade Union Law that guaranteed worker rights to organize, strike, and bargain collectively. In 1946 about 845,000 union members participated in about 1,260 industrial disputes as employees often demanded participation in production management. In September the Labor Relations Adjustment Law established procedures for settling labor disputes.

At the beginning of 1946 the purge of about 200,000 ultranationalists and militarists from holding public office began. The Ministry of Education had already removed or accepted the resignations of 116,000 teachers, and in 1946 another 6,000 were purged. MacArthur ordered all suspect organizations dissolved, and new organizations had to register with the government, reporting their purposes, funding sources, and members. On January 25 MacArthur sent a strong cable to Washington arguing that arresting the Emperor would threaten the goals of the occupation and cause chaos. The imperial family’s holding company was dissolved, and most of the fortune was given to the people. In December 1946 eleven of the fourteen princes lost their aristocratic positions and much of their wealth, but the Emperor’s three brothers retained their imperial status.

In March a commission led by New York State commissioner of education George Stoddard submitted a report to SCAP that suggested purging militaristic and ultranationalist teachers, revising textbooks, and altering curriculum. They recommended nine years of compulsory schooling, decentralized control, more colleges, and education that encouraged students to think. Japan adopted these proposals and the American system of six years of elementary school, three years in junior high school, three years in high school, and four years of college. Public schools were put under locally elected boards. In 1949 Japan established 68 new national universities and 99 other universities. Junior colleges were started in 1950. The Japan Teachers Union was influenced by left-wing politics. The National Student Federation was founded in September 1948 and staged demonstrations on behalf of democracy.

In April 1946 a national election was held with 2,781 candidates representing 257 parties running for 466 seats in the Diet. Hatoyama Ichiro led the Liberal party that was formed from Seiyukai members and won 140 seats. Shidehara led the Progressive party from Minseito members, and they captured 93 seats. Katayama Tetsu organized the Japan Socialist party, which won 92 seats. Tokuda Kyuichi led the Communists after being in prison for eighteen years, and they occupied five seats. Japanese women voted for the first time, and 39 women were elected to the Diet, including one prostitute. SCAP disqualified Hatoyama because of his violations of civil liberties between 1928 and 1934. So the Liberals chose Yoshida Shigeru to head the government; he was acceptable because he had tried to end the war. Yoshida would be prime minister most of the time for the next seven years, and urged on by SCAP the Diet passed seven hundred laws.

MacArthur rejected a revision of the Meiji Constitution drafted by the Japanese, and on February 3 he ordered the Government section of GHQ to draft a new constitution quickly that was made public on March 6. MacArthur noted that it borrowed from many constitutions, and he believed it was the “most liberal constitution in history.” Prime Minister Shidehara said, “We must see to it that our constitution establishes the foundation for a democratic government and externally leads the rest of the world for the abolition of war.”7

On January 24, 1946 Shidehara had proposed a “no-war” article and persuaded MacArthur that in this way the Japanese people could show the world that they would never engage in war again. MacArthur liked the idea and instructed the Government section to make it one of the three essential principles in the new constitution. This most innovative feature of the Japanese constitution is the pacifist Article 9 which states:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace
based on justice and order,
the Japanese people forever renounce war
as a sovereign right of the nation
and the threat or use of force
as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph,
land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential,
will never be maintained.
The right of belligerency of the State will not be recognized.8
In July the Far Eastern Commission insisted that only civilians be permitted to hold cabinet positions, and this was eventually accepted. After much debate the Diet adopted the new constitution on August 21 by a vote of 429-8. Five Communists objected to retaining the emperor, who was referred to as “the symbol of the State and unity of the people.” The people are sovereign and elect both houses directly. The lower House of Representatives may over-ride the upper House of Councilors with a two-thirds majority. The prime minister has to be a member of the Diet and is elected by the upper house. Civil rights are expanded to include “minimum standards of wholesome and cultural living,” and the State is obligated to promote and extend social welfare, security, and public health. The right to education is guaranteed along with labor rights and the equality of husband and wife. The judiciary is independent, and the Supreme Court has the power to supervise lower courts and decide which laws are constitutional. The jury system was not adopted. Article 14 ended the titles and privileges of peers, and the Socialists got this to take effect immediately rather than merely banning future patents of peerage.

In October 1946 the Diet passed the Farm Land Reform Law that prohibited absentee landlords. A landlord living in the community could own up to 2.5 acres, and a farmer could utilize a maximum of 7.5 acres and own another 2.5 acres. Government purchased land and sold it to former tenants with 3.2% interest over thirty years. Land transfers were managed by 13,000 locally elected land commissions. In 1947 the Agricultural Cooperative Union Law helped farmers work together in unions. By 1950 about 2,340,000 landowners had sold to about 4,750,000 tenants and farmers 2,800,000 acres of rice land and 1,950,000 acres of upland. The Government also redistributed 600,000 acres of pastureland. The percentage of farmers who were tenants dropped from 28% in 1941 to less than 8%. During the land reform three-eighths of the agricultural land changed owners.

In January 1947 several unions dominated by the Communists threatened a general strike that was to begin on February 1, but MacArthur issued a statement on January 31 saying that it would cripple the movement of food and industry and could not be allowed during “the present impoverished and emaciated condition of Japan.” The Communist newspaper and their literature were censored, and the Japanese were not permitted to visit Communist countries. In April the Labor Standards Law established the eight-hour day, vacation time, sick leave, safety and sanitation protections, accident compensation, and limits on hours and conditions for working women and children. In March 1948 some unions formed the Democratization League that was anti-Communist. In July the Diet passed a law to restrict the right of government employees to strike. In December an injunction was issued to stop a coal miners’ strike. By 1949 more than 6,500,000 of the 15,000,000 industrial workers were in more than 35,000 unions. Also in 1949 a law protected the democratic control of unions in order to prevent Communist takeovers.

The new constitution went into effect on May 3, 1947, and on that day twenty million copies of New Constitution, Bright Life were distributed. The introduction suggested that declaring they would not participate in war anymore was the only way that Japan could be reborn. In the elections that were held in April the Socialists won the most seats with 143, and Katayama formed a coalition with the Progressives, who had changed their name to the Democratic party and were led by Ashida Hitoshi. The problems of food shortages, unemployment, inflation, and labor unrest persisted, and on February 10, 1948 Katayama and his split cabinet resigned. One month later Ashida became prime minister, but in October a scandal caused him to resign. The Liberals had formed a coalition with the Democratic party in March, and Yoshida became prime minister again in October. He dissolved the Diet and held a national election in January 1949. The Liberal party increased their seats from 152 to 264, a majority of the 466 members.

In June 1947 the Foreign minister Ashida told the press that the Japanese wanted Okinawa back. Three weeks later MacArthur argued that the Japanese would not object because Okinawans are not Japanese and because American bases were needed on Okinawa to defend Japan’s security. The Diet had abolished the voting rights of Okinawans in December 1945, and in the burgeoning Cold War the Emperor suggested that the American military occupation could continue in the Ryukyu islands for 99 years.

In 1947 a law decentralized the police by requiring every municipality with a population of more than 5,000 to maintain its own police force. A small national police force controlled by the National Public Safety Commission served rural areas. In an emergency the prime minister could take over operational control of local police, but the Diet had to approve this within twenty days.

By June 1947 the deconcentration and anti-monopoly laws forced 83 zaibatsu holding companies and about 5,000 other companies to reorganize. The next month SCAP ordered the Mitsui Trading Company and the Mitsubishi Trading Company dissolved. Mitsui and Mitsubishi were broken up into 240 different firms. Most executive salaries were limited to 36,000 yen a year, and the very highest could not exceed 65,000. A review board was established that reduced the number of companies to be dissolved from 1,200 to 325 in February 1948. The next month George Kennan, who was developing the containment theory for the Cold War, visited and urged the economic rehabilitation of Japan so that it could be a constructive ally against the Communists. In May business interests brought about a change in policy, and only eleven companies were ordered broken up in August 1949. SCAP decided not to ship Japanese industrial equipment to other nations as reparations so that the Japanese economy could recover. Instead Japan paid cash, and by 1964 Japan had paid six Southeastern nations $477 million.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare tested for tuberculosis and reduced the death rate from 280 per 100,000 in 1945 to 145 in 1950 and 108 in 1951. Immunization reduced the morbidity rate of typhoid fever about ninety percent. In late 1949 and early 1950 the entire population of 83 million was reimmunized for smallpox, and 1950 had only five cases of those returning from Korea. The death rate that reached a high of 29 per 1,000 in 1945 was reduced to less than 11 by 1950.

The Detroit banker Joseph Dodge came from West Germany to Japan in December 1948, and he recommended harsh policies to stabilize the economy. The government workforce was reduced by 260,000 employees to balance the budget. Government subsidies and price controls were reduced. The Reconstruction Finance Bank was closed down, and Dodge set the exchange rate at 360 yen to the dollar. The unemployment and social distress that resulted enabled the Communists to win 35 seats in the Diet in the election on January 24, 1949, though the Socialists lost 95 seats, retaining only 48.

Trials of Japanese War Crimes
The Occupation forces began rounding up suspected war criminals in September 1945. General Yamashita was put on trial for war crimes in the Philippines on October 29. American journalists reported that hearsay evidence was allowed. He had trained attack forces in Manchuria in 1941, and while commanding Malaya he had allowed the secret police to kill 5,000 Chinese merchants in Singapore. Yet Yamashita had been criticized by Hirohito for disciplining officers who allowed atrocities against British troops in Malaya in 1942. In 1944 he prevented US prisoners from being killed according to imperial orders. Yamashita was charged with many atrocities that occurred in Manila that he could not control. He was sentenced to death on December 7, and the US Supreme Court upheld his conviction by a vote of 5-2. Justice Frank Murphy wrote a 32-page dissenting opinion arguing that he had not participated in the atrocities charged nor condoned them. Murphy warned against a “procession of judicial lynchings without due process of law.” Yamashita was hanged on February 23, 1946 near Manila. The trial of General Honma began on December 7, 1945 in Manila. He was the commander in the Philippines in 1942 and was held responsible for the Bataan death march. Once again Justice Murphy dissented because Honma was not directly involved in the crimes. He was executed by a firing squad on April 3, 1946.

On January 19, 1946 MacArthur promulgated the Tokyo Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) which followed rather closely the principles that had been worked out in Nuremberg, Germany defining crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The Far Eastern Commission (FEC) demanded that all its members sit on the Tribunal, and the Charter was modified on April 23. The Americans had tried to exclude the Philippines and India, but they were members of the FEC and were included. Neither Emperor Hirohito nor any members of his family nor anyone who would implicate them was indicted. The United States wanted to learn from Unit 731’s research into bacteriological warfare and chemical weapons, and they gave immunity to General Ishii Shiro and others who had experimented on Allied soldiers. Eventually 5,379 Japanese, 173 Formosans, and 148 Koreans were brought to trial. Many of their rights were violated as all statements were admitted as evidence even though defense attorneys were not present during interrogations.

Twenty-eight Class A war criminals were tried in Tokyo by eleven judges from May 1946 to April 1948. Of the 217 charges, 132 were proved. Count One was the most sweeping and charged that there was a conspiracy to dominate East Asia and all countries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans militarily, politically, and economically. The judgment was 1,781 pages, and the tribunal president William Webb of Australia spent nine days reading it in November 1948. Eight of the judges were in full agreement. B. V. A. Röling of the Netherlands in his concurring opinion disagreed that aggression is an international crime, and he voted to acquit Kido, Hata, Shigemitsu, and Togo. Judge Henri Bernard of France dissented in the belief that the Emperor, the principal author of the war, had escaped prosecution, and so he would not condemn the others. Radhabindo Pal of India believed none of them were guilty because conspiracy was not proven, aggressive war was not an international crime, and the war crimes had not been proven. Pal had been a supporter of Chandra Bose and Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and he argued that the American use of the atomic bombs was as serious as any of the other crimes. He warned that future generations would condemn that “dire decision.”

The death sentences were appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled on December 20, 1948 that it did not have jurisdiction. The seven men hanged three days later were Tojo Hideki, Doihara Kenji, Itagaki Seishiro, Kimura Heitaro, Muto Akira, Matsui Iwane, and Hirota Koki. Tojo was prime minister 1941-44. General Doihara had Allied prisoners under his command tortured and murdered. General Itagaki withheld food and medicine from thousands of Allied prisoners. General Kimura was vice War minister under Tojo and allowed his troops to commit atrocities in Burma. General Muto was held responsible for atrocities in northern Sumatra and for thousands of murders on the Bataan death march. General Matsui was the officer in charge of the attack on Nanjing that resulted in tens of thousands of murders and rapes. Hirota was the only civilian hanged; as Foreign minister for several years and prime minister he was convicted of waging aggressive war in China and disregarding the laws of war.

The sixteen men sentenced to life in prison were War minister Araki Sadao, Col. Hashimoto Kingoro who was a commander at Nanjing and shelled an American gunboat, War Minister Hata Shunroku who commanded a force in China 1940-44, Prime Minister Hiranuma Kuchiro, Manzhouguo chief and Tojo secretary Hoshino Naoki, Finance Minister Kaya Okinori, Seal Keeper Kido Koichi whose diary provided much evidence, Korea governor-general and Prime Minister Koiso Kuniaki, Guandong Army commander Minami Jiro, Admiral Oka Takesumi, Oshima Hiroshi who was ambassador to Germany, War Minister Sato Kenryo, Admiral Shimada Shigetaro, Shiratori Toshio who was ambassador to Italy, economic planner Suzuki Teiichi, and Army Chief Umezu Yoshijiro.

Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori had signed the declaration of war and was sentenced to twenty years, and Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru received seven years. Diplomat and Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke and Admiral Nagano Osami died during the trial. The erudite scholar Okawa Shumei tried to undress in court, made bizarre statements, persuaded doctors that he was suffering from tertiary syphilis, and was deemed unfit for trial. In prison he wrote extensively on religion and later had several lucid books published. Prince Konoe had committed suicide after he learned he was to be arrested. Tojo shot himself in the chest but survived and was considered the most impressive interlocutor during the trial. He had previously said that his orders were given with the Emperor’s authorization; but after Hirohito provided for his family, Tojo retracted that. By 1956 all the war criminals who had been convicted in Tokyo had had their sentences commuted.

The Class B war criminals were high military officers who were charged with violating the laws and customs of war and being responsible for atrocities committed by troops under their command. The Class C war criminals were tried for crimes against humanity that included mistreating prisoners as well as atrocities. The Class B and C suspects were held to be tried by Allied military commissions, usually where the crimes were committed. Eventually 2,944 were sentenced to prison with 475 getting life terms. The tribunals acquitted 1,018, and 279 were never tried. Of the 984 death sentences the British upheld 223, the Australians 153, the Nationalist Chinese 149, the Americans 140, the French 26, and the Filipinos 17. These trials were completed in the fall of 1949. The Chinese Communists put Japanese war criminals in re-education camps and did not sentence any to death. More than a thousand suspects were tried in Yokohama, and 200 were acquitted; 124 were sentenced to be hanged, and 62 were given life imprisonment.

The Soviet Union may have executed about 3,000 Japanese as war criminals. In the last week of December 1949 in Khabarovsk twelve members of the Guandong Army were convicted for manufacturing and using biological weapons. General Kiyoshi Kawashima testified that fleas contaminated with plague were dropped from planes over Changde. They were sentenced to a labor camp and were repatriated to Japan in 1956.

Tojo himself violated the Field Service Code that had been issued in 1941 when he ordered forced labor by prisoners of war to help the war effort. The worst treatment of prisoners of war occurred in Borneo at Sandakan, where 2,000 Australians and 500 British were being held in September 1943, but only six survived the war. Prisoners who tried to escape were killed, but most deaths were caused by disease and malnutrition. Those able who refused to work were denied rations. At Ambon only 123 out of 528 Australian POWs survived. Of the 60,500 POWs who worked on the Burma-Thailand railroad about 12,000 died. In New Guinea, where more than a hundred thousand Japanese soldiers were stranded without supplies, hunger led to extensive cannibalism of prisoners and others. Perhaps because those soldiers were also victims of the Japanese war machine that abandoned them, only three soldiers out of the fifteen prosecuted for cannibalism were convicted. The Japanese forced about 90,000 “comfort women” to serve their soldiers as prostitutes, about one for every 35 men.

The IMTFE condemned the influence of the Bushido code for causing atrocities; but others have argued that this code had been corrupted as self-discipline and compassion for others were replaced by the zealous loyalty to the Emperor, the state, and the military. The militarist ethics led the Japanese Army to wage total war with little constraint. As a result Japan killed enormous numbers of combatants and civilians. Their army used thousands of pack animals that had to be fed as they lived off the land, leaving little food for the native population. The drug traffic was used to obtain money. Admiral Iwabuchi’s soldiers were accused of running amok while drunk, plundering, raping, and murdering the civilians in Manila in 1944-45. The trials helped the Japanese people realize some of the horrible consequences of their aggressive imperialism and to understand why those efforts needed to be defeated.

Censorship and Kurosawa's Early Films
The Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD) employed 6,000 people to identify and translate questionable material in seventy newspapers, all books, magazines, and radio scripts which were censored before publication. In the four years before it was abolished in late 1949 the CCD examined 330 million pieces of mail and monitored about 800,000 private phone conversations. Their rules ordered publishers not to give censorship any publicity so that the Japanese people would not even know who and what were being censored. Criticism of SCAP, occupation forces, or any of the Allies was forbidden. In 1946 the press was told that occupation costs were to be called “war-termination costs.” John Hersey’s Hiroshima, which was published in The New Yorker magazine in 1946, could not be published in Japanese translation until 1949, and the Americans required that Nagai’s Bells of Nagasaki include an appendix on “The Sack of Manila” by the Japanese in 1945.

Censorship in Japan changed in 1947 as Cold War issues replaced concerns about militarism. By December only two of the 28 periodicals still having prepublication censorship were ultra-rightist while the other 26 were left-wing or progressive. In October 1948 Suzuki Toshisada, the publisher of Japan Review, was threatened with penal service in Okinawa if he did not fire his editor, who resigned.



Film censorship in Japan began as early as 1908, and in 1917 local governments used licensing laws to screen films and eliminate objectionable material. In 1925 Japan passed the Censorship Regulation of Moving Pictures or “Films” that prohibited showing films to those under fifteen years of age and required theaters to keep men and women spectators separated. Completed films with explanatory scripts had to be submitted for approval, and explicit sexual scenes and subversive ideas were suppressed. The 1939 Film Law was based on a Nazi law and was intended to promote “the nation’s cultural development.” Scenes that challenged the royal family, the imperial constitution, the empire, decorum, national morality, and proper use of the Japanese language were forbidden. In 1940 the Ministry of Internal Affairs even prohibited frivolous films, and they urged films showing industrial and food production and people ready to serve.

Under the American occupation on September 22, 1945 the Civil Information and Education (CIE) section began encouraging films about the following subjects: peaceful Japanese life; resettling soldiers as civilians; restoring favor to former prisoners of war; showing progress in industry, agriculture and national life; encouraging labor unions; developing political responsibility with free discussion, respect for rights, and tolerance for all races and classes; and dramatizing those who stood for freedom and representative government. The 1939 Film Law was repealed on October 16, and by then the CIE was already demanding prior censorship of film scripts and projects. On November 16 they banned 236 of the 455 Japanese films produced since 1931. Three days later the CIE announced that films would be forbidden if they were:

1. infused with militarism;
2. showing revenge as a legitimate motive;
3. nationalistic;
4. chauvinistic and anti-foreign;
5. distorting historical facts;
6. favoring racial or religious discrimination;
7. portraying feudal loyalty or contempt of life
    as desirable and honorable;
8. approving suicide either directly or indirectly;
9. dealing with or approving the subjugation
    or degradation of women;
10. depicting brutality, violence or evil as triumphant;
11. anti-democratic;
12. condoning the exploitation of children; or
13. at variance with the spirit or letter
    of the Potsdam Declaration or any SCAP directive.9
Kamei Fumio’s Fighting Soldiers about the war in China had been produced in 1939 with official sponsorship by the military, but it was soon withdrawn for being defeatist. Kamei’s 1946 documentary The Tragedy of Japan was supported by American officials and used government newsreels in Frank Capra’s exciting style to depict how the ruling class led Japan into an aggressive and destructive war. When it began to attract larger audiences in August 1946, GHQ abruptly banned the film. In 1947 Kamei and Yamamoto Kajiro produced the feature Between War and Peace in which a soldier returns from China years after having been declared dead and finds his wife has married his best friend, as in D. W. Griffith’s 1911 Enoch Arden. The film portrays the misery of the war in China, the terrible living conditions in Tokyo with air raids, and the post-war squalor. The Civil Censorship Detachment required that 30 minutes be cut from the film, and no Americans were depicted on screen during the occupation.



Kurosawa Akira (generally known as Akira Kurosawa) was born on March 23, 1910 in Tokyo. He wanted to be an artist; but to earn money he became an assistant director, and the film director Yamamoto Kajiro became his mentor. Sanshiro Sugata in 1943 is the first feature that Kurosawa directed. Based on Tsueno Tomita’s novel and set in 1882, Sanshiro Sugata learns from a master that the art of judo is a spiritual discipline. Kurosawa’s next feature The Most Beautiful made in 1944 is a docudrama about women working in a lens factory for the war effort who come to realize that their leader is beautiful for her spiritual qualities. After exploiting the success of Sanshiro Sugata with a sequel, in 1945 Kurosawa directed The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail, which is based on the Noh drama Ataka and the famous Kabuki play Kanjincho set in the 1180s. General Yoshitsune and his retainers flee through the woods disguised as monks, and to protect his master’s identity his bodyguard Benkei beats him and later apologizes. Battle scenes could not be portrayed because they could not get horses. Kurosawa changed the style of the play by creating a comic porter played by Kenichi Enomoto. This film was suppressed by the militarists as too liberal, but CIE’s Motion Picture Unit banned it for exalting feudal values; it was released in 1952 after the occupation ended. In November 1945 SCAP ordered all four of Kurosawa’s war-time films destroyed, but they survived.

In 1946 Kurosawa directed No Regrets for Our Youth about students who are protesting Japanese militarism in the 1930s. A professor’s daughter Yukie falls in love with Noge, who is imprisoned for five years. They get married, and Noge is arrested and killed for trying to stop the war in 1941. Yukie realizes he had no regrets, and she becomes a farmer. The professor’s students believe that Noge made a great sacrifice.

Kurosawa’s 1947 film One Wonderful Sunday is a romance about two young lovers who spend Sundays together and are happy despite their poverty. In Kurosawa's Drunken Angel (1948) Toshiro Mifune plays a gangster with a bullet wound who goes to a doctor and learns he has tuberculosis. The doctor and a young woman try to rehabilitate the gangster, who is killed by another gangster in a power struggle over territory. Kurosawa said that he made this film to show how silly the violence of gangsters is. The Quiet Duel (1949) is about a doctor who gets syphilis from a cut while operating on a patient. He refuses to marry his girlfriend and discovers that the wife of the man with syphilis has a deformed baby that dies. The doctor tries to make the man take responsibility. The quality of this film was reduced because of the severe strikes affecting the film studios. In Stray Dog (1949) a police detective has his gun stolen and tracks down the thief who commits robberies and murder during the difficult post-war poverty. The theme is that bad surroundings can make men bad, and some act like a mad dog.

Notes
1. Quoted in The Rising Sun by John Toland, p. 72.

2. Ibid., p. 836.

3. “The Potsdam Declaration” Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XII, p. 137-138 in The Record of American Diplomacy ed. Ruhl J. Bartlett, p. 672.

4. Quoted in The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen, p. 669.

5. Quoted in American Caesar by William Manchester, p. 465.

6. Ibid., p. 491.

7. Quoted in Embracing Defeat by John W. Dover, p. 384.

8. Quoted in Modern Japan by Mikiso Hane, p. 377.

9. Quoted in Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo by Kyoko Hirano, p. 44-45.

Copyright © 2007 by Sanderson Beck
This chapter has been published in the book EAST ASIA 1800-1949.
For ordering information, please click here.

Qing Decline 1799-1875
Qing Dynasty Fall 1875-1912
Republican China in Turmoil 1912-1926
Nationalist-Communist Civil War 1927-1937
China at War 1937-1949
Korea 1800-1949
Japan's Modernization 1800-1894
Imperial Japan 1894-1937
Japan's War and Defeat 1937-1949
Philippines to 1949
Pacific Islands to 1949
Summary and Evaluation
Bibliography
ETHICS OF CIVILIZATION Index
BECK index

Two days later Hirohito went to see MacArthur, and in a private meeting they seemed to form a working relationship for cooperation. MacArthur was surprised and impressed that the Emperor accepted “sole responsibility for every political and military decision made and action taken by my people in the conduct of war.”6 Later MacArthur gave Hirohito credit for playing “a major role in the spiritual regeneration of Japan.” The main post-war prime minister Yoshida believed that not prosecuting and executing the Emperor was the greatest single factor that made the occupation a success.

On October 4 MacArthur issued a civil liberties directive that abolished the Peace Preservation Law, the National Defense Security Law, and the special higher police. Learning that several thousand officials would be dismissed, the Higashikuni cabinet resigned in protest the next day. Three days later MacArthur imposed censorship on Tokyo newspapers and radio. He approved the Emperor’s choice of 74-year-old Shidehara Kijuro as prime minister. On October 10 display of the sun flag was banned, but people were allowed to sing the national anthem “Kimigayo.” The next day GHQ freed about five hundred political prisoners, mostly Communists, and announced the “five great reforms” that would emancipate women, promote labor unions, and democratize politics, education, and the economy. Political parties began to organize, and Communists could criticize the Emperor publicly. On October 22 GHQ dismissed all teachers who had advocated militarism or opposed occupation policies.

The issue of the Emperor abdicating was discussed, but it was argued that he was needed to carry it out the Potsdam Declaration. GHQ revealed that Hirohito’s financial assets were more than 16 billion yen. He went on a tour by train and began to meet the people.

GHQ began breaking up the huge zaibatsu conglomerates in early November. The chief holding companies were required to sell their stocks to the public, beginning the Tokyo stock exchange. Later an anti-monopoly law was passed that prohibited trusts, cartels, interlocking corporate controls, and agreements restraining trade. Agrarian land reform was also initiated. In the first purge of the Diet the Progressives lost about 93% of their seats and the Liberals about 45% of theirs. The Diet had 16% of its members purged compared to 80% of military officers and less than 1% of civil servants. Weapons research was banned. The Japanese atomic program was abolished, and scientists were arrested. All five cyclotrons were destroyed in November even though MacArthur had approved their use for medicine, metallurgy, and agriculture. The headquarters of the Navy and Army had been dissolved in October, and on December 1 those two ministries were abolished and became the First and Second Demobilization Ministries. In June 1946 these ministries became bureaus of the Demobilization Board. Also in December the Pauley Report recommended removing all equipment from Japan’s war industries and reducing severely their capacities in steel, machine tools, and shipping. Later these punitive measures were moderated.

GHQ’s Civil Information and Education (CIE) section prepared propaganda to persuade people that militarism had caused them to lose the war. “A History of the Pacific War: The Destruction of Deceit and Militarism in Japan” was translated into Japanese, and the first installment was published in all national newspapers on December 8, 1945. The articles detailed the terrible consequences of the Japanese war crimes and blamed military cliques while the Emperor and the people were portrayed as deceived victims. The Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) broadcast on radio a version called “Now It Can Be Told” for thirty minutes three times a week until February 10, 1946. Masunaga Zenkichi hired Mainichi newspaper reporters to write The Twenty-Year Whirlwind: Exposing the Inside Story of the Showa Period to reveal the secret history of the war. The first volume covering 1926 to 1936 was published on December 15 and sold 100,000 copies in the first week. The second volume which went to the end of the war was published on March 1, 1946 and soon sold more than 700,000 copies. The Twenty-Year Whirlwind stayed on the best-seller list through 1947.

On December 15 SCAP ordered the disestablishment of the Shinto religion with its directive “Abolition of Government Sponsorship, Support, Preparation, Control, and Dissemination of State Shinto.” After much negotiation with religious leaders SCAP allowed some shrines to have government support as cultural treasures. In his New Year’s message Hirohito warned the people against “the false conception that the emperor is divine and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world.”4 He advised people to follow the Meiji Charter Oath of his grandfather as a better precedent. MacArthur tried to promote Christianity and encouraged American missionaries to come to Japan. At his urging ten million Bibles were imported, but the pages of many were used for cigarette papers.

American Occupation of Japan 1946-49
Women were given the right to vote on December 17, 1945 and the voting age was lowered from 25 to 20. In the provinces 23 women were elected to prefectural assemblies, 74 to city councils, and 707 to town assemblies. Wives were given the right to own property and the equal right to divorce. Primogeniture was abolished, and daughters could inherit as much property as sons. Males at age 18 and females at 16 could marry without their parents consent, ending contract marriages and concubinage. The high schools became coeducational, and 26 women’s universities were started. In January 1946 SCAP abolished “public” prostitution as a violation of women’s rights, but by the time this took effect months later nearly ninety percent of RAA women were infected with diseases. One unit in the US 8th Army had 70% of its men detected with syphilis and 50% with gonorrhea. In 1948 there were still 670 licensed houses of prostitution in Tokyo and about twice that many private ones. Birth control gradually gained popular support even though Margaret Sanger was barred from speaking in Japan. Abortion was legalized in June 1949. In September 1946 the Diet passed a law increasing the autonomy of cities, towns, and villages.

On December 22, 1945 the Diet passed a Trade Union Law that guaranteed worker rights to organize, strike, and bargain collectively. In 1946 about 845,000 union members participated in about 1,260 industrial disputes as employees often demanded participation in production management. In September the Labor Relations Adjustment Law established procedures for settling labor disputes.

At the beginning of 1946 the purge of about 200,000 ultranationalists and militarists from holding public office began. The Ministry of Education had already removed or accepted the resignations of 116,000 teachers, and in 1946 another 6,000 were purged. MacArthur ordered all suspect organizations dissolved, and new organizations had to register with the government, reporting their purposes, funding sources, and members. On January 25 MacArthur sent a strong cable to Washington arguing that arresting the Emperor would threaten the goals of the occupation and cause chaos. The imperial family’s holding company was dissolved, and most of the fortune was given to the people. In December 1946 eleven of the fourteen princes lost their aristocratic positions and much of their wealth, but the Emperor’s three brothers retained their imperial status.

In March a commission led by New York State commissioner of education George Stoddard submitted a report to SCAP that suggested purging militaristic and ultranationalist teachers, revising textbooks, and altering curriculum. They recommended nine years of compulsory schooling, decentralized control, more colleges, and education that encouraged students to think. Japan adopted these proposals and the American system of six years of elementary school, three years in junior high school, three years in high school, and four years of college. Public schools were put under locally elected boards. In 1949 Japan established 68 new national universities and 99 other universities. Junior colleges were started in 1950. The Japan Teachers Union was influenced by left-wing politics. The National Student Federation was founded in September 1948 and staged demonstrations on behalf of democracy.

In April 1946 a national election was held with 2,781 candidates representing 257 parties running for 466 seats in the Diet. Hatoyama Ichiro led the Liberal party that was formed from Seiyukai members and won 140 seats. Shidehara led the Progressive party from Minseito members, and they captured 93 seats. Katayama Tetsu organized the Japan Socialist party, which won 92 seats. Tokuda Kyuichi led the Communists after being in prison for eighteen years, and they occupied five seats. Japanese women voted for the first time, and 39 women were elected to the Diet, including one prostitute. SCAP disqualified Hatoyama because of his violations of civil liberties between 1928 and 1934. So the Liberals chose Yoshida Shigeru to head the government; he was acceptable because he had tried to end the war. Yoshida would be prime minister most of the time for the next seven years, and urged on by SCAP the Diet passed seven hundred laws.

MacArthur rejected a revision of the Meiji Constitution drafted by the Japanese, and on February 3 he ordered the Government section of GHQ to draft a new constitution quickly that was made public on March 6. MacArthur noted that it borrowed from many constitutions, and he believed it was the “most liberal constitution in history.” Prime Minister Shidehara said, “We must see to it that our constitution establishes the foundation for a democratic government and externally leads the rest of the world for the abolition of war.”7

On January 24, 1946 Shidehara had proposed a “no-war” article and persuaded MacArthur that in this way the Japanese people could show the world that they would never engage in war again. MacArthur liked the idea and instructed the Government section to make it one of the three essential principles in the new constitution. This most innovative feature of the Japanese constitution is the pacifist Article 9 which states:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace
based on justice and order,
the Japanese people forever renounce war
as a sovereign right of the nation
and the threat or use of force
as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph,
land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential,
will never be maintained.
The right of belligerency of the State will not be recognized.8
In July the Far Eastern Commission insisted that only civilians be permitted to hold cabinet positions, and this was eventually accepted. After much debate the Diet adopted the new constitution on August 21 by a vote of 429-8. Five Communists objected to retaining the emperor, who was referred to as “the symbol of the State and unity of the people.” The people are sovereign and elect both houses directly. The lower House of Representatives may over-ride the upper House of Councilors with a two-thirds majority. The prime minister has to be a member of the Diet and is elected by the upper house. Civil rights are expanded to include “minimum standards of wholesome and cultural living,” and the State is obligated to promote and extend social welfare, security, and public health. The right to education is guaranteed along with labor rights and the equality of husband and wife. The judiciary is independent, and the Supreme Court has the power to supervise lower courts and decide which laws are constitutional. The jury system was not adopted. Article 14 ended the titles and privileges of peers, and the Socialists got this to take effect immediately rather than merely banning future patents of peerage.

In October 1946 the Diet passed the Farm Land Reform Law that prohibited absentee landlords. A landlord living in the community could own up to 2.5 acres, and a farmer could utilize a maximum of 7.5 acres and own another 2.5 acres. Government purchased land and sold it to former tenants with 3.2% interest over thirty years. Land transfers were managed by 13,000 locally elected land commissions. In 1947 the Agricultural Cooperative Union Law helped farmers work together in unions. By 1950 about 2,340,000 landowners had sold to about 4,750,000 tenants and farmers 2,800,000 acres of rice land and 1,950,000 acres of upland. The Government also redistributed 600,000 acres of pastureland. The percentage of farmers who were tenants dropped from 28% in 1941 to less than 8%. During the land reform three-eighths of the agricultural land changed owners.

In January 1947 several unions dominated by the Communists threatened a general strike that was to begin on February 1, but MacArthur issued a statement on January 31 saying that it would cripple the movement of food and industry and could not be allowed during “the present impoverished and emaciated condition of Japan.” The Communist newspaper and their literature were censored, and the Japanese were not permitted to visit Communist countries. In April the Labor Standards Law established the eight-hour day, vacation time, sick leave, safety and sanitation protections, accident compensation, and limits on hours and conditions for working women and children. In March 1948 some unions formed the Democratization League that was anti-Communist. In July the Diet passed a law to restrict the right of government employees to strike. In December an injunction was issued to stop a coal miners’ strike. By 1949 more than 6,500,000 of the 15,000,000 industrial workers were in more than 35,000 unions. Also in 1949 a law protected the democratic control of unions in order to prevent Communist takeovers.

The new constitution went into effect on May 3, 1947, and on that day twenty million copies of New Constitution, Bright Life were distributed. The introduction suggested that declaring they would not participate in war anymore was the only way that Japan could be reborn. In the elections that were held in April the Socialists won the most seats with 143, and Katayama formed a coalition with the Progressives, who had changed their name to the Democratic party and were led by Ashida Hitoshi. The problems of food shortages, unemployment, inflation, and labor unrest persisted, and on February 10, 1948 Katayama and his split cabinet resigned. One month later Ashida became prime minister, but in October a scandal caused him to resign. The Liberals had formed a coalition with the Democratic party in March, and Yoshida became prime minister again in October. He dissolved the Diet and held a national election in January 1949. The Liberal party increased their seats from 152 to 264, a majority of the 466 members.

In June 1947 the Foreign minister Ashida told the press that the Japanese wanted Okinawa back. Three weeks later MacArthur argued that the Japanese would not object because Okinawans are not Japanese and because American bases were needed on Okinawa to defend Japan’s security. The Diet had abolished the voting rights of Okinawans in December 1945, and in the burgeoning Cold War the Emperor suggested that the American military occupation could continue in the Ryukyu islands for 99 years.

In 1947 a law decentralized the police by requiring every municipality with a population of more than 5,000 to maintain its own police force. A small national police force controlled by the National Public Safety Commission served rural areas. In an emergency the prime minister could take over operational control of local police, but the Diet had to approve this within twenty days.

By June 1947 the deconcentration and anti-monopoly laws forced 83 zaibatsu holding companies and about 5,000 other companies to reorganize. The next month SCAP ordered the Mitsui Trading Company and the Mitsubishi Trading Company dissolved. Mitsui and Mitsubishi were broken up into 240 different firms. Most executive salaries were limited to 36,000 yen a year, and the very highest could not exceed 65,000. A review board was established that reduced the number of companies to be dissolved from 1,200 to 325 in February 1948. The next month George Kennan, who was developing the containment theory for the Cold War, visited and urged the economic rehabilitation of Japan so that it could be a constructive ally against the Communists. In May business interests brought about a change in policy, and only eleven companies were ordered broken up in August 1949. SCAP decided not to ship Japanese industrial equipment to other nations as reparations so that the Japanese economy could recover. Instead Japan paid cash, and by 1964 Japan had paid six Southeastern nations $477 million.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare tested for tuberculosis and reduced the death rate from 280 per 100,000 in 1945 to 145 in 1950 and 108 in 1951. Immunization reduced the morbidity rate of typhoid fever about ninety percent. In late 1949 and early 1950 the entire population of 83 million was reimmunized for smallpox, and 1950 had only five cases of those returning from Korea. The death rate that reached a high of 29 per 1,000 in 1945 was reduced to less than 11 by 1950.

The Detroit banker Joseph Dodge came from West Germany to Japan in December 1948, and he recommended harsh policies to stabilize the economy. The government workforce was reduced by 260,000 employees to balance the budget. Government subsidies and price controls were reduced. The Reconstruction Finance Bank was closed down, and Dodge set the exchange rate at 360 yen to the dollar. The unemployment and social distress that resulted enabled the Communists to win 35 seats in the Diet in the election on January 24, 1949, though the Socialists lost 95 seats, retaining only 48.

Trials of Japanese War Crimes
The Occupation forces began rounding up suspected war criminals in September 1945. General Yamashita was put on trial for war crimes in the Philippines on October 29. American journalists reported that hearsay evidence was allowed. He had trained attack forces in Manchuria in 1941, and while commanding Malaya he had allowed the secret police to kill 5,000 Chinese merchants in Singapore. Yet Yamashita had been criticized by Hirohito for disciplining officers who allowed atrocities against British troops in Malaya in 1942. In 1944 he prevented US prisoners from being killed according to imperial orders. Yamashita was charged with many atrocities that occurred in Manila that he could not control. He was sentenced to death on December 7, and the US Supreme Court upheld his conviction by a vote of 5-2. Justice Frank Murphy wrote a 32-page dissenting opinion arguing that he had not participated in the atrocities charged nor condoned them. Murphy warned against a “procession of judicial lynchings without due process of law.” Yamashita was hanged on February 23, 1946 near Manila. The trial of General Honma began on December 7, 1945 in Manila. He was the commander in the Philippines in 1942 and was held responsible for the Bataan death march. Once again Justice Murphy dissented because Honma was not directly involved in the crimes. He was executed by a firing squad on April 3, 1946.

On January 19, 1946 MacArthur promulgated the Tokyo Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) which followed rather closely the principles that had been worked out in Nuremberg, Germany defining crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The Far Eastern Commission (FEC) demanded that all its members sit on the Tribunal, and the Charter was modified on April 23. The Americans had tried to exclude the Philippines and India, but they were members of the FEC and were included. Neither Emperor Hirohito nor any members of his family nor anyone who would implicate them was indicted. The United States wanted to learn from Unit 731’s research into bacteriological warfare and chemical weapons, and they gave immunity to General Ishii Shiro and others who had experimented on Allied soldiers. Eventually 5,379 Japanese, 173 Formosans, and 148 Koreans were brought to trial. Many of their rights were violated as all statements were admitted as evidence even though defense attorneys were not present during interrogations.

Twenty-eight Class A war criminals were tried in Tokyo by eleven judges from May 1946 to April 1948. Of the 217 charges, 132 were proved. Count One was the most sweeping and charged that there was a conspiracy to dominate East Asia and all countries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans militarily, politically, and economically. The judgment was 1,781 pages, and the tribunal president William Webb of Australia spent nine days reading it in November 1948. Eight of the judges were in full agreement. B. V. A. Röling of the Netherlands in his concurring opinion disagreed that aggression is an international crime, and he voted to acquit Kido, Hata, Shigemitsu, and Togo. Judge Henri Bernard of France dissented in the belief that the Emperor, the principal author of the war, had escaped prosecution, and so he would not condemn the others. Radhabindo Pal of India believed none of them were guilty because conspiracy was not proven, aggressive war was not an international crime, and the war crimes had not been proven. Pal had been a supporter of Chandra Bose and Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and he argued that the American use of the atomic bombs was as serious as any of the other crimes. He warned that future generations would condemn that “dire decision.”

The death sentences were appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled on December 20, 1948 that it did not have jurisdiction. The seven men hanged three days later were Tojo Hideki, Doihara Kenji, Itagaki Seishiro, Kimura Heitaro, Muto Akira, Matsui Iwane, and Hirota Koki. Tojo was prime minister 1941-44. General Doihara had Allied prisoners under his command tortured and murdered. General Itagaki withheld food and medicine from thousands of Allied prisoners. General Kimura was vice War minister under Tojo and allowed his troops to commit atrocities in Burma. General Muto was held responsible for atrocities in northern Sumatra and for thousands of murders on the Bataan death march. General Matsui was the officer in charge of the attack on Nanjing that resulted in tens of thousands of murders and rapes. Hirota was the only civilian hanged; as Foreign minister for several years and prime minister he was convicted of waging aggressive war in China and disregarding the laws of war.

The sixteen men sentenced to life in prison were War minister Araki Sadao, Col. Hashimoto Kingoro who was a commander at Nanjing and shelled an American gunboat, War Minister Hata Shunroku who commanded a force in China 1940-44, Prime Minister Hiranuma Kuchiro, Manzhouguo chief and Tojo secretary Hoshino Naoki, Finance Minister Kaya Okinori, Seal Keeper Kido Koichi whose diary provided much evidence, Korea governor-general and Prime Minister Koiso Kuniaki, Guandong Army commander Minami Jiro, Admiral Oka Takesumi, Oshima Hiroshi who was ambassador to Germany, War Minister Sato Kenryo, Admiral Shimada Shigetaro, Shiratori Toshio who was ambassador to Italy, economic planner Suzuki Teiichi, and Army Chief Umezu Yoshijiro.

Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori had signed the declaration of war and was sentenced to twenty years, and Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru received seven years. Diplomat and Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke and Admiral Nagano Osami died during the trial. The erudite scholar Okawa Shumei tried to undress in court, made bizarre statements, persuaded doctors that he was suffering from tertiary syphilis, and was deemed unfit for trial. In prison he wrote extensively on religion and later had several lucid books published. Prince Konoe had committed suicide after he learned he was to be arrested. Tojo shot himself in the chest but survived and was considered the most impressive interlocutor during the trial. He had previously said that his orders were given with the Emperor’s authorization; but after Hirohito provided for his family, Tojo retracted that. By 1956 all the war criminals who had been convicted in Tokyo had had their sentences commuted.

The Class B war criminals were high military officers who were charged with violating the laws and customs of war and being responsible for atrocities committed by troops under their command. The Class C war criminals were tried for crimes against humanity that included mistreating prisoners as well as atrocities. The Class B and C suspects were held to be tried by Allied military commissions, usually where the crimes were committed. Eventually 2,944 were sentenced to prison with 475 getting life terms. The tribunals acquitted 1,018, and 279 were never tried. Of the 984 death sentences the British upheld 223, the Australians 153, the Nationalist Chinese 149, the Americans 140, the French 26, and the Filipinos 17. These trials were completed in the fall of 1949. The Chinese Communists put Japanese war criminals in re-education camps and did not sentence any to death. More than a thousand suspects were tried in Yokohama, and 200 were acquitted; 124 were sentenced to be hanged, and 62 were given life imprisonment.

The Soviet Union may have executed about 3,000 Japanese as war criminals. In the last week of December 1949 in Khabarovsk twelve members of the Guandong Army were convicted for manufacturing and using biological weapons. General Kiyoshi Kawashima testified that fleas contaminated with plague were dropped from planes over Changde. They were sentenced to a labor camp and were repatriated to Japan in 1956.

Tojo himself violated the Field Service Code that had been issued in 1941 when he ordered forced labor by prisoners of war to help the war effort. The worst treatment of prisoners of war occurred in Borneo at Sandakan, where 2,000 Australians and 500 British were being held in September 1943, but only six survived the war. Prisoners who tried to escape were killed, but most deaths were caused by disease and malnutrition. Those able who refused to work were denied rations. At Ambon only 123 out of 528 Australian POWs survived. Of the 60,500 POWs who worked on the Burma-Thailand railroad about 12,000 died. In New Guinea, where more than a hundred thousand Japanese soldiers were stranded without supplies, hunger led to extensive cannibalism of prisoners and others. Perhaps because those soldiers were also victims of the Japanese war machine that abandoned them, only three soldiers out of the fifteen prosecuted for cannibalism were convicted. The Japanese forced about 90,000 “comfort women” to serve their soldiers as prostitutes, about one for every 35 men.

The IMTFE condemned the influence of the Bushido code for causing atrocities; but others have argued that this code had been corrupted as self-discipline and compassion for others were replaced by the zealous loyalty to the Emperor, the state, and the military. The militarist ethics led the Japanese Army to wage total war with little constraint. As a result Japan killed enormous numbers of combatants and civilians. Their army used thousands of pack animals that had to be fed as they lived off the land, leaving little food for the native population. The drug traffic was used to obtain money. Admiral Iwabuchi’s soldiers were accused of running amok while drunk, plundering, raping, and murdering the civilians in Manila in 1944-45. The trials helped the Japanese people realize some of the horrible consequences of their aggressive imperialism and to understand why those efforts needed to be defeated.

Censorship and Kurosawa's Early Films
The Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD) employed 6,000 people to identify and translate questionable material in seventy newspapers, all books, magazines, and radio scripts which were censored before publication. In the four years before it was abolished in late 1949 the CCD examined 330 million pieces of mail and monitored about 800,000 private phone conversations. Their rules ordered publishers not to give censorship any publicity so that the Japanese people would not even know who and what were being censored. Criticism of SCAP, occupation forces, or any of the Allies was forbidden. In 1946 the press was told that occupation costs were to be called “war-termination costs.” John Hersey’s Hiroshima, which was published in The New Yorker magazine in 1946, could not be published in Japanese translation until 1949, and the Americans required that Nagai’s Bells of Nagasaki include an appendix on “The Sack of Manila” by the Japanese in 1945.

Censorship in Japan changed in 1947 as Cold War issues replaced concerns about militarism. By December only two of the 28 periodicals still having prepublication censorship were ultra-rightist while the other 26 were left-wing or progressive. In October 1948 Suzuki Toshisada, the publisher of Japan Review, was threatened with penal service in Okinawa if he did not fire his editor, who resigned.



Film censorship in Japan began as early as 1908, and in 1917 local governments used licensing laws to screen films and eliminate objectionable material. In 1925 Japan passed the Censorship Regulation of Moving Pictures or “Films” that prohibited showing films to those under fifteen years of age and required theaters to keep men and women spectators separated. Completed films with explanatory scripts had to be submitted for approval, and explicit sexual scenes and subversive ideas were suppressed. The 1939 Film Law was based on a Nazi law and was intended to promote “the nation’s cultural development.” Scenes that challenged the royal family, the imperial constitution, the empire, decorum, national morality, and proper use of the Japanese language were forbidden. In 1940 the Ministry of Internal Affairs even prohibited frivolous films, and they urged films showing industrial and food production and people ready to serve.

Under the American occupation on September 22, 1945 the Civil Information and Education (CIE) section began encouraging films about the following subjects: peaceful Japanese life; resettling soldiers as civilians; restoring favor to former prisoners of war; showing progress in industry, agriculture and national life; encouraging labor unions; developing political responsibility with free discussion, respect for rights, and tolerance for all races and classes; and dramatizing those who stood for freedom and representative government. The 1939 Film Law was repealed on October 16, and by then the CIE was already demanding prior censorship of film scripts and projects. On November 16 they banned 236 of the 455 Japanese films produced since 1931. Three days later the CIE announced that films would be forbidden if they were:

1. infused with militarism;
2. showing revenge as a legitimate motive;
3. nationalistic;
4. chauvinistic and anti-foreign;
5. distorting historical facts;
6. favoring racial or religious discrimination;
7. portraying feudal loyalty or contempt of life
    as desirable and honorable;
8. approving suicide either directly or indirectly;
9. dealing with or approving the subjugation
    or degradation of women;
10. depicting brutality, violence or evil as triumphant;
11. anti-democratic;
12. condoning the exploitation of children; or
13. at variance with the spirit or letter
    of the Potsdam Declaration or any SCAP directive.9
Kamei Fumio’s Fighting Soldiers about the war in China had been produced in 1939 with official sponsorship by the military, but it was soon withdrawn for being defeatist. Kamei’s 1946 documentary The Tragedy of Japan was supported by American officials and used government newsreels in Frank Capra’s exciting style to depict how the ruling class led Japan into an aggressive and destructive war. When it began to attract larger audiences in August 1946, GHQ abruptly banned the film. In 1947 Kamei and Yamamoto Kajiro produced the feature Between War and Peace in which a soldier returns from China years after having been declared dead and finds his wife has married his best friend, as in D. W. Griffith’s 1911 Enoch Arden. The film portrays the misery of the war in China, the terrible living conditions in Tokyo with air raids, and the post-war squalor. The Civil Censorship Detachment required that 30 minutes be cut from the film, and no Americans were depicted on screen during the occupation.



Kurosawa Akira (generally known as Akira Kurosawa) was born on March 23, 1910 in Tokyo. He wanted to be an artist; but to earn money he became an assistant director, and the film director Yamamoto Kajiro became his mentor. Sanshiro Sugata in 1943 is the first feature that Kurosawa directed. Based on Tsueno Tomita’s novel and set in 1882, Sanshiro Sugata learns from a master that the art of judo is a spiritual discipline. Kurosawa’s next feature The Most Beautiful made in 1944 is a docudrama about women working in a lens factory for the war effort who come to realize that their leader is beautiful for her spiritual qualities. After exploiting the success of Sanshiro Sugata with a sequel, in 1945 Kurosawa directed The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail, which is based on the Noh drama Ataka and the famous Kabuki play Kanjincho set in the 1180s. General Yoshitsune and his retainers flee through the woods disguised as monks, and to protect his master’s identity his bodyguard Benkei beats him and later apologizes. Battle scenes could not be portrayed because they could not get horses. Kurosawa changed the style of the play by creating a comic porter played by Kenichi Enomoto. This film was suppressed by the militarists as too liberal, but CIE’s Motion Picture Unit banned it for exalting feudal values; it was released in 1952 after the occupation ended. In November 1945 SCAP ordered all four of Kurosawa’s war-time films destroyed, but they survived.

In 1946 Kurosawa directed No Regrets for Our Youth about students who are protesting Japanese militarism in the 1930s. A professor’s daughter Yukie falls in love with Noge, who is imprisoned for five years. They get married, and Noge is arrested and killed for trying to stop the war in 1941. Yukie realizes he had no regrets, and she becomes a farmer. The professor’s students believe that Noge made a great sacrifice.

Kurosawa’s 1947 film One Wonderful Sunday is a romance about two young lovers who spend Sundays together and are happy despite their poverty. In Kurosawa's Drunken Angel (1948) Toshiro Mifune plays a gangster with a bullet wound who goes to a doctor and learns he has tuberculosis. The doctor and a young woman try to rehabilitate the gangster, who is killed by another gangster in a power struggle over territory. Kurosawa said that he made this film to show how silly the violence of gangsters is. The Quiet Duel (1949) is about a doctor who gets syphilis from a cut while operating on a patient. He refuses to marry his girlfriend and discovers that the wife of the man with syphilis has a deformed baby that dies. The doctor tries to make the man take responsibility. The quality of this film was reduced because of the severe strikes affecting the film studios. In Stray Dog (1949) a police detective has his gun stolen and tracks down the thief who commits robberies and murder during the difficult post-war poverty. The theme is that bad surroundings can make men bad, and some act like a mad dog.

Notes
1. Quoted in The Rising Sun by John Toland, p. 72.

2. Ibid., p. 836.

3. “The Potsdam Declaration” Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XII, p. 137-138 in The Record of American Diplomacy ed. Ruhl J. Bartlett, p. 672.

4. Quoted in The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen, p. 669.

5. Quoted in American Caesar by William Manchester, p. 465.

6. Ibid., p. 491.

7. Quoted in Embracing Defeat by John W. Dover, p. 384.

8. Quoted in Modern Japan by Mikiso Hane, p. 377.

9. Quoted in Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo by Kyoko Hirano, p. 44-45.

Copyright © 2007 by Sanderson Beck
This chapter has been published in the book EAST ASIA 1800-1949.
For ordering information, please click here.

Qing Decline 1799-1875
Qing Dynasty Fall 1875-1912
Republican China in Turmoil 1912-1926
Nationalist-Communist Civil War 1927-1937
China at War 1937-1949
Korea 1800-1949
Japan's Modernization 1800-1894
Imperial Japan 1894-1937
Japan's War and Defeat 1937-1949
Philippines to 1949
Pacific Islands to 1949
Summary and Evaluation
Bibliography
ETHICS OF CIVILIZATION Index
BECK index

Japanese forces in China attacked on December 8 and took Kowloon on the 12th. After bombing Hong Kong, Japanese troops landed on December 18. The British surrendered on Christmas Day after suffering about 4,400 casualties. The Japanese lost 2,754 men. Many Japanese atrocities were reported from Hong Kong, and Foreign secretary Anthony Eden protested in the House of Commons. Hirohito’s advisors believed that committing atrocities fortified the Japanese for what they had to do and persuaded them not to surrender lest they suffer similar abuse.

Three Japanese battalions from Indochina invaded British Borneo on December 16, and the British surrendered five weeks later. The Japanese invasion of Dutch Borneo captured Tarakan on January 11, Balikpapa on the 24th, and Bandjarmasin on February 16. The retreating Dutch force finally surrendered on March 8. The Japanese also moved into Ambon and the Celebes to exploit resources and establish bases.

The Japanese forces had taken Guam on December 11 and overcame Wake Island on the 23rd. On January 23, 1942 Japan captured the Australian airbase at Rabaul on New Britain Island in the Bismarck Archipelago. The Japanese also invaded British Burma in mid-January and captured Rangoon on March 8, one day after the military evacuated. The Japanese took Lashio on the Burma Road on April 28 and Mandalay on May 1. They defeated the Burma army near Kalewa on May 13. By the end of 1942 about 10,000 prisoners in Burma had been put to work building a railroad. The Japanese brought in 60,000 POWs in 1943 and then 270,000 indentured Malays, Burmans, Thais, and Javanese to try to finish the 250-mile railroad by August.

An amphibious Japanese force with paratroopers invaded southern Sumatra around Palembang on February 14, 1942, and four days later they captured Bali and Lombok. The next day the Japanese attacked Timor. On February 27 in the battle of the Java Sea the Japanese Navy attacked the American, British, Dutch, and Australian allies who in three days lost ten warships and 2,173 sailors. Japanese troops invaded Java from both ends on February 28 and March 1, and the garrison of 93,000 troops that included about 20,000 Dutch surrendered on March 9. About 5,000 Australians, British, and Americans were also captured. Japan had conquered the Dutch East Indies in less than three months, and only a few oil wells had been sabotaged. Japan’s War Ministry decided to leave only 21 battalions in the south, and the remaining forces returned to the homeland, China, and Manzhouguo. On April 5 the Emperor appointed the former mobster Korematsu Junichi to administer the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. In April the fleet commanded by Nagumo attacked the British at Ceylon, sinking several ships including an aircraft carrier.

On April 18, 1942 Col. James Doolittle led a squadron of sixteen B-25s 668 miles from the carrier Hornet, and they dropped incendiary bombs on downtown Tokyo, killing fifty civilians and destroying ninety buildings. Three of the planes bombed factories and oil tanks in Yokohama, and two planes struck Nagoya. Fifteen planes went to China, and one came down in Siberia; twelve of the pilots bailed out with parachutes. Of the eighty men in the raid 64 made it to Chongqing, and five were detained in the Soviet Union. This raid stimulated the Japanese to improve their air defenses and to take over Nationalist air bases in Zhejiang and Jiangxi. Japanese planes and ships sent many radio messages searching for the Hornet, and the Americans figured out their code. Hirohito was so angry that he broke the truce with Jiang and sent 100,000 troops to Zhejiang, where they killed about 250,000 Chinese before withdrawing in August.

The battle in the Coral Sea, which began on May 4 and lasted five days, was the first in history between planes from aircraft carriers. The Japanese sank the carrier Lexington and damaged the carrier Yorktown, but they lost one aircraft carrier and 104 skilled pilots and were not able to fulfill their mission of attacking Port Moresby in New Guinea. Having deciphered the Japanese military code, the Americans were fully prepared for the major battle at Midway Island that began on June 4. After numerous failed raids the Americans finally destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers, one heavy cruiser, 332 planes, and about 3,500 men, including 121 ace pilots. The United States lost one carrier, one destroyer, and 147 planes. Many American pilots had to ditch in the ocean because they did not have enough fuel to return. Midway was a turning point that ended Japanese naval supremacy in the Pacific War. At the same time the Japanese were attacking the American bases at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, but they would not be able to hold them in 1943. In July 1942 General Hyakutake Haruyoshi landed forces near Buna in eastern New Guinea and tried to march over the Owen Stanley Range to Port Moresby; but they suffered disease and hunger and had to turn back in September as they were harried by Australian troops.

At home Prime Minister Tojo invoked emergency laws to control the press, assembly, and association. The police monitored Jews, Christians, and the Soka Gakkai sect of Nichiren Buddhism. The Kempeitai extended their authority beyond the military and had 7,500 men to enforce the war effort. In the April election the Government endorsed a candidate for each seat and won 381 of the 461 with help from secret funds in the Army budget. Voter participation was 83%. During the war the Diet usually approved whatever Tojo proposed.

On August 7 the American marines invaded the Solomon Islands of Tulagi, Florida, and Guadalcanal. Two days later the Japanese gave the US Navy one of its worst defeats ever when they destroyed four cruisers off Savo Island and killed 1,600 Allied sailors. Each side lost 24 combat ships in this naval campaign. On August 18 Col. Ichiki Kiyonao landed half his 2,000 men on Guadalcanal, and they advanced without resistance; but in a night battle with the Americans 777 of them were killed. On September 12 General Kawaguchi Kiyotake led his men against Henderson Field, but for three days his charging men were shot down by machine guns. Four days later Japan’s commander on Guadalcanal, General Hyakutake, was ordered to attack the airfield again with 30,000 men. More than 2,000 Japanese soldiers were killed charging less than 200 entrenched marines. His Second Division landed, but by November they were losing two hundred men a day to starvation. Tojo wanted to withdraw, but Hirohito would not agree. So the War Ministry withheld supplies.

On December 31 the Imperial Conference decided to transfer the men from Guadalcanal to Bougainville. After losing 25,000 men, the 13,000 survivors were not evacuated until the first week in February 1943. The Americans had about 1,500 killed and 4,800 wounded. The battle for Guadalcanal lasted six months, and in that time the Japanese lost 893 planes and 2,362 aviators. In the first year of the war US submarines sank 139 cargo vessels, 59 of them in October and November with five times the tonnage that had been sunk in the Pacific War before that. Before the end of 1942 Lockheed was producing P-38 Lightnings that were bigger, heavier, and faster fighter planes than the Japanese Zero.

Japan's Losing War 1943-45
In 1943 Japan lost 6,203 planes and 4,824 airmen. American submarines were destroying Japan’s cargo ships faster than they could be replaced. Japan was not getting enough supplies and food, and other parts of the empire fared even worse. In February the Seal Keeper Kido began meeting secretly with former prime minister Konoe to review the planning of a peace faction. In April the Emperor recalled Ambassador Shigemitsu Mamoru from Nanjing to be Foreign minister. He negotiated with Chongqing in May and tried to assure Jiang (Kai-shek) that Hirohito could control the military. Prime Minister Tojo approved of the peace offensive and suggested offering independence and withdrawing from occupied territories. Jiang rejected peace proposals offered through Madame Sun Yatsen in September. On the 22nd Hirohito met personally with Wang Jingwei, but Wang could not persuade Jiang to accept the Japanese terms. The fascist Nakano Seigo, who had been secretary-general of the IRAA 1940-41 but had quit to form the Tohokai political group, tried to organize a conspiracy in the fall to assassinate Tojo, Kido, and others; but the plot was discovered, and he committed suicide on October 25 after being released from prison.

In Tokyo on November 5 Tojo presided over the Greater East Asia Conference that was attended by Wang from eastern China, Zhang Zhonghui of Manzhouguo, President Jose Laurel of the Philippines, Thai prince Wan Waithyakon, Ba Maw of Burma, and Subhas Chandra Bose of the Indian National Army. Tojo promised them self-determination in 1944. Kido learned in December that negotiations between Wang and Jiang had been terminated.

Japan sent a convoy of sixteen ships from Rabaul in New Britain toward eastern New Guinea, but American planes attacked them on March 3 and sank all eight transport ships and four destroyers. Between April 7 and 11 Admiral Yamamoto ordered air raids on the American airfields and warships in the Solomon Islands, but his pilots claimed more damage than they caused. Yamamoto took a plane to visit them and died on April 18 when it was shot down over Bougainville Island.

The Allies began to attack the Aleutian Islands on May 11. Almost all of the 2,500 Japanese soldiers on Attu fought to the death before the garrison was destroyed on May 29. However, 5,600 Japanese evacuated Kiska before 35,000 Allies arrived in August. In early June the Americans landed on New Georgia in the Solomons, and 10,000 Japanese held out for nearly three months. General MacArthur directed the attack on eastern New Guinea in June. The Allies adopted the strategy of moving on without defeating all the Japanese who were left without supplies.

Bougainville was the last major Solomon Island that Japan held, and the Americans attacked it on November 1. The Japanese Navy withdrew from the Solomons before the end of the year, but the fighting on Bougainville continued in March 1944 when the Japanese lost 5,469 men and the Americans had 263 killed. General Robert Eichelberger led Americans and Australians advancing along the New Guinea coast and took Buna on January 2, 1944. Americans suffered 11,300 casualties while about 50,000 Japanese troops in western New Guinea and about 55,000 in eastern New Guinea were bypassed and left isolated without supplies. Of the 140,000 Japanese on New Guinea only 13,000 survived to surrender at the end of the war.

Admiral Chester Nimitz commanded the attacks on the Gilbert Islands in November 1943. A thousand Americans died in the four-day battle for Betio on Tarawa while all the 4,800 Japanese marines were being killed. Bypassing fortified atolls, Nimitz landed 41,000 US troops on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands on February 1, 1944. In three days they killed 7,780 Japanese while losing 372 men. In capturing Eniwetok 195 of the 8,000 Americans died; 2,677 Japanese were killed, and only 64 allowed themselves to be captured. The heavily fortified Truk in the Carolines was bombed by American planes on February 18, and 50,000 Japanese soldiers there were isolated from supplies. MacArthur captured Admiralty Island in March and made Seeadler Harbor a naval base for repairing ships. In April his men attacked Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea, and less than a thousand survived of the 11,000 Japanese; they also lost 300 planes and two destroyers.

After a year of preparation, in March 1944 the Japanese launched an offensive with 155,000 men against Imphal in Assam, hoping to invade British India with Indian recruits Subhas Chandra Bose got from the prison camps. They lacked supplies and were bogged down by monsoons; by June the Allies had retaken Kohima. The Japanese forces finally began to withdraw in July; 30,000 died, and 42,000 were sick or wounded. Allied losses were 17,000 British and Indians.

In April a Japanese offensive in China opened up the Beijing-Hankou railway in the south, and the northern and central fronts joined in May. That summer the Japanese armies took over Changsha and the American air base at Hengyang in Hunan. By November they had taken over four more US air bases, but the B-29 base at Chengdu in Sichuan continued to be used by the long-range bombers. US General Joseph Stilwell commanded a counteroffensive in northern Burma to capture Myitkyina while a Chinese army from Yunnan took Bhamo. Now the Allies could use the Burma Road to move supplies into China.

Admiral Kogo Mineichi tried to keep the Allies out of the Philippine Sea, but in March he was also killed in a plane crash. Admiral Toyoda Soema organized the First Mobile Fleet with nine aircraft carriers, five battleships, 450 carrier planes, and 1,000 planes from bases on islands. On May 27 Americans assaulted the tiny island of Biak north of western New Guinea where they killed 10,000 Japanese and lost 460 men. The Japanese were determined to regain this airfield that dominated the Strait of Malacca and the Makassar Channel, and they lost many valuable pilots trying to do so.

In June the US Fifth Fleet approached the Marianas with 535 combat ships and transports carrying 127,571 men. Admiral Toyoda moved his warships from Biak to the Marianas. Allied planes bombed the Marianas for three days. After naval bombardments of Saipan, the marines began landing on June 15. Japan had 31,629 men defending Saipan, but they were not well armed. On June 19 Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo commanded four air attacks by the First Mobile Fleet. On that day US planes bombed the Japanese airfield on Guam. American submarines sank Ozawa’s flagship and an aircraft carrier. The Japanese fleet fled north, but the Allied task force led by Admiral Raymond Spruance in two days sank three aircraft carriers and damaged four others. Japan lost 476 airplanes and 445 pilots while the United States lost 130 planes and 76 aviators. Admiral Nagumo committed seppuku, and by July 9 the Japanese garrison on Saipan had lost 23,811 men. About 10,000 Japanese civilians were also killed while 10,258 civilians and 921 Japanese soldiers were captured. The Americans lost 3,426 of their 67,451 troops on Saipan.

Next the Allies attacked nearby Tinian, using tanks of gasoline and napalm for the first time. Guam was invaded on July 21 with 55,000 US troops fighting 20,000 Japanese, of whom half were killed in three weeks and 8,500 in the next year. Only 1,250 Japanese surrendered, and the Americans lost 1,435 men. On July 24 Tinian was invaded by 15,614 US Marines, who killed 5,000 Japanese soldiers in a week while losing 389 men and taking 252 prisoners. The Tinian airstrip was taken over and used for long-range bombers.

Emperor Hirohito had persuaded Premier Tojo not to quit, but after losing some political struggles he resigned on July 18. General Koiso Kuniaki, who had been governing Korea, became prime minister with Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa as his deputy and Navy minister. Koiso tried to reach out to the Soviet Union, but on November 7 Stalin condemned Japan as an aggressor. Koiso also hoped to negotiate with Miao Bin in Nanjing, but Foreign minister Shigemitsu warned that he was not reliable, and Kido persuaded the Emperor.

In September and October the Allies attacked the Palau Islands and took over the Japanese bases at Peleliu and Angaur. On October 12 a US task force of 1,068 planes supported by B-29s from China attacked the Japanese air force in Taiwan, destroying more than 500 planes. They also bombed the Japanese airfields on Mindanao and in the East Indies. The US armada moving toward the Philippines with 840 ships had 1,600 planes on 47 aircraft carriers, and as many bombers and long-range fighters came from China, Tinian, Morotai, and Peleliu.

General MacArthur landed 60,000 troops on the Philippine island of Leyte on October 20, and 140,000 more would follow. That summer 80% of the Japanese ships going to the Philippines had been sunk. On October 23 began the biggest naval battle in history. American submarines sank two heavy cruisers including the flagship of Admiral Kurita Takeo, who escaped to the Yamato battleship. The gigantic Musashi battleship was sunk the next day. Admiral Ozawa managed to lure Admiral William Halsey’s Third Fleet to the north, but Ozawa lost three aircraft carriers, a destroyer, and 280 planes in one day. Admiral Thomas Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet ambushed Nishimura Shoji’s task force in the Surigao Strait. In addition to four battleships and four carriers, in the six-day battle the Japanese lost thirteen cruisers, eight destroyers, and six submarines. Of the 55,000 Japanese soldiers fighting for Leyte about 49,000 were killed. The first two kamikaze attacks were made against US ships. After the Leyte defeat the Japanese released thousands of balloon bombs that were intended for North America. By March 1945 they had released about 9,300, but only a few came down in the United States and did very little damage.

In 1944 Japan produced about 18,000 planes even though their plan was for 40,000. By the end of the war the United States would have 40,893 planes and sixty aircraft carriers.

The campaign for the Philippines was the climactic battle of the Pacific War. US forces landed on Mindoro Island on December 15, and by January 1945 about 174,000 troops had landed on Luzon. General Yamashita tried to make a stand north of Manila with 275,000 troops while Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi ordered 21,000 soldiers to fight to the death for the city. General MacArthur did not use aerial bombing in order to prevent civilian deaths in Manila, but heavy artillery was used. After two months of fighting and the death of nearly 100,000 civilians, the Americans took Manila on February 24, 1945. Yamashita’s men ran out of supplies and tried to live off the land and moved into the mountains. The fighting continued until Japan surrendered in September. Japan lost 9,000 planes and much of its Navy. The number of Japanese killed in the Philippines was 336,352, and 12,573 were captured. The Americans had 13,973 killed and 48,541 wounded.

US Marines attacked Iwo Jima on February 19 and declared it secure on March 16. They had 6,821 killed and 19,189 wounded; the Japanese garrison of 21,000 had 20,703 killed as only 216 surrendered.

Americans began invading Okinawa on April 1 with a force that would total 548,000 soldiers before the battle was won in the middle of June. On April 6 Japan launched a desperate counter-attack with 341 bombers and 355 suicide planes. About 200 kamikaze pilots reached Okinawa, and 135 were shot down. Those hitting targets sank two destroyers and four other ships and damaged eighteen others. The next day the colossal Yamato was sunk, going down with about 2,500 men. About 5,000 US sailors were killed by kamikaze attacks that sank 34 ships and damaged 368 others in the Okinawa campaign. Only four destroyers returned to Japan as its Navy was devastated. On June 21 General Ushijima Mitsuru and his chief of staff committed suicide. In the battle of Okinawa 62,500 Japanese combatants were killed along with about 150,000 Okinawan civilians; 7,455 Japanese soldiers surrendered. The Americans had 12,513 killed or missing and 38,916 wounded. The United States lost 79 ships and 763 planes. Japan also lost 3,130 planes and had few left.

General Curtis LeMay, who had planned the strategic bombing of Hamburg, took over the bombing operations in the Marianas in January and became concerned that the high explosives that had devastated German industries were not as effective in Japan, where two-thirds of industry was dispersed in homes and small factories. On the night of February 24 the US Air Force launched 174 B-29s in the first incendiary air raid on Tokyo that devastated about one square mile. Then LeMay ordered the pilots to fly at low altitudes of less than 8,000 feet with fewer guns in order to carry more bombs. On the night of March 9 the 279 B-29s doing this dropped 1,700 tons of bombs that contained a mixture of oil, phosphorus, and napalm, killing about 90,000 people and burning sixteen square miles, a quarter of Tokyo. The next night LeMay sent 313 bombers with napalm to attack Nagoya, Japan’s third largest city. That week 45 square miles of industrial areas were burned. In April B-29 raids bombed the Nakajima aircraft factory twice, the Koizuma aircraft factory, arsenals, and urban areas. After Germany surrendered on May 8, the United States shifted more forces to the Pacific War. On May 23 a raid by 520 B-29s bombed the industrial area south of the Imperial Palace, and two days later Tokyo was hit again by 564 B-29s. Yokohama was attacked by 450 bombers on May 29.

The United States had about eighty times the industrial resources of Japan, which had to import many raw materials. As the war progressed, the American advantage became overwhelming. In the first year Japanese shipping lost 1,250,000 tons, in the second year 2,560,000 tons, and in the third year 3,484,000 tons. In 1941 Japan had 4,468,000 metric tons of scrap iron and steel, but by 1944 this had dwindled down to 449,000. Japan’s store of oil was 48,893,000 tons in 1941, but in early 1945 only 4,946,000 remained. Coal, bauxite, and other metals also diminished. In four years Japan produced 58,822 planes by the end of 1944 while the United States manufactured 261,826 aircraft. Japan began the war in 1941 with 2,400,000 men in the armed forces. This was increased to 3,980,000 by February 1944 and to 5,360,000 by the end of the year. At the end of the war Japan had 7,190,000 in the armed forces. Women, students, and Koreans were mobilized to work in factories, and farms were left to women, children, and old men. In 1944 rice imports were 30% of normal and in 1945 only 11%. Bad weather caused a 27% drop in domestic production of rice in 1945. The average daily consumption of calories in Japan had dropped from 3,400 before the war to 1,600.

Japan's Defeat and Surrender
On April 5, 1945 Molotov informed the Japanese ambassador in Moscow that the Soviet Union would not renew the neutrality pact. That day Hirohito replaced Premier Koiso with the 78-year-old Admiral Suzuki Kantaro. His war policy emphasized the suicidal tactics of the kamikaze pilots, human torpedoes, crash boats, and ground charges. About 10,000 planes were converted from training and other uses to be packed with explosives for suicide missions. The IRAA national organization was dissolved in June and was replaced by the People’s Heroic Fighting Corps, which lasted only two months. On June 8 Kido gave the Emperor a plan to ask the Soviet Union to mediate a peace agreement, and the next day the Diet passed the Wartime Emergency Measures Law and other bills to mobilize Japan to defend the homeland. B-29s dropped millions of leaflets written in Japanese calling on the people to appeal to the Emperor for peace. On June 22 Hirohito directed the Supreme War Leadership Council to begin negotiating an end to the war, and the Army leaders reluctantly agreed. The Soviet ambassador Jacob Malik broke off talks with the former prime minister Hirota in early July.

On July 26 US President Harry Truman and Winston Churchill in concurrence with Jiang issued the Potsdam Declaration warning that the Japanese armed forces would be completely destroyed and the Japanese homeland devastated if Japan did not surrender unconditionally all its armed forces. Conditions included removing from authority those who had misled the people into attempting world conquest. The Declaration went on. Until this is accomplished and Japan’s war-making capacity is destroyed, the Allies will occupy Japanese territory. Japan must fulfill the Cairo Declaration by returning Manchuria, Taiwan, the Pescadores and other territory to the Republic of China and by allowing Korea to be free and independent. “Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.” Japan’s military forces must be completely disarmed. The Allies promised “stern justice” to all war criminals and democracy for Japan, which must establish freedom of speech, religion, thought, and human rights. Peaceful industries will be permitted to enable payment of reparations, and eventually trade relations will be allowed. Once the objectives are attained and after Japan has a responsible government, the occupying forces will withdraw. The concluding sentence warned, “The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.”3

On July 28 at a press conference Premier Suzuki said that Japan would ignore the Potsdam offer and press forward with the war. On the first two days of August 766 B-29s bombed Nagaoka. By then sixty Japanese cities had been devastated by 6,960 B-29 sorties dropping 41,592 tons of bombs. Half of Tokyo, Kobe, and Yokohama had been destroyed along with 40% of Osaka and Nagoya and 90% of Aomori.

The Allies had refrained from bombing Hiroshima; but on August 4 they dropped 720,000 leaflets warning that this city and others would be obliterated if Japan did not surrender at once. On August 6 at 8:15 a.m. while many were cooking their breakfasts, the first atomic bomb used in war was dropped on Hiroshima with the explosive power of 12,500 tons of TNT. According to the US Government this was the first time that a uranium bomb had ever been exploded, the only official test on July 16 having been a plutonium bomb. The blinding light and searing heat burned tens of thousands, immediately killing about 70,000 people out of a population of 255,000. The effects of the burns, disease, and radiation would cause about 20,000 to 50,000 more to die by the end of the year. Estimates of the total number who died as a result of the bomb have been estimated at 200,000. The industrial city of Hiroshima had 80% of its buildings destroyed by one bomb.

On August 8 more leaflets were dropped, and radio warnings were given. On that day the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and their army of a half million men invaded Manchuria in four places with 500 planes, 3,700 tanks, and 26,000 artillery guns. Before much of the Guandong Army could mobilize, the war was over. The Russians and the Chinese seeking revenge killed 83,737 Japanese soldiers and took 594,000 prisoners.

Weather considerations caused the bombing of Nagasaki to be moved up two days to August 9. A plutonium bomb was dropped at 11:01 a.m. and exploded with the power of 21,000 tons of TNT, killing about 35,000 immediately and eventually about 74,000 of the 200,000 people in the city. The bomb exploded in the air midway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Torpedo Factory. Hills between the industrial area targeted and the civilian population prevented as many human casualties as at Hiroshima despite its greater power. Nagai Takashi had been studying radiation, and his wife was killed. He wrote Leaving These Children and The Bells of Nagasaki before dying of radiation sickness in 1951. Like many in Nagasaki, he was a Christian, and he considered these two atomic bombings a warning by God to wake up humanity.

The Japanese cabinet was concerned about the sovereignty of the Emperor, but Hirohito accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration with the proviso that the sovereign ruler’s prerogatives were not prejudiced. US Secretary of State James Byrnes replied that the Emperor and the Japanese government would be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers and that ultimately the government would be “established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people.” Minister of War Anami Korechika and Privy Council President Hiranuma persuaded Premier Suzuki that this violated Japan’s national polity (kokutai); but Foreign minister Togo and Kido convinced Suzuki to accept their interpretation of the US offer. Hirohito said he would not allow his people to suffer any more, and they agreed to the Allied terms on August 14. That day 828 B-29s bombed Tokyo again without losing a plane, and Truman’s announcement of the surrender was made before they returned to their bases.

Major Hatanaka Kenji was trying to organize a coup; but Anami did not think it would work and committed seppuku that night. Hatanaka and other officers could not persuade General Mori Takeshi of the Imperial Guard and killed him. They forged an order in his name and tried to destroy the recording made by the Emperor and took over the Radio Broadcasting House, but Hatanaka was thwarted in his attempt to speak on the radio. He and Col. Shiizaki Jiro killed themselves with a pistol. General Tanaka Shizuichi, the commander of Tokyo Defenses, fulfilled his duty and then committed seppuku.

On August 15 the Japanese people heard the voice of their Emperor for the first time on radio as they learned that the empire had accepted the Joint Declaration and that the war was over. Hirohito explained that a new bomb meant that continuing to fight would cause the complete collapse and obliteration of the nation and even “the total extinction of human civilization.”

Prime minister Suzuki resigned that day and was replaced by Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko on August 17. Several high-ranking officers and more than 500 military personnel committed suicide after the surrender was announced. The surrender order was read to the chiefs of staff in Manchuria on August 18, and the Guandong Army was dissolved by September 17. Higashikuni appointed Konoe vice prime minister and newspaper publisher Ogata Taketora cabinet secretary. They both acted to legitimize the Emperor’s actions and to prepare for the arrival of the Americans and British. Higashikuni also spoke on radio on August 17 to assure the people that his government would act “in accordance with the imperial will.” He encouraged constructive discussions and freedom to form healthy associations.

The Americans and British Commonwealth troops were considered well disciplined during the war and had committed few rapes, but this changed during the occupation. In the first twelve days of the occupation Japanese women reported 1,336 cases of rape by US soldiers in the Kanagawa prefecture that includes Yokohama and Yokosuka. US records indicate that only 247 US soldiers were prosecuted for rape in the last half of 1945, and that included Europe as well as Asia. Concerned about rape, violence, and miscegenation, Konoe suggested organizing prostitutes for the Allied soldiers, and on August 21 Higashikuni approved the Home Ministry setting up the Recreation and Amusement Associations with Government funding. Women were urged to volunteer for the good of the nation, and 1,360 women had enlisted in Tokyo by August 27. By the end of the year 20,000 women were working for the RAA, which reached a peak of 70,000 women before it was disbanded on March 27, 1946 because of spreading venereal disease. Many RAA women “comforted” between 15 and 60 GIs each day.

On August 17 the Japanese government sent out an urgent memo ordering that all confidential documents and incriminating evidence be burned immediately. During the two weeks before the Occupation forces arrived, massive theft of government supplies also occurred, and a black market quickly developed. The Ministry of Munitions was changed back to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Ishiwara Kanji, who led the millenarian East Asia League (To’A renmei), blamed the defeat on people’s morals and urged repentance. He advised disarmament, ending restrictions on speech and ideas, and following American ways. The Buddhist Tanabe Hajime had similar views and in 1945 wrote Philosophy as the Way of Repentance, which was published in April 1946 as the Tokyo tribunal was beginning.

On September 2 Foreign minister Shigemitsu and General Umezu Yoshijiro formally signed the surrender document with General MacArthur on the battleship Missouri. MacArthur expressed hope for a better future and warned that humanity needs to “devise some greater and more equitable system” than the “utter destructiveness of war” in order to avert Armageddon. He suggested that a “spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character” that could match the advances in science, art, and literature will enable the spirit to save the flesh. He intended to demobilize the Japanese armed forces to neutralize the war potential so that Japan could return its talents into constructive channels.

During the Pacific War the Japanese armed forces had about 1,565,000 men killed and at the end categorized 4,470,000 men as wounded or ill. Japan also had 480,000 troops killed in the China War 1937-41. About 393,000 Japanese civilians were killed in air raids, and about 500,000 civilians died in war zones. An estimated nineteen million Chinese also died in China during that long war. Of the 132,134 Allied troops from Britain, the Netherlands, Australia, the United States, Canada, and New Zealand that the Japanese held as prisoners, 35,756 died before the others were released. The United States military lost 100,997 dead and had 190,546 wounded in the Pacific War.

American Occupation of Japan in 1945
President Truman appointed General Douglas MacArthur the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), and he arrived on August 30, setting up his temporary headquarters in Yokohama. After presiding over the surrender ceremony on September 2 he ordered that all of Japan was to be under military law. Foreign minister Shigemitsu in an interview with MacArthur and his Chief of Staff Richard Sutherland the next day suggested that this would likely cause chaos unless the Japanese Government had responsibility to carry out Occupation policy. MacArthur, who was given the same advice by the US Government, adopted the recommendation. The Far Eastern Commission met in Washington with eleven members from the Allied nations; but if they did not agree, the United States Government had the power to act on its own. The Allied Council in Tokyo had four representatives from the United States, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union, but they did not meet until December 27 and were only advisory. The Soviet representative often criticized SCAP. The American costs of the occupation were paid for by the Japanese government and were almost a third of its budget.

The two main goals of SCAP were demilitarization and democratization. Japan’s military equipment and installations were destroyed, and the remaining navy vessels were divided among the four main Allies. The US military demobilized 3,700,000 Japanese troops in Japan as SCAP directed Japanese commanders to disarm their own soldiers. By the end of 1947 mostly American ships had transported most of the 3,300,000 Japanese troops and 3,200,000 Japanese civilians from the territories they no longer occupied back to Japan. In central China epidemics of smallpox, typhus, and cholera broke out in the spring of 1946 and delayed repatriation. About one million Japanese were returned from the Soviet Union by the end of 1949, but about 300,000 were missing. Records made available after the collapse of the Soviet Union indicate that about 500,000 Japanese war captives died in their forced labor camps. Jiang encouraged the Chinese to treat their former enemies as friends because he wanted them as allies in his civil war against the Communists. Most of the 1,350,000 Koreans were repatriated, but some preferred to go to or stay in Japan rather than return to their divided nation. Returning veterans were often despised, and many resented the harsh treatment they had received from their officers during the war. They were on their own because the Government was forbidden to pay them any pensions.

The physical situation of Japan at the end of the war was wretched. They had lost 80% of their shipping, 30% of their industrial capacity, and 30% of their thermal power. Japan’s industrial production was at 10% of its prewar level. The Japanese empire was defeated, and the nation returned to its four main islands. The United States was administering Okinawa. The Soviet Union wanted to occupy Hokkaido, but MacArthur vetoed that. Thus unlike Germany and Korea, Japan was not divided. Rice was 32% below prewar production, and fishing was down 40%. Official food rations provided each person with only 1,050 calories per day. People had to acquire food from the black market to survive. One Tokyo judge died of malnutrition because he would not break the law. MacArthur immediately set up a food distribution network and cabled Washington to send 3,500,000 tons of food. When confronted with bureaucratic delays, he cabled back, “Give me bread or give me bullets.”5 The cost of living rose about ten percent a month for two years, and by the end of 1949 the consumer price index had multiplied to 240 times the pre-war level. Millions of people in Japan had their homes destroyed by the bombing, and many lived in shanty towns or were homeless. In February 1948 the number of orphaned and homeless children was 123,510.

The Higashikuni cabinet had begun demobilizing the Army and Navy before the Americans arrived. At a press conference on September 4 he urged national repentance and praised the Emperor for ending the suffering of the war. Higashikuni admitted that the main reason for Japan’s defeat was that its enemies had much more war power; but this made many people feel that their leaders had foolishly led them into a war against the United States and Britain.

On September 6 President Truman’s advice to use existing government structures arrived. SCAP abolished the Imperial Headquarters on September 13. MacArthur moved into the General Headquarters (GHQ) in central Tokyo opposite the Imperial Palace on September 17. GHQ had about 35,000 civilian administrators in Government, Civil Information and Education, and Economic and Scientific sections. The next day MacArthur began receiving the secret instructions from the Truman administration for the reform of Japan. The Americans decided to use the Emperor’s sway over his people for their purposes, and Operation Blacklist was the plan for blaming the militarists rather than the Emperor. On September 25 Hirohito granted interviews to Frank Kluckholm of the New York Times and Hugh Baillie, president of United Press, in which he emphasized his support for democracy and pacifism while he avoided questions about Pearl Harbor, which he blamed on Tojo.