Namamugi Incident

The Namamugi Incident (生麦事件, Namamugi Jiken) (also known sometimes as the Kanagawa Incident, and archaically as the Richardson Affair) was a samurai attack on foreign nationals in Japan on September 14, 1862, which resulted in the bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863. In Japanese the bombardment is described as a war between the United Kingdom and Satsuma Province, the so-called Anglo-Satsuma War (Satsu-Ei Senso).

Course of events

Four British subjects (a Shanghai merchant named Charles Lennox Richardson, two other men and a Mrs. Borrodaile) were travelling on the Tokaido road through the village of Namamugi (now part of Yokohama) en route to a shrine in present-day Kawasaki. As they passed through the village, the daimyō of Satsuma, Shimazu Hisamitsu, passed through in the other direction with a thousand-man contingent of guards. The Britons did not dismount when ordered to do so, as was the custom when daimyos passed by in Japan, and were attacked for disrespecting Shimazu. Richardson was killed and the two other men were seriously wounded.

Related Topics:
Shanghai - Charles Lennox Richardson - Tokaido - Yokohama - Kawasaki - Daimyō - Shimazu Hisamitsu

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