Pacific Pioneers

by Van Sant, John E.; Daniels, Roger

• ISBN13: 9780252025600
• ISBN10: 0252025601
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

Shipwrecked sailors, samurai seeking a material and sometimes spiritual education, and laborers seeking to better their economic situation: these early Japanese travelers to the West occupy a little-known corner of Asian American studies.

Pacific Pioneers profiles the first Japanese who resided in the United States or the Kingdom of Hawaii for a substantial period of time and the Westerners who influenced their experiences in the New World. John E. Van Sant explores the motivations and accomplishments of these resourceful, sometimes visionary individuals who made important inroads into a culture quite different from their own and paved the way for the Issei and Nisei.

Pacific Pioneers presents detailed biographical sketches of Japanese such as Joseph Heco, Niijima Jo, and the converts to the Brotherhood of the New Life and introduces the American benefactors, such as William Griffis, David Murray, and Thomas Lake Harris, who built relationships with their foreign visitors. Van Sant also examines the uneasy relations between Japanese laborers and sugar cane

Author Biography

John E. Van Sant is an assistant professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Roger Daniels
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction: Transnational History, Transitions, and Worldviews	1	(20)
Joseph Heco, a Castaway in America	21	(28)
Ryugakusei, Rutgers, and the American Experience	49	(15)
Niijima Jo, Japanese Puritan	64	(15)
From Satsuma to Utopia	79	(18)
The Gannenmono, Eugene Van Reed, and the Emergence of Japan-Hawaii-U.S. Relations	97	(20)
From Aizu to Gold Hill	117	(20)
Epilogue: Japan and the United States, 1880-1924	131	(6)
Notes	137	(34)
Bibliography	171	(16)
Index	187