Yamamoto Otokichi

Yamamoto Otokichi was one of three Japanese castaways, along with two men named Kyukichi and Iwakichi, who came ashore in the Pacific Northwest in 1834, and then journeyed to England, China, and elsewhere in their efforts to return home.

Their ship was somehow disabled just off the coast of Japan, floundering and floating all the way to the west coast of the United States. Found by members of the Makah Indian tribe, they were at first enslaved, then later turned over to a sea captain of the Hudson Bay Company. They were later allowed to make their way to England, and to China, in efforts to find their way back to Japan. The group arrived in Japan in 1837 aboard the American ship Morrison, a ship out of Macao carrying a number of American missionaries who were hoping to show goodwill by returning the castaways. Instead, the ship was fired upon by shogunate forces, and driven away. Otokichi and his mates ended up settling in Singapore, Macao, and Shanghai; Otokichi himself married an Englishwoman, and later a Malay woman, and found work as a translator and agent for a British trading company.

References

• Matt Matsuda, Pacific Worlds, University of Cambridge Press (2012), 233-