Changes

==The Incident==

==The Incident==

On the 21st day of the 8th month of Bunkyû 2<ref>14 September 1862 on the Western calendar</ref>[[Shimazu Hisamitsu]], father of the daimyô of Satsuma han, was returning from accompanying an Imperial envoy to Edo, to present the shogun with orders to travel to Kyoto to discuss the matter of [[joi|expulsion of the foreigners]]<ref>Sansom, George. ''The Western World and Japan''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970. p300.</ref>, when he passed through the village of Namamugi, a locale on the [[Tokaido|Tôkaidô]] between Kawasaki and Kanagawa.<ref name=Vaporis>Vaporis. pp34-35.</ref> Foreigners resident or active in the area called this section of the Tôkaidô, lined with pine trees and affording fine views of [[Mt. Fuji]], "the Avenue". On that day, Charles Lennox Richardson, a merchant based primarily in Shanghai, was accompanied by two Yokohama-based merchants, Woodthorpe C. Clarke and William Marshall, and by a cousin of Marshall's, a Mrs. Borrodaile, all four of them on horseback. They had already passed several other groups of samurai on the road that day without incident,<ref name=Vaporis/> though official warnings had been distributed through the foreign communities that daimyô processions would be passing through, and to avoid the road that day.<ref name=daniels1467>Daniels. pp146-147.</ref>

On the 21st day of the 8th month of Bunkyû 2<ref>14 September 1862 on the Western calendar</ref>[[Shimazu Hisamitsu]], father of the daimyô of Satsuma han, was returning from accompanying Imperial envoy [[Ohara Shigetomi|Ôhara Shigetomi]] to Edo, to present the shogun with orders to travel to Kyoto to discuss the matter of [[joi|expulsion of the foreigners]]<ref>Sansom, George. ''The Western World and Japan''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970. p300.</ref>, when he passed through the village of Namamugi, a locale on the [[Tokaido|Tôkaidô]] between Kawasaki and Kanagawa.<ref name=Vaporis>Vaporis. pp34-35.</ref> Foreigners resident or active in the area called this section of the Tôkaidô, lined with pine trees and affording fine views of [[Mt. Fuji]], "the Avenue". On that day, Charles Lennox Richardson, a merchant based primarily in Shanghai, was accompanied by two Yokohama-based merchants, Woodthorpe C. Clarke and William Marshall, and by a cousin of Marshall's, a Mrs. Borrodaile, all four of them on horseback. They had already passed several other groups of samurai on the road that day without incident,<ref name=Vaporis/> though official warnings had been distributed through the foreign communities that daimyô processions would be passing through, and to avoid the road that day.<ref name=daniels1467>Daniels. pp146-147.</ref>

The standard version of what happened as the two parties met on the road relates simply that Richardson did not stop, stand aside, or dismount (let alone prostrate himself) to let the samurai procession pass, or that he even pushed ahead and sought to cut through the procession, for which he was attacked and killed by members of the samurai party.

The standard version of what happened as the two parties met on the road relates simply that Richardson did not stop, stand aside, or dismount (let alone prostrate himself) to let the samurai procession pass, or that he even pushed ahead and sought to cut through the procession, for which he was attacked and killed by members of the samurai party.