The Bonin Islanders, 1830 to the Present

Reviewed by: The Bonin Islanders, 1830 to the Present: Narrating Japanese Nationality by David Chapman Wendy Matsumura (bio) The Bonin Islanders, 1830 to the Present: Narrating Japanese Nationality. By David Chapman. Lexington Books, Lanham MD, 2016. xx, 225 pages. $90.00, cloth; $44.99, paper; $41.99, E-book. In The Bonin Islanders, 1830 to the Present, David Chapman traces the histories and narratives of the diverse group of people who settled the Bonin, or Ogasawara, Islands from the early nineteenth century, as well as those of their descendants who lived through the Meiji government’s incorporation of the islands into the boundaries of the Japanese nation-state, total war conditions, U.S. occupation, and reversion. These stories, he asserts, will contribute to the “social and cultural history of diverse groups that call Japan home” (p. x), indicating his commitment to dispelling the myth of homogeneity that continues to define normative Japanese-ness. Through a careful consideration of personal accounts, collective memory, government records from Japanese and European countries, presettlement travel records of explorers, and so on, Chapman weaves together the multiple narratives that “form the many strands that make up the very fabric of Bonin history” (p. xii). In so doing, he hopes to illuminate a history that has been “consigned to the fringes of larger dominant accounts of nations and regions” (p. xii). These islands, which have the distinction of being a place where non-Japanese or, for that matter, non-Asian peoples settled prior to [End Page 207] the formal incorporation of Japan into the sphere of modern international law, reveal the very limits of the logic that links together Japanese blood and national identity (p. x). Chapman traces a long history that begins in the mid-sixteenth century and extends to the contemporary moment to show that the subjects of his inquiry are not victims but rather survivors who triumphed against all odds: “The original settlers and their descendants, caught between state and community, have lived through extraordinary changes adjusting to, struggling with and exploiting circumstances as they emerged” (p. xiv). The Bonin Islanders is comprised of eight chapters. The first two examine the early modern period. Chapter 1 introduces the first record of the islands which dates back to the mid-sixteenth century and was written by members of a Spanish expedition led by Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, whose main intention was to establish a colony near the Portuguese-occupied Moluccas. The second chapter explains how the islands came to be settled by British, U.S., French, and Russian subjects, some of whom were involved in the establishment of trade with the Hawaiian kingdom during the early 1800s. Chapman emphasizes that the first 22 settlers on the Bonin Islands acted independently of their respective countries and were optimistic about their new settlement, which they knew to be an important point of refueling in the Pacific Ocean. Free from local chiefs and inhabitants, they looked forward to reaping the benefits of “enormous possibilities once developed and exploited” (p. 25). The chapter concludes with Commodore Matthew Perry’s arrival at the islands in June 1853 following his expedition to the Ryukyu kingdom. 39) that led the Tokugawa bakufu to begin to make formal claims to them. The way that this process unfolded is the subject of the following chapter. As suggested by the subtitle of chapter 3, “Narratives of Possession and Reclamation,” the bakufu deployed a series of discursive tools in order to turn the Bonin Islands into Ogasawara. For example, when Japanese officials discussed the issue with diplomats from Britain and the United States, they framed negotiations in terms of reclaiming “our islands of the southern seas” (p. 52). Europeans who had settled the islands since the early 1800s were referred to as “foreigners” and were described as shipwrecked castaways or drifters without strong national affiliations (p. 52). The first attempt at reclamation, which took place in 1862, involved the recruitment of a small group of farmers from Hachijojima whose stated objective was to populate the islands and engage

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