Everything about Ranald Macdonald totally explained
Ranald MacDonald (
3 February,
1824 –
August 24,
1894) was the first man to teach the
English language in
Japan, including educating
Einosuke Moriyama, one of the chief interpreters to handle the negotiations between
Commodore Perry and the
Tokugawa Shogunate.
Early life
MacDonald was born at
Fort Astoria in what was then known as the
Columbia District or
Oregon Country (a disputed area dominated by the
Hudson's Bay Company and the
Pacific Fur Company), to
Archibald McDonald, a
Scottish Hudson's Bay Company fur trader, and Raven (also known as Princess Sunday), a
Chinook Indian, daughter of
Chief Comcomly, a leader of Chinook people from the
Cascade Mountains and
Cape Disappointment.
As a child, he met three shipwrecked Japanese sailors (among them,
Otokichi). MacDonald's Indian relatives told him that their ancestors had come from Asia and the boy developed a fascination with
Japan, theorizing that it might be home of his distant relatives.
He was educated at the
Red River Academy in
Manitoba,
Canada, and secured a job as a bank clerk, following the wishes of his father.
Japan
A restless man, he soon quit his bank job and decided that he'd visit Japan. Despite knowing the strict
isolationist Japanese policy of the time, which meant death or imprisonment for foreigners who set foot on Japanese soil, he signed on as a sailor on the whaling ship
Plymouth in 1845.
In 1848, he convinced the captain of the
Plymouth to set him to sea on a small boat off the coast of
Hokkaidō. On
July 1, he came ashore on the island of
Rishiri where he pretended he'd been shipwrecked. He was caught by
Ainu people, who remitted him to the
Daimyo of
Matsumae. He was then sent to
Nagasaki, the only port allowed to conduct limited trade with the Dutch.
Since more and more American and British ships had been approaching Japanese waters, and nobody in Japan spoke English with any sort of fluency, fourteen men were sent to study English under him. These men were
samurai, who had previously learned Dutch and had been attempting to learn English for some time from secondhand sources, such as Dutch merchants who spoke a little of the language. The brightest of these men, a sort of language genius, was
Einosuke Moriyama.
MacDonald stayed in confinement, in Nagasaki, for 10 months, during which he also studied Japanese, before being taken aboard a passing American warship. In April 1849, in Nagasaki, MacDonald was remitted together with fifteen other shipwrecks to captain
James Glynn on the American warship
USS Preble which had been sent to rescue stranded sailors. Glynn later urged that a treaty should be signed with Japan, "if not peaceably, then by force".
Upon his return to North America, MacDonald made a written declaration to the US
Congress, explaining that the Japanese society was well policed, and the Japanese people well behaved and of the highest standard. He continued his career as a sailor.
After travelling widely, MacDonald returned to
Lower Canada and, in 1858, went to the new colony of
British Columbia where he set up a packing business in the
Fraser River gold fields and later in the
Cariboo, in 1864. He also participated in an expedition that explored parts of
Vancouver Island.
Although his students had been instrumental in the negotiations to open Japan with Commodore Perry and
Lord Elgin, he found no real recognition of his achievements. His notes of the Japanese adventure were not published until 1923, 29 years after his death. He died a poor man in Washington state in 1894, while visiting his niece. His last words were reportedly "Sayonara, my dear, sayonara..."
Last resting place
Ranald McDonald Cemetery, Ferry County, Washington . Ranald McDonald's Grave is 18 miles northwest of Curlew Lake State Park on Mid Way Road and is a satellite of Osoyoos Lake State Park. The grave bears the following inscription:
» RANALD MacDONALD 1824-1894
SON OF PRINCESS RAVEN AND ARCHIBALD MacDONALD » HIS WAS A LIFE OF ADVENTURE SAILING THE SEVEN SEAS
WANDERING IN FAR COUNTRIES BUT RETURNING AT LAST TO REST IN HIS HOMELAND. SAYONARA-FAREWELL » ASTORIA EUROPE JAPAN THE CARIBOO AUSTRALIA FT COLVILLE
To this day, there are memorials to Ranald MacDonald in Rishiri and in Nagasaki.
There is also a memorial to him in his birthplace located where Fort Astoria used to stand in
Astoria, Oregon.
Further Information
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