Japan Tokugawa Period

During the beginning of the Edo period (1603-1867), in Japan was ruled by strict customs and regulations intended to promote stability and peace. The Edo period was also known as the Tokugawa period because it was when the Japanese society was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate. The Tokugawa period has brought two hundred and fifty years of stability in Japan. This period was characterized by economic growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies, a stable population, peace, and popular enjoyment of arts and culture. Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which effectively ruled Japan from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The Battle of Sekigahara

Because Japan has been closed to the outside world for so long, they could not progress as rapidly as Europe and the United States. This ended after 1854 when the American Black Ships that was commanded by Mathew Perry, forced the opening of Japan to American trade through a series of unequal treaties. The Convention of Kanagawa, or what is also known as Kanagawa Treaty, which was the first treaty between the United States and the Tokugawa shogunate. Since the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Tokugawa shogunate pursed a policy of isolating the country from outside

They were bound to a specific lord, or daimyo, and also bound to their communities by duty and honor. This code of honor is known as Bushido, and comes from the word bush, which means “warrior.” The Japanese word do means “the way.” So Bushido means, “the way of the warrior.” This code evolved from an earlier period when samurais were archers and horsemen. Although Bushido is referred to as a code, it was not a formal set of rules that all samurai followed. In fact, Bushido changed greatly throughout Japanese history and even from one clan to the next. Bushido was not written down until the seventeenth century after samurai had been in existence for