Yokohama owes its rise to political compromise and a natural harbor. The Tokugawa shogunate and Commodore Perry, on the occasion of his return in 1854, could not agree on a parley site to discuss the opening of Japan to trade. The shogunate insisted on Uraga; Perry demanded entrance to Edo. The two sides struck a compromise -- the miserable village of Yokohama.
The subsequent treaty brought Yokohama's deep-water harbor to the eyes of the world. Ships of the maritime powers called. The young city prospered from the export of silk and tea.
The sailor was the object of the landsman's attention in Yokohama. Entrepreneurs built livery stables that provided him with ponies in exchange for his surplus dollars. He galloped down streets with occasional tragic consequences; in 1867 an American bluejacket ran down a Japanese woman. Yorinaka Tsumaki designed the Yokohama Specie Bank (now Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History) with a harborward entrance for his convenience. Foreign residents of Christian conscience founded a sailors' home where he could obtain a bed and dinner but no drink, for the home was established on temperance principles, although attendance at meetings, with harmonium accompaniment, was optional.