The strict, brutally enforced policy of total isolation slammed the door on foreign trade, foreign religion and foreigners, who faced summary execution if they remained in Japan. A grandson of clan patriarch and dynasty founder Tokugawa Ieyasu, Iemitsu is mainly remembered for the Sakoku Edict of 1635. The lantern was originally carved to commemorate Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604-1651), the third shōgun of the mighty Tokugawa clan, which unified feudal Japan under its stern rule for nearly 270 years. The lantern was created in the middle of the 17th century for the funeral ceremony of Tokugawa Iemitsu, a Japanese shōgun, one of the iron-fisted military leaders who ruled the Japanese islands in the centuries before the 1868 Meiji Restoration elevated the emperor from a ceremonial titleholder to actual power.Īlmost every square inch of the sculpture tells a story.
(National Park Service) The stone tells a very old story The lantern was given, by the governor of Tokyo, to the people of the United States, and was dedicated on March 30, 1954. So there was a tremendous sense of gratitude from the Japanese people and they supported us.” Tatsuko Iguchi, daughter of Japanese Ambassador Sadao Iguchi, lights the Stone Lantern near the Tidal Basin March 30, 1954. were extremely grateful to the United States for how we helped them after, that we were not an abusive victor. State Department and longtime president of the Japan-America Society of Washington D.C. “It was an act of appreciation,” said John Malott, former Director of Japanese Affairs at the U.S.
The Japanese government originally planned to send the lantern in the 1920s, but the idea was shelved as relations between the two countries chilled and eventually led to war.Īfter the wartime enemies became postwar allies, the lantern finally arrived, in March of 1954.
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