Townsend Harris

Townsend Harris
Townsend Harris in 1855 (painted by James Bogle)
Born	3 October 1804 Washington County, New York, US
Died	February 25, 1878(1878-02-25) (aged 73) New York City, New York, US

Townsend Harris (October 3, 1804 – February 25, 1878) was a successful New York City merchant and minor politician, and the first United States Consul General to Japan. He negotiated the "Harris Treaty" between the US and Japan and is credited as the diplomat who first opened the Empire of Japan to foreign trade and culture in the Edo period.

Harris was born in the village of Sandy Hill (now Hudson Falls), in Washington County in upstate New York. He moved early to New York City, where he became a successful merchant and importer from China.

In 1846 Harris joined the New York City Board of Education, serving as its president until 1848. He was an avid and critical reader and also taught himself French, Italian and Spanish. He founded the Free Academy of the City of New York, which later became the City College of New York, to provide education to the city's working people. A city high school bearing Harris's name, Townsend Harris High School, soon emerged as a separate entity out of the Free Academy's secondary-level curriculum; the school survived until 1942 when Fiorello La Guardia closed it because of budget constraints. Townsend Harris High School was re-created in 1984 as a public magnet school for the humanities.

In 1848 he went to California and during the following six years made trading voyages to China and the Dutch and British Indies, becoming thoroughly acquainted with the manyfold Oriental varieties of human nature. He acted for a time as American vice-consul at the Chinese treaty port of Ningpo.

Harris, though anxious to get to his new post in Japan, went first to Bangkok, to update the 1833 Roberts Treaty. In his formal audience with the English-speaking and Western-oriented Second King, Phra Pin Klao, Harris stated America's position: