Yamamoto Otokichi

Otokichi
Japanese drawing of Otokichi in 1849, as he visited Japan passing for a Chinese man.
Born	1818 Mihama, Aichi Prefecture, Tokugawa shogunate
Died	January 1, 1867(1867-01-01) (aged 49) Singapore
Resting place	Japanese Cemetery Park, Hougang, Singapore
Nationality	Japanese
Other names	John Matthew Ottoson
Citizenship	British

Otokichi (音吉 or 乙吉^?), later known as John Matthew Ottoson (1818 – January 1867), was a Japanese castaway originally from the area of Onoura near modern-day Mihama, on the west coast of the Chita Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture.

Otokichi was a 14-year-old crew member on a rice transport ship bound for Edo, the Hojunmaru (宝順丸), 15 metres (49 ft) in length with a cargo of 150 tons and a crew of 14. The ship left on October 11, 1832, but was caught in a storm and blown off-course far out in the Pacific Ocean.

The ship, without a mast or a rudder, was carried across the northern Pacific Ocean by currents. It drifted for 14 months, during which the crew lived on desalinated seawater and on the rice of their cargo. Several crew members died of scurvy; only three survived by the time they made landfall at Cape Alava, the westernmost point of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, in 1834. The three survivors were Iwakichi, 29; Kyukichi, 16; and Otokichi, then 15.

The three castaways were looked after and briefly enslaved by the Makah Indian tribe. They were later handed over to John McLoughlin, the Chief Factor (agent) for the Columbia District at the Hudson's Bay Company.