The sakai incident of 1868 and its representation in the french, british and american press

The article dwells upon how Western European and American newspapers covered conflicts between the Japanese and foreigners in the first decade after the signing of the Ansei treaties, 1854-1858. The focus of this research paper is the so-called Sakai incident, which took place March 8, 1868. It was a fight between the samurai of the Tosa province and the French sailors from the corvette «Dupleix». The analysis of the way the most influential and circulated newspapers from France (La Presse, Le Monde illustré, Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, Le Figaro), Great Britain (The Times, The Guardian) and the US (The New York Times, New-York Tribune) reported on this incident demonstrated that they were used as a tool for spreading colonial thinking amongst their readers. They placed the guilt upon the Japanese party and pleaded French sailors’ innocence. However, despite unanimously defending the latter, the newspapers differed in accuracy and detail in covering the Sakai incident.