1868 Sakai Massacre
Japan, which had kept itself in isolation for over two centuries, punishing foreigners who landed or were shipwrecked there, and executing Japanese who returned from abroad, had its doors blown open in the 1850s by American and European navies. This enforced exposure to the outside world was welcomed by some but also inflamed anti-foreigner sentiment that often broke out in violence. The illustration below is an expression of the “expel the barbarians” movement.
OnMarch 5, 1868 a party of 11 French sailors in Sakai harbour was set upon by local samurai and massacred. To pacify the French, the government ordered that those responsible be ordered to commit seppuku, suicide by disembowelment. After 11 had done so, the French captain whose crewmen had been butchered said that sufficient penalty had been paid and asked that the remaining 9 be spared.