General Sherman Merger

In the years following the event known as the General Sherman incident, the U.S. continued to seek negotiations with Korea for two reasons: to bring justice for the American crewmen lost aboard the General Sherman and to increase trade with the East Asian countries. William H. Seward, the U.S. Secretary of State during this time, believed it was “high time” to include Korea in international affairs (Rolph). A small expeditionary fleet of five ships, under the command of Admiral John Rodgers, was deployed to Korea in 1871 with a gift and a letter to King Kojong of Korea with peaceful intentions. However, once the U.S. expedition arrived in Korean waters near the Korean fort of Ganghwa, the Koreans opened preemptively opened fire on the U.S. …show more content…
In February of 1876, Japan succeeded in imposing a Western-style unequal treaty with Korea, forcing the small country to open up three of its ports to Japanese merchants (Pike). Due to China wanting to maintain its control of Korea and not lose it to Japan, China began to play the Western and imperial powers off of each other, since it was in no position to engage in another war. As a result, Korea began to enter numerous unequal treaties with Britain, Russia, and Italy. In the case of the United States, the U.S. “had suffered greatly after the Panic of 1873 and entered into a depression worsened by weak consumer demand” (“Commodore Robert W. Shufeldt’s Voyage to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, 1878-1880”). In other words, the Panic of 1873 crippled the U.S. economy and there was a desperate need to fix the US economy by increasing trade with foreign countries. Commodore Robert W. Shufeldt became the key man for this diplomatic mission. His objective was to establish American commercial networks in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, particularly where there was none present already. According to the same source, by the end of his voyage to the three continents, Shufeldt succeeded in raising the reputation of the United States commercially on an international level. His voyage also played a massive in securing a US-Korea treaty. He went to Korea twice: the first time was a failure in 1880 since he could not convince the Chinese Viceroy, Li Hongzhang, to obtain a commercial treaty with Korea since Hongzhang did not want the United States to interfere with China’s control over the small country. The second time in 1882 was a success due to the fact that China’s hold and influence had become weaker due to the growing strength of Japan. The idea behind the US-Korea treaty is that the treaty would be a means for

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