Matthew C. Perry was a famous Naval commander who traveled to Japan in 1852 and set up trading posts and negotiated a treaty to open the country to trade with the West. The Convention of Kanagawa in 1854 was the name of the treaty that opened the previously closed Japanese economy to American exports. Perry used force and threat of force to coerce the Japanese into creating a preferable trade treaty between the two countries to open up trade and allow the U.S. to sell its goods in the Japanese market.
