The Sakai Incident

March 8, 1868 - Today was the day that a group of unlucky French sailors rowed ashore at the port of Sakai, near Osaka, Japan.

Japan had only recently opened to foreign powers, and tensions were running high during the upheaval of the Meiji Restoration. When the French sailors from the corvette Dupleix landed at the port, a confrontation broke out with samurai guards from the Tosa Domain. In the chaos that followed, the samurai attacked the sailors.

Eleven Frenchmen were killed.

The killings caused an immediate international crisis. To prevent retaliation from France, the new Japanese government agreed to pay compensation and ordered harsh punishment for the men responsible.

Twenty samurai were sentenced to die by seppuku, the ritual act of disembowelment.

After eleven of the samurai had carried out the gruesome sentence, the French representative was so horrified by the spectacle that he asked for the executions to stop. The remaining nine samurai were spared, and the two nations began the slow process of repairing relations.