Ranald MacDonald and Cape Disappointment

HIS WAS A LIFE OF ADVENTURE SAILING THE SEVEN SEAS 

Ranald MacDonald (via Wikipedia)

Note that the first name does not include an "o." This is not the happy/terrifying clown of fast food fame. 

Ranald MacDonald was the man arguably responsible for the negotiations between Matthew Perry and the Japanese forces at Kanagawa that ended centuries of cultural and economic isolationism and opened trade between Japan and the rest of the world. Although he is rarely mentioned, MacDonald was integral in the stages leading to the negotiations, as an instructor of English to many of those present in the negotiations.

After hitching a ride on the ship, the Plymouth, en route to Japan from Canada, MacDonald set himself out to sea on a small boat, landing on Rishiri Island in North Japan. Here, he was caught by locals and sent to  Nagasaki, where he instructed fourteen samurai in English. Ten months later, he was remitted back to American forces and made his way around the globe, finally settling back down in his home of Vancouver (what was then Lower Canada).

His story seems short, but in that time, he gained an appreciation for Japanese culture that led him to implore Congress to see the Japanese people as cultured, civilized, and worth the extra effort to negotiate for trade, rather than taking them by force, as was the popular opinion for approach at the time.

Good job, Ronnie.

Bonus fact: His mother (Raven, aka Princess Sunday [I didn't make that up]) was a Native person from a place called "Cape Disappointment," in modern-day Washington State. There are two theories as to the name: 

1) The cape was named on April 12, 1788 by British fur trader John Meares who was sailing south from Nootka in search of trade. After a storm, he turned his ship around just north of the Cape and therefore just missed the discovery of the Columbia River. 

2) The cape may have been named in November of 1805 by a member of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, which had recently succeeded in reaching the Pacific, when he found no ships in the vicinity, according to the journal of the expedition as recited in the Ken Burns documentary.

I prefer to think that it has something to do with the fact that it's one of the foggiest places in the US, receiving the equivalent of 106 days a year of white, moist blanketing.

But hey, at least they have a pretty cool looking lighthouse.

-JJ