Members of YCAPS visited the Namamugi neighborhood of Yokohama on Sunday, February 22, 2026 to learn about the Namamugi Incident of 1862, and its influence on Japanese and global history.
The group started at the Namamugi Incident Reference Museum, where they recieved a thorough presentation of both the incident and the history of the museum itself.
In 1862 in the small village of Namamugi, four British people approached a southbound samurai procession lead by the father of the daimyo of Satsuma Domain on the Tokaido road. The British people failed to dismount from their horses and tried to push by the procession. Finding this highly disrespectful, the samurai attacked them, mortally wounding one man. While the British government demanded hars reparations, Satsuma refused, leading to the British naval bombardment of Kagoshima, a brief and inconclusive conflict that came to be known as the Anglo-Satsuma war. These events deepened the dissatistfaction of Satsuma, demonstrated the Shogun abdicating governance of international relations, and directly led to the Meiji Restoration.
The museum itself was founded by Mr. Takeo Asaumi, a successful buisiness man from Namamugi. In 1976, he decided that it was his duty as a resident to preserve and share the history of the Namamugi Incident. At 60 years old, he attended Waseda University to study modern history, and leveraged his own finances to collect artifacts, records, and other information about the incident. The musuem was finally opened in 1994. However, it closed after he passed away in 2023.
Community members got together, applied for grants, and successfully reopened the museum in 2025. Earlier this year, the city of Yokohama supported the museum in remodeling to expand the educational space into the first floor of the Asaumi residence. Through the work of these volunteers, the museum is open to the public on 2nd and 4th weekends from 10 am to 2 pm. YCAPS was honored and deeply grateful to recieve the first fully English group briefing.
The group then walked to the Namamugi Icident Memorial, a small Shinto Shrine remembering the incident and honoring the man who died there. It is blessed annually by local Shinto priests and remains as a powerful reminder of the international implications of interpersonal relationships, good or bad.
From there, the group walked roughly 1 km up the Tokaido, now a narrow, quiet residential street, to where the incident took place outside a tofu shop, which has been replaced by a house. A small sign next to the house marks the location.
Since 1862, the village of 240 houses has grown to a major suburban area with tightly packed houses and towering apartments. However, it still maintains its international character. Tsurumi ward, where Namamugi is located, has the second-highest population of foreignters after China Town in Yokohama, itseful a historically international port city.
The tour concluded at one of the many such immigrant-owned restaurants, where discussions continued on the significance of the incident.