Ranald MacDonald (February 3, 1824 – August 24, 1894) was the first native English-speaker to teach the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...

in Japan, including educating Einosuke Moriyama, one of the chief interpreters to handle the negotiations between Commodore Perry and the

Tokugawa Shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in ...

Early life

MacDonald was born at

Fort Astoria Fort Astoria (also named Fort George) was the primary fur trading post of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC). A maritime contingent of PFC staff was sent on board the '' Tonquin'', while another party traveled overland from St. Louis. ...

, in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

of North America. The area was then known as the

Columbia District The Columbia District was a fur trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of British North America in the 19th century. Much of its territory overlapped with the disputed Oregon Country. It was explored by the North West Company betwee ...

Oregon Country Oregon Country was a large region of the Pacific Northwest of North America that was subject to a long dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States in the early 19th century. The area, which had been created by the Treaty of 1818, c ...

, disputed territory dominated by the British

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trade, fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake b ...

and the American

Pacific Fur Company The Pacific Fur Company (PFC) was an American fur trade venture wholly owned and funded by John Jacob Astor that functioned from 1810 to 1813. It was based in the Pacific Northwest, an area contested over the decades between the United Kingdom of ...

. MacDonald's father was

Archibald McDonald Archibald McDonald (3 February 1790 – 15 January 1853) was chief trader for the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Langley, Fort Nisqually and Fort Colvile and one-time deputy governor of the Red River Colony. Early life McDonald was born in Le ...

, a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

Hudson's Bay Company

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the mo ...

r, and his mother was Koale'xoa (also known as Raven or Princess Sunday), a Chinook, daughter of Comcomly, a leader of the "Lower Chinook" Chinookan people that lived near the present-day city of

Ilwaco, Washington Ilwaco ( ) is a city in Pacific County, Washington, United States. The population was 936 at the 2010 census. Founded in 1890, the city was home to the Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company along the Long Beach Peninsula, with its core economy ba ...

. She, however, died shortly after giving birth and MacDonald was briefly cared for by his mother's family. Around 1825, Archibald McDonald married Jane Klyne, a

Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which deri ...

woman from Canada, and brought Ranald to

Fort Vancouver Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading post that was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of the ...

, the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company. It is unclear when MacDonald became aware of the details of his birth or of his Chinook ancestry. MacDonald was a member of the larger Métis community. Based on the popular historical fiction of Eva Emery Dye, it has been repeated that "as a child of eight in 1832 at Fort Vancouver, he met three shipwrecked Japanese sailors, including

Otokichi , also known as Yamamoto Otokichi and later known as John Matthew Ottoson (1818 – January 1867), was a Japanese castaway originally from the area of Onoura near modern-day Mihama, on the west coast of the Chita Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture ...

". In reality the three shipwrecked Japanese sailors were brought to Fort Vancouver in July 1834 ot 1832 arriving there about four months after 10-yr-old Ranald MacDonald had departed for the

Red River Colony The Red River Colony (or Selkirk Settlement), also known as Assinboia, was a colonization project set up in 1811 by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, on of land in British North America. This land was granted to Douglas by the Hudson's Ba ...

– so there never was the fabled "meeting of East and West". MacDonald's

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: ** First Nat ...

relatives might have had legends that their ancestors had come from across the Pacific, but saying that MacDonald "developed a fascination with Japan" and "theorized that it might be the home of his distant relatives" may or may not be accurate. In his autobiography MacDonald explained it in his own words: "My plan was to present myself as a castaway ... and to rely on their humanity. My purpose was to learn of them; and, if occasion should offer, to instruct them of us." MacDonald was educated at the

Red River Academy The Red River Academy (later St. John's College) in Manitoba, Canada, was established for the training and education of the sons of Hudson's Bay Company employees. It was founded in 1852 by Rev. David Jones. Many of the students were Indigenous. It ...

in the newly established Red River Colony, a part of

British North America British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English overseas possessions, English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland (island), Newfound ...

that later became

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Win ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

. Later, following the wishes of his father, he secured a job as a bank clerk.

Japan

A restless man, he soon quit his bank job and decided that he would visit Japan. Despite knowing the strict isolationist Japanese policy of the time, which meant death or imprisonment for foreigners who set foot on Japanese soil, he signed on as a sailor on the whaling ship ''Plymouth'' in 1845. In 1848, he convinced the captain of the ''Plymouth'' to set him to sea on a small boat off the coast of Hokkaidō. On July 1, he came ashore on Rishiri Island where he pretended he had been shipwrecked. He was caught by

Ainu people The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the ...

, who remitted him to the ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

'' of

Matsumae clan The was a Japanese clan that was confirmed in the possession of the area around Matsumae, Hokkaidō as a march fief in 1590 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and charged with defending it, and by extension the whole of Japan, from the Ainu "barbarians" ...

. He was then sent to

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in th ...

, the only port allowed to conduct limited trade with the Dutch. Since more and more American and British ships had been approaching Japanese waters, and no man in Japan spoke English with any sort of fluency, fourteen men were sent to study English under MacDonald. These men were

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of History of Japan#Medieval Japan (1185–1573/1600), medieval and Edo period, early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retai ...

, who had previously learned Dutch and had been attempting to learn English for some time from secondhand sources, such as Dutch merchants who spoke a little of the language. The brightest of these men, a sort of "language genius", was Moriyama Einosuke. MacDonald stayed in confinement, at , a branch temple of the in Nagasaki, for 10 months, during which he also studied Japanese before being taken aboard a passing American warship. In April 1849, in Nagasaki, MacDonald was remitted together with fifteen shipwreck survivors to captain James Glynn on the American warship USS ''Preble'' which had been sent to rescue stranded sailors. Glynn later urged that a treaty should be signed with Japan, "if not peaceably, then by force". Upon his return to North America, MacDonald made a written declaration to the US

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

, explaining that the Japanese society was well policed, and the Japanese people were well behaved to the highest standard. He continued his career as a sailor. After travelling widely, MacDonald returned to

Canada East Canada East (french: links=no, Canada-Est) was the northeastern portion of the United Province of Canada. Lord Durham's Report investigating the causes of the Upper and Lower Canada Rebellions recommended merging those two colonies. The new c ...

(now

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...

) and, in 1858, went to the new colony of

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...

where he set up a packing business in the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annua ...

gold fields and later in the

Cariboo The Cariboo is an intermontane region of British Columbia, Canada, centered on a plateau stretching from Fraser Canyon to the Cariboo Mountains. The name is a reference to the caribou that were once abundant in the region. The Cariboo was ...

, in 1864. He also participated in the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition. Although his students had been instrumental in the negotiations to open Japan with Commodore Perry and

Lord Elgin Earl of Elgin is a title in the Peerage of Scotland, created in 1633 for Thomas Bruce, 3rd Lord Kinloss. He was later created Baron Bruce, of Whorlton in the County of York, in the Peerage of England on 30 July 1641. The Earl of Elgin is the ...

, he found no real recognition of his achievements. His notes of the Japanese adventure were not published until 1923, 29 years after his death. He died a poor man in

Washington state Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washingto ...

in 1894, while visiting his niece. His last words were reportedly "Sayonara, my dear, sayonara..."

Memorials and burial place

MacDonald is buried in the ''Ranald MacDonald Cemetery'',

Ferry County, Washington Ferry County is a county located on the northern border of the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,178, making it the fourth-least populous county in Washington. The county seat and largest city is Republic. ...

. The grave is northwest of

Curlew Lake State Park Curlew Lake State Park is a public recreation area located on the eastern shore of Curlew Lake northeast of Republic in Ferry County, Washington. The state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national lev ...

on Mid Way Road. The grave itself is a state park, the smallest in

Washington State Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washingto ...

. The grave marker has the inscription: There are memorials to Ranald MacDonald in Rishiri Island and in Nagasaki, as well as in his birthplace, where Fort Astoria used to stand in

Astoria, Oregon Astoria is a port city and the seat of Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1811, Astoria is the oldest city in the state and was the first permanent American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains. The county is the northwest corn ...

Award

Since 2016, the foundation ''Friends of MacDonald - The Dutch Connection'' in

The Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Nether ...

gives out the Ranald MacDonald Award to writers/artists who shed a new light on the relations between Asia, Europe and North America with their work. Some of the people who won this award are:

Frederik L. Schodt Frederik L. Schodt (born January 22, 1950) is an American translator, interpreter and writer. Biography Schodt's father was in the US foreign service, and he grew up in Norway, Australia, and Japan. The family first went to Japan in 1965 wh ...

(2016), Zia Haider Rahman (2016), Hajime Narukawa (2017),

Bruno Maçães Bruno Maçães is a Portuguese philosopher, journalist, politician, consultant and author. He is a former Secretary of State for European Affairs in Portugal and a columnist for the ''New Statesman''. He is a Member of the European Council on Fo ...

(2018) and the FENIX Landverhuizersmuseum in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

(2019).

References

External links