After the Treaty of Kanagawa was signed in March of 1854, Perry and his crew set sail for the newly opened port of Shimoda. Shimoda was located about 130 miles from the city of Edo, at the southern end of the rugged Izu Peninsula. The Japanese did not want "foreign barbarians" close to Edo, the Shogunal capital of Japan. For this reason they selected an out-of-the-way port as the site where Westerners would be allowed to reside. Though isolated, Shimoda had a certain scenic charm. Heine, the artist on the Perry Expedition, said of Shimoda, "the harbor of Shimoda consists of a spacious inlet surrounded by rolling countryside rising to hills of several hundred feet. Even our large ships could anchor within rifle shot of land, so abruptly does the shore slant to depth …There at the mouth of a small but vigorous river the town of Shimoda numbers about a thousand buildings."

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