The Tokugawa are somewhat famous for their not-so-friendly policy toward foreigners, especially Western Christian ones, for whom the penalty for stepping foot on Japanese soil was death. The Tokugawa saw Christianity in much the same way that the Romans had, as an unsettling threat to stability. And in the case of Matthew Perry, they had reason to be worried. Thanks, Thought Bubble. So the American naval commodore arrived in Japan in 1853 with a flotilla of ships and a determination to open Japan's markets. Just the threat of American steam-powered warships was enough to convince the Bokufu to sign some humiliating trade treaties that weren't unlike the ones that China had signed after losing the Opium Wars. And this only further motivated the daimyo and the samurai who were ready to give the Tokugawa the boot within a few years, they would.