In late May 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry (Mashū Perī) of the United States Navy anchored his four-ship East India Squadron in Naha Harbor, Okinawa. The fleet had been at sea since departing Norfolk, Virginia on November 24, 1852, working its way east through Madeira, St. Helena, Cape Town, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai before reaching the Ryukyu Kingdom in late May. Perry was 59 years old, a career naval officer who had been selected by Washington precisely because he was known for a blunt, theatrical style of diplomacy — force before negotiation, spectacle before speech.

Two of his four ships were steam frigates: the USS Susquehanna and USS Mississippi. They moved against the wind without sails, propelled by engines that burned coal and turned great paddle wheels. To any Japanese observer on the Okinawan shore in 1853, these ships had no precedent. Japan had been under the policy of 鎖国 (sakoku, "chained country") since approximately 1639 — over 210 years of deliberate isolation. Foreign trade was permitted only with Dutch and Chinese merchants at the single port of Nagasaki. Japanese who traveled abroad faced death upon their return. The samurai class had helped sustain that isolation for two and a half centuries, and no shogun had ever needed to explain to his subjects why Japan could not defend itself against foreign technology. That explanation was now unavoidable.

The name 黒船 (kurofune, "black ships") that Japanese observers gave to the fleet did not refer to the color of the hulls. It referred to the thick black columns of coal smoke rising from the iron chimneys — smoke like that of a forge, strange and industrial, alien to a country of wooden ships and silk sails. Japanese fishermen who encountered the ships at sea reportedly resorted to prayer. Officials who filed reports to Edo described the vessels as moving "like fire-breathing sea creatures." The harbor magistrate at Uraga, Ido Hiromichi (戸田氏栄, Ido Hiromichi), would later report in writing that his defenses were "totally inadequate" to repel the Americans by force — the first time a senior official had formally admitted Japan's military vulnerability in any official document.

Perry's squadron departed Okinawa on July 2 and entered Edo Bay on July 8, 1853, dropping anchor off Uraga at the bay's entrance with Mount Fuji visible across the water. Japanese guard boats immediately swarmed out, carrying signs in French ordering the Americans to leave. Perry ignored them entirely. When the Uraga bugyō (harbor magistrate) came alongside to negotiate, Perry refused to communicate with anyone below the rank of a senior provincial official, remaining sealed in his cabin and communicating only through interpreters. This was no accident: Perry had studied Japanese protocol carefully and calculated that theatrical distance would convey power more effectively than any argument. He had used the same tactic in Okinawa, and it had worked.

Perry's ships carried Paixhans guns — cannon that fired explosive shells rather than solid iron balls. When his crew fired 73 blank shots claiming they were celebrating the Fourth of July, the sound alone was enough to send Edo residents burying valuables and preparing to flee the city. The shogunate had nothing that could answer explosive shell fire. Shogun Tokugawa Ieyoshi (徳川家慶, Tokugawa Ieyoshi), the twelfth shogun, was gravely ill during the crisis and unable to govern. The government fell to Senior Elder Abe Masahiro (阿部正弘, Abe Masahiro), who faced the most dangerous foreign crisis in the shogunate's 250-year history without a functioning shogun at the head of state. Ieyoshi would die on July 27, 1853 — just weeks after Perry's departure — leaving the government in open disarray at the worst possible moment.

After five days of standoff, a formal ceremony was arranged at Kurihama on July 14. Perry landed with 500 armed sailors and marines in a disciplined show of force, marched to a temporary reception hall on the beach, and presented President Fillmore's letter — demanding the opening of Japanese ports to American ships for coaling and resupply, and the establishment of diplomatic relations. Then Perry sailed away. He announced publicly that he would return the following year for Japan's answer, and he left the question hanging over the country like smoke from his own engines.