Coffee in Prison: The Foreigner in Prison: The Treatment of Ranald McDonald, a Foreigner in Prison during the Kaei Era.

Coffee in Prison: The Foreigner in Prison: The Treatment of Ranald McDonald, a Foreigner in Prison during the Kaei Era.

Nagasaki during the Kaei era was a unique place where foreign contact occurred on a daily basis despite the isolationist regime. Whenever foreign vessels appeared, the shogunate was forced to be aware of military threats as well as diplomatic blunders and international condemnation. For this reason, the Nagasaki Magistrate Office did not treat foreigners as mere criminals, but as entities to be politically controlled.

Gaikokujin Ranaldo MacDonald is symbolic of this. Since he was neither an official envoy nor a treaty resident, he was systematically kept in prison as a "ghost prisoner. However, his life was very different from that of ordinary prisoners. His meals included pork, which was clearly better than that of the Chinese prisoners held in the same place. This difference was not a matter of racial superiority or inferiority, but rather a pragmatic decision based on the fear of diplomatic repercussions should the foreigners become debilitated or die.

It is also noteworthy that the Dutch trading post on Dejima allowed the provision of newspapers and coffee. The newspapers were not merely comforting, but served to maintain a sense of connection to the Western world. For McDonald, it was a source of emotional stability, and for the Shogunate, a means of control to prevent unpredictable behavior.

Of course, this generous treatment did not mean freedom. Going out and socializing were severely restricted, and contact was limited to passers-by and government officials. A clear line was drawn here. Order was maintained not through violence or torture, but by creating living conditions. The shogunate treated gaijin as political entities to be controlled, not as enemies or guests.

This life of imprisonment contrasts vividly with the harsh treatment of the drifting sailors we saw in Matsumae. While the sailors who were considered coarse as a group were treated worse as unmanageable, McDonald was judged alone as a polite, language-enabled, and understandable gaijin. This reputation was expressed in the tangible form of meals and coffee with pork.

The generous treatment offered in prison was not a sign of humanitarianism. It was a very sober governing technique chosen by the shogunate at the end of the isolation period. They did not abuse, but they also did not give freedom. In this controlled treatment, MacDonald learned the realities of Japanese society, and the Shogunate quietly revealed itself as a nation on the verge of transitioning to modern diplomacy.