Tajuro's Jacket: A Story of Japanese Castaways, Russian Ambassadors and a Remarkable Early Nineteenth-Century Sailor's Jacket

Abstract

This article examines the historical and material context of a rare sailor's jacket, c. 1804, probably produced in England and worn by a Japanese castaway named Tajuro (among the first Japanese men to circumnavigate the globe) during a Russian expedition to Japan. We place Tajuro's jacket in the longer history of garments worn by sailors and labourers. Because it is the only surviving example definitively used at sea by an identified seaman on a particular voyage, from the long eighteenth century, Tajuro's jacket provides a glimpse into what European, Russian, and American sailors wore in this era. It is an invaluable addition to the scanty material archive of common sailors’ clothing with a story that shows the global possibilities of early modern travel.