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A Samurai Could Have Faxed Abraham Lincoln reddit post and text conversation about the meme.

A Samurai Could Have Faxed Abraham Lincoln

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About

A Samurai Could Have Faxed Abraham Lincoln refers to a speculative theory that during a 24-year window between the invention of the fax machine and the death of Abraham Lincoln a Japanese samurai could have potentially sent a fax to the American president. Spawned by a viral tweet, the theory became the subject of humorous references and memes in July 2021.

Origin

On August 19th, 2020, Twitter[1] user @BitchWithA_W posted a tweet in which she highlighted a possibility that during a 24-year window between the invention of the fax machine in 1843 and the abolition of the samurai caste in Japan in 1867, a samurai could have used a fax machine. The tweet received over 18,500 retweets and 94,200 likes in one year (shown below).



Starting on July 16th, 2021, a screenshot of six text messages received viral spread. In the messages, a person suggests that during a 22-year gap between the invention of the fax machine and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 a samurai could have potentially sent a fax message to the U.S. president. The sender of the messages and where they were first posted is unknown.

On July 16th, Facebook[2] page Blazin' Bev Crusher made the earliest found post of the screenshot, gaining 36 likes and 14 shares (shown below). In one hour, Facebook[3] page The memes your parents warned you about posted the screenshot, with their post gaining over 4,900 reactions and 17,000 shares in one week.


Okay so The samurai were officially abolished as a caste in Japanese society during the Meiji Restoration in 1867 The first ever fax machine, the "printing telegraph", was invented in 1843 And Abraham Lincoln was famously assassinated at Ford's Theatre in 1865 Which means There was a 22 year window in which a samurai could have sent a fax to Abraham Lincoln

Okay so
The samurai were officially abolished as a caste in Japanese society during the Meiji Restoration in 1867
The first ever fax machine, the "printing telegraph", was invented in 1843
And Abraham Lincoln was famously assassinated at Ford's Theater in 1865
Which means
There was a 22 year window in which a samurai could have sent a fax to Abraham Lincoln.

Spread

In the following days, the post received viral spread online through multiple reposts. On July 17th, 2021, Twitter[4] user @lopsidedmammal reposted the screenshot, gaining over 10,700 retweets and 59,400 likes in one week. A same-day 9GAG[5] post received over 11,000 upvotes in the same period. Also on the same day, Redditor[6] badvibeskei posted the screenshot to the /r/BrandNewSentence subreddit, where it received over 45,700 likes in one week.

In the following days, the theory gained popularity as a subject of memes, primarily being referenced on Reddit and 9GAG. For example, on July 20th, a 9GAG[7] user posted a Men With a Time Machine meme that received over 3,200 upvotes in four days (shown below, left). On July 22nd, Redditor[8] magnurk posted a meme that received over 9,100 upvotes in the /r/196 subreddit in one day (shown below, right).


Women with a time machine I am your granddaughter Men with a time machine Really? Send a fax to lincoln Watashi wa shimasu Abraham Lincoln Wednesday at 6:34 PM e F-----' wife dragging me to one of these stupid f------ plays again. Someone shoot me, please! ne Like Comment Share You and 43 others like this. John Wilkes Booth Lmfao Wednesday at 6:35 PM Like Catsumoto Nyangatoro You get my fax bro? Wednesday at 6:53 PM Like ROUGE_WEASEL

Fact Checks

On July 19th, 2021, Redditor[9] LincolnMagnus made a post about the meme in /r/AskHistorians subreddit, where it received over 6,000 upvotes in five days. In the thread, Redditors[10][11] demosthenes131 and ManInBlackHat posted detailed responses (shown below, left and right).


demosthenes131 · 4d · edited 4d S I think I can answer the first question as I had been looking into a similar question. Kaoru Ishiguro for Shukan NY Seikatsu dug into the newspaper clippings at the New York Public Library to find records of the first Japanese mission to the US which occurred in 1860. This was following the 1858 signing of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce signed between the United States and Japan. This occurred after Matthew Perry "opened" the country, though Japan wasn't closed as much as extremely restricted and limited trade to five "gateways" including Nagasaki where the Chinese traded with Japan and the Dutch East India Company also were permitted to operate. But to the point of samurai in America, Masao Miyoshi in As We Saw Them: The First Japanese Embassy to the United States discusses this Japanese envoy coming to the United States to ratify the treaty. It appears they departed from Uraga they first arrived in San Francisco and stayed for a month. The head of the mission was Admiral Kimura Yoshitake. They were accompanied by an American who had been shipwrecked in 1859 in Yokohama, John Mercer Brooke. The Japanese government asked Brooke to accompany the mission aboard the Kanrin Maru, the Japanese corvette that made the trip. Both Miyoshi and Young (journal article cited below) discuss samurai being part of this group. The mission was under the command of Kimura Yoshitake, who Brooke referred to as "admiral." His title in Japanese translated to "Magistrate of Warships." The samurai in charge of the ship was Katsu Rintarõ, who was seasick during the trip. He later became the chief architect of the Imperial Japanese Navy. (Rintarõ was a childhood name he had, and he has several names attributed to him. Katsu Kaishu is another well known name as well as Katsu Yasuyoshi). Another samurai on the trip, Fukuzawa Yukichi, later went on to author several books, including and English to Japanese dictionary and a children's book that become an official textbook, All the Countries of the World, for Children Written in Verse. He also founded Keio University. Edit: I should add that this delegation met with President James Buchanan in DC. The delegation boarded the USS Powhatan and the Kanrin Maru escorted it to DC. Wikipedia has this picture of Fukuzawa Yukichi with Theodora Alice in San Francisco in 1860 while they were there. The Voyage of the Kanrin Maru to San Francisco, 1860. Dana B. Young California History Vol. 61, No. 4 (Winter, 1983), pp. 264-275 1.6k Reply Give Award Share Report Save ManInBlackHat · 4d · edited 4d A 22-year window is a bit generous, but a case could be made for a smaller 5-to-12 year window. A bit of background to begin. Under the Tokugawa shogunate Japan officially had an isolationist foreign policy (Sakoku) that allowed for an extremely limited amount of foreign trade into the country with China, Korea, the Dutch East India Company, and the Ainu people. With in the zones of trade movement was extremely restricted (on pain of death) and the stranded sailor that ended in Japan during this period was likely to be executed as well. The short answer as to why these policies were enacted in 1633 is that it was an attempt to halt the spread of foreign culture (primarily from Spain and Portugal), and Christianity in particular with the Shimabara Rebellion in 1637 in which Japanese Christian rose up with the aid of rõnin. After 214 years of the sakoku it came to an end with a display of gunboat diplomacy on the part of Commodore Perry's Expedition of 1853 - 1854 in which the black ships (due to the pitch used to paint the hulls) of the expedition steamed into the bay of Edo and threated to attack the city if Japan did not start trading with the West. After negotiations The Treaty of Peace and Amity was signed, but some parts of it were deferred for later diplomatic negotiations. This leads us to the Bakumatsu and the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, opening of Japan, and eventual Meji Restoration. In 1860 the diplomatic mission of the Tokugawa shogunate was dispatched to the United States to negotiate and ratify the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation onboard the warship Kanrin Maru, the first sail and screw-driven steam corvette and signifier of things to come during the Mejin Restoration. If you look at photographs of the exhibition members (e.g., one, two) you will notice that some of them are wearing katana, either in the form of a single katana (indicating official status) or as daishõ (i.e., katana and wakizashi) indicating that they are members of the samurai class. So now we can start checking off questions! Since members of the diplomatic mission were members of the samurai class it is clear they visited the United States. While the delegation was hosted at one point by the White House, they were hosted by James Buchanan as Abraham Lincoln would not take office until March 4, 1861. However, the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Tokugawa shogunate and duration of the Lincoln Administration (1861 - 1865) actually means that Lincoln never actually saw the Meji Restoration in 1868. To return to the 5-to-12 year window, the duration really depends upon where you start counting from. If you start from the Perry Exhibition then you have about 12 years where as if you start with the diplomatic mission you have about five years. However, while transatlantic cables were completed in 1866, it wouldn't be until 1871 that Japan was connected to a cable network. At that point a telegraph could conceivability been sent from the White House to a diplomatic mission in Japan, although the nuance of that question is outside the scope of my knowledge.

Historical evidence suggests that samurais Kimura Yoshitake, Katsu RintarĹŤ and Fukuzawa Yukichi were part of the first Japanese mission to the US in 1860.[10][12] In the United States, the delegation met with President James Buchanan in the District of Columbia.

Various Examples


Abraham Lincoln after reading and getting offended by a fax sent by some samurais I'll never forgive the Japanese! I do hope I can get this to my Abe in time! How to Save Harambe: instructions for the future dear friend clack clack click clack

Search Interest

External References

[1] Twitter – @BitchWithA_W

[2] Facebook – Blazin' Bev Crusher

[3] Facebook – The memes your parents warned you about

[4] Twitter – @lopsidedmammal

[5] 9GAG – Straight fax!

[6] Reddit – Fax-Sending Samurai

[7] 9GAG – Worth it

[8] Reddit – 22 year gap rule

[9] Reddit – There's a meme going around alleging that "There was a 22-year window in which a samurai could have sent a fax to Abraham Lincoln." I have multiple questions.

[10] Reddit – demosthenes131

[11] Reddit – ManInBlackHat

[12] Wikipedia – Japanese Embassy to the United States

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SirKeksalot
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SirKeksalot

This meme exemplifies one of the weird things about how we view history: a lot of us tend to think of major events and time periods unfolding in stages, but that's not really true. Some of the founding fathers were still alive when the Civil War began. America, Russia, the Yi Dynasty, the British Empire, the Edo dynasty, and the Ottoman Empire were contemporaries at one point. The Aztecs existed for a long time before the Spanish came, and would have met the Mongols if they were in Asia. And, of course, it might have been feasible for a samurai and Abraham Lincoln to acquire a fax machine and become pen pals.

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