Aimé Humbert-Droz (29 June 1819, in
La Chaux-de-Fonds
La Chaux-de-Fonds () is a Swiss city in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura mountains at an altitude of 1000 m, a few kilometers south of the French border. After Geneva, Lausanne and Fribourg, it is the fourth largest city loc ...
– 19 September 1900, in
Neuchâtel
, neighboring_municipalities= Auvernier, Boudry, Chabrey (VD), Colombier, Cressier, Cudrefin (VD), Delley-Portalban (FR), Enges, Fenin-Vilars-Saules, Hauterive, Saint-Blaise, Savagnier
, twintowns = Aarau (Switzerland), Besançon (France), ...
) was a
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
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* Swiss, Missouri
* Swiss, North Carolina
*Swiss, West Virginia
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Other uses
*Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
*Swiss Internation ...
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...
, traveler and educator.
He was elected President of the
Swiss Council of States
The Council of States (german: Ständerat, french: Conseil des États, it, Consiglio degli Stati, rm, Cussegl dals Stadis) is the upper house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland, with the National Council being the lower house. It compri ...
in 1856 and President of the Union Horlogère Suisse in 1858.
Humbert-Droz is also renowned for leading the first Swiss Diplomatic mission to Japan and successfully signing the first trade agreement between the two nations (formally known as the "Treaty of Amity and Trade") on 6 February 1864.
Background
While serving as President for both the Swiss Council of States and Union Horlogère Swiss, Humbert became the envoy plenipotentiary of the Swiss federal government to Japan in the years 1863–1864 with the mission to conclude a treaty of trade and amity with the shogunate.
The Trade agreement he officially signed was modeled after the five unequal treaties concluded in the Ansei era (1854-59) with the United States, France, Britain, Russia and the Netherlands. The Swiss treaty was the first treaty Japan concluded with a land-locked nation state that had no military presence of its own in East Asia. During his stay of ten months in
Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan.
It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...
,
Kanagawa
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...
and
Edo
Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo.
Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...
, he composed a large collection of Japanese artifacts documenting popular art and life of
Bakumatsu
was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji government ...
Japan. Among his collection are valuable pieces from the early work of photographer
Felice Beato
Felice Beato (1832 – 29 January 1909), also known as Felix Beato, was an Italian–British photographer. He was one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia and one of the first war photographers. He is noted for his genre works, ...
as well as many Japanese paintings and prints. This collection is now held at the
Ethnographic Museum of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
Works
*
Le Japon illustré', 1870, translated as
Japan and the Japanese illustrated'
References
Further reading
*
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External links
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1819 births
1900 deaths
People from La Chaux-de-Fonds
Swiss Calvinist and Reformed Christians
Members of the Council of States (Switzerland)
Presidents of the Council of States (Switzerland)
{{Switzerland-politician-stub