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Ranald MacDonald (February 3, 1824 – August 24, 1894) was the first native English speaker to teach the English language in Japan. His students included Einosuke Moriyama, one of the chief interpreters in the negotiations between Commodore Perry and the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Based on the popular historical fiction of Eva Emery Dye, it has been repeated that "as a child of eight in 1832 at Fort Vancouver, he met three shipwrecked Japanese sailors, including Otokichi". In reality the three shipwrecked Japanese sailors were brought to Fort Vancouver in July 1834 not, arriving there about four months after 10-yr-old Ranald MacDonald had departed for the Red River Colony – so there never was the fabled "meeting of East and West". MacDonald's First Nations relatives might have had legends that their ancestors had come from across the Pacific, but saying that MacDonald "developed a fascination with Japan" and "theorized that it might be the home of his distant relatives" may or may not be accurate.Webber, Bert (1984). 087770290X, Ye Galleon Press. 087770290X In his autobiography MacDonald explained it in his own words: "My plan was to present myself as a castaway ... and to rely on their humanity. My purpose was to learn of them; and, if occasion should offer, to instruct them of us."
MacDonald was educated at the Red River Academy in the newly established Red River Colony, a part of British North America that later became Manitoba, Canada. Later, following the wishes of his father, he secured a job as a bank clerk and became a Master Mason in St.Andres Lodge No.516.
Since more and more American and British ships had been approaching Japanese waters, and no man in Japan spoke English with any sort of fluency, fourteen men were sent to study English under MacDonald. These men were samurai, who had previously learned Dutch and had been attempting to learn English for some time from secondhand sources, such as Dutch merchants who spoke a little of the language. The brightest of these men, a sort of "language genius", was Moriyama Einosuke.
MacDonald stayed in confinement, at , (2004). . Tokyo: , p.75,pp.248-249, a branch temple of the in Nagasaki, for 7 months, during which he also studied Japanese before being taken aboard a passing American warship. In April 1849, in Nagasaki, MacDonald was remitted together with fifteen shipwreck survivors to captain James Glynn on the American warship USS Preble which had been sent to rescue stranded sailors. Glynn later urged that a treaty should be signed with Japan, "if not peaceably, then by force".
Upon his return to North America, MacDonald made a written declaration to the US Congress, explaining that the Japanese society was well policed, and the Japanese people were well behaved to the highest standard. He continued his career as a sailor.
After travelling widely, MacDonald returned to Canada East (now Quebec) and, in 1858, went to the new colony of British Columbia where he set up a packing business in the Fraser River gold fields and later in the Cariboo, in 1864. He also participated in the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition.
Although his students had been instrumental in the negotiations to open Japan with Commodore Perry and Lord Elgin, he found no real recognition of his achievements. His notes of the Japanese adventure were not published until 1923, 29 years after his death. He died a poor man in Washington state in 1894, while visiting his niece. His last words were reportedly "Sayonara, my dear, sayonara..."Lewis, William S. and Murakami, Naojiro, ed. Ranald MacDonald: The Narrative of his early life on the Columbia under the Hudson's Bay Company's regime; of his experiences in the Pacific Whale Fishery; and of his great Adventure to Japan; with a sketch of his later life on the Western Frontier, 1824-1894. Portland, Oregon: The Oregon Historical Society, 1993 reprint.
There are memorials to Ranald MacDonald in Rishiri Island and in Nagasaki, as well as in his birthplace, where Fort Astoria used to stand in Astoria, Oregon.
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