In 1871, a mere three years after collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate, a group of American experts arrived in Tokyo to help the new Meiji government develop Hokkaido, Japan's large northern island that for centuries had been vaguely known as Yezo, or "land of barbarians." This group was part of the fifty Americans employed between 1871 to 1882 by the Kaitakushi (Hokkaido Colonization Department), created by the Meiji government in recognition of Hokkaido's strategic importance and economic potential.