Sacrificial rituals, they killed people, spilled their blood on altars. It was an honor to be a sacrifice. Sometimes, the rituals claimed to need virgins or women, or both.
To reinforce America's stance as a global superpower as a force not to be reckoned with- as it was a huge show of force.
Perry's expedition led to an establishment of trade relations between Japan and the United States. This was just a part of the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and led to the Meiji restoration when the country started opening up to the United States even more and it started modernizing itself to be more like the foreign countries.
