Wikipedia is useless for anything but sports statistics.
For a detailed account of the shipwreck of the Okinawan sailors in 1871 and the political issues involved (They technically werent Japanese citizens since Okinawa would not be part of Japan until nearly 2 decades later), you'll need JSTOR database access, but there is a summary available here.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X(1983)17%3A2%3C257%3ATQIEAJ%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G
very useful link; hope it will get added to wikipedia so it can be part of the conversation