# Racial identity of Sakanoue no Tamuramaro

Since the 20th century, some scholars have suggested that Sakanoue no Tamuramaro, a Japanese military officer during the Heian period who made a great contribution to the Emishi conquest as a sei-i taishōgun (Dainagon), was of African descent. Specifically, the claim was that he was black.
The theory is recorded in North America as early as 1911. Although this theory has failed to provide any convincing evidence, it has continued to be cited into the 21st century, primarily by black scholars, and has been considered proof of the presence of African people in ancient Japan.

## General story

The story of Sakanoue no Tamuramaro is recorded in the entry for June 785 (4th year of Enryaku) in the Shoku Nihongi. Tamuramaro's father, Sakanoue no Karitamaro, said that their ancestor, Achi no omi of the Yamatonoaya clan, was the great-grandson of Emperor Ling of the Later Han Dynasty, and that he had come from Daifang County with his companions after hearing that there was a sage in an eastern country (Japan).
The group was called "七姓民" because they had a total of seven Chinese surnames.
   右衞士督從三位兼下総守坂上大忌寸苅田麻呂等上表言。臣等本是後漢靈帝之曾孫阿智王之後也。漢祚遷魏。阿智王因牛教。出行帶方。忽得寳帶瑞。其像似宮城。爰建國邑。育其人庶。後召父兄告曰。吾聞。東國有聖主。何不歸從乎。若久居此處。恐取覆滅。即携母弟迂興徳。及七姓民。歸化來朝。是則譽田天皇治天下之御世也。於是阿智王奏請曰。臣舊居在於帶方。人民男女皆有才藝。近者寓於百濟高麗之間。心懷猶豫未知去就。伏願天恩遣使追召之。乃勅遣臣八腹氏。分頭發遣。其人民男女。擧落隨使盡來。永爲公民。積年累代。以至于今。今在諸國漢人亦是其後也。臣苅田麻呂等。失先祖之王族。蒙下人之卑姓。望 。改忌寸蒙賜宿祢姓。伏願。天恩矜察。儻垂聖聽。所謂寒灰更煖。枯樹復榮也。臣苅田麻呂等。不勝至望之誠。輙奉表以聞。詔許之。坂上。内藏。平田。大藏。文。調。文部。谷。民。佐太。山口等忌寸十一姓十六人賜姓宿祢。 - 『続日本紀』延暦四年六月条
Achi no omi's naturalization from China is recorded in several documents such as "Nihon Shoki," "Shoku Nihongi," and "Shinsen Shōjiroku," but there is no record that he called himself a descendant of Emperor Ling of Han from the beginning.

## Development and reception of the theory
### Pre-World War II

In 1911, Canadian anthropologist Alexander Francis Chamberlain wrote about Sakanoue no Tamuramaro in his book, "The Contribution of the Negro to Human Civilization," when introducing several black people who have contributed to the civilization of humankind throughout history.
   And we can cross the whole of Asia and find the Negro again, for, when, in far-off Japan, the ancestors of the modern Japanese were making their way northward against the Ainu, the aborigines of that country, the leader of their armies was Sakanouye Tamuramaro, a famous general and a Negro.
The source of this description is not stated, but no older literature has of yet been found that describes Sakanoue Tamuramaro as black.
In 1915, W.E.B. Du Bois, an American civil rights leader, included Sakanoue no Tamuramaro in his list of great black rulers and warriors and introduced him in his book "The Negro".

### After World War II

In 1946, Beatrice J. Fleming and Marion J. Pryd published "Distinguished Negroes Abroad." This was the first detailed introduction of Tamuramaro as a black man. The portion of this work that talks about Tamuramaro is in the form of a fictional Japanese man telling his two sons about Tamuramaro's exploits in front of the Tamuramaro statue at Kiyomizu-dera.
   "Haruo ," advised the father, "You have been educated in Europe and America. Take the best of what you have learned, but always remember to regard a man as a man, irrespective of race or color. Japan did not enslave her captives nor the aliens on her shores in the time of Tamuramaro. True these were relegated to the lowly estate of serfdom but opportunities to rise and succeed were ever present. Sakanouye Tamuramaro was a Negro and true to his kind he proved himself a worthy soldier. He fought with and for us. And for is, too, he won the mighty victory. To us, therefore, he is not an alien; we think of him not as a foreigner. He is our revered warrior of Japan!"
In 1946, Tamuramaro was featured as a black man in "The Negro in Our History" (by Carter G. Woodson and Charles Harris Wesley) and "World's Greatest Men of Color" (by Joel Augustus Rogers).
The image of the "Statue of Tamuramaro at Kiyomizu-dera" featured in "Distinguished Negroes Abroad" was concretized in "Black Shogun of Japan Sophonisba: Wife of Two Warring Kings and Other Black Stories from Antiguity" published by Mark Hyman in 1989.
   "As seen in the temple where he has [sic] honored, Maro's [sic] statue was taller than his fellow contributors. His hair was curly and tight, his eyes were large and wide-set and brown. His nostrils were flared, his forehead wider, his jaws thick and slightly protruded"
From the late 1980s to the 1990s, the legend of Tamuramaro, based on the descriptions in "Distinguished Negroes Abroad" and "Black Shogun of Japan Sophonisba," became well known among those who spread information that he was black. The statue of Tamuramaro in Tamura-do Hall(Kaizan-do Hall), which enshrines Tamuramaro at Kiyomizu-dera, was made after a fire in 1633 destroyed the original, and lacks the characteristics described by Hyman, and it is unknown if an earlier statue matched Hyman's description.
In 1980, the American-produced TV drama "Shōgun" was broadcast in many countries, including Japan, and this rumor temporarily gained popularity, but since information networks were not fully developed at the time, this information rarely reached Japan.

### 21st century

In the 21st century, the theory that Sakanoue no Tamuramaro was black continues to be believed by some figures, such as American lecturer Runoko Rashidi. and by online communities. Cultural anthropologist Yutaka Nakamura reports an experience that took place between 2002 and 2004, when a black Muslim man living in the Harlem area claimed that "Sakanoue Tamuramaro was African." However, until at least 2007, this discourse had rarely been featured on Japanese internet blogs.
In 2024, the theory gained popularity again after a remake of the 1980 TV drama Shōgun was produced and broadcast in the United States. In addition, the game "Assassin's Creed Shadows" features a character who is a legendary black samurai, modeled after Yasuke, who visited Japan from Africa during the Sengoku period and was liked by Oda Nobunaga and was hired as his retainer. When people who felt uncomfortable with the setting looked into it, they found various papers and articles related to black theory.
With the development of information networks and the spread of websites, social media, and videos around the world, many Japanese have finally become aware of this situation. New web articles on this theory have been created in Japan, and some Japanese have begun to communicate about this theory on social networking sites. These stories do not support the theory that they were black. In Japan, it is not believed and is treated as a kind of false history, but in some parts of the world it is treated as a theory that is believed.

## Associated proverb

An 1883 article published in the French academic journal Bulletins de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris notes that Dr. Georges Maget, a military surgeon of the French Navy, wrote in a letter, along with various speculations about the race of the Japanese, the sentence "Un proverbe japonais dit que, pour faire un bon soldat (samourar), il faut avoir une moitié de sang noir dans les veines" (English: "A Japanese proverb says that to make a good soldier (samurai), you must have half black blood in your veins"). The February 24, 1877 issue of the Japan Weekly Mail carried a three-page article criticizing Maget's claims regarding the racial origins of the Japanese people, suggesting that he may have made similar statements in the past.
Although the proverb and Tamuramaro are often talked about together, there is no direct relationship between them. Dr. Maget's letter was published as a paper before Chamberlain wrote about Sakanoue no Tamuramaro. Neither "Observations sur une note du docteur Maget relative aux races Japanese," which contains the contents of Maget's letter, nor Chamberlain's "The Contribution of the Negro to Human Civilization" cites any sources. Furthermore, Maget does not name any specific individuals such as Tamuramaro.

## Background

This theory only really arrived in Japan in the 21st century. The content is not accepted as true. On the other hand, in the black community, the theory has persisted.
Russell John G., who has researched the theory that Sakanoue no Tamuramaro was black, describes the situation in his paper "Excluded Presence: Shoguns, Minstrels, Bodyguards, and Japan's Encounters with the Black Other" as follows:

### Favorable feelings toward Japan among the black community

W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the first to introduce the Tamura Maro black theory, is known for his deep ties to Japan. He was impressed by the strength of the Imperial Japanese Army in the Russo-Japanese War and encouraged by the victory of colored races over whites. He later cooperated with Yasuichi Hikita's "Negro Propaganda Operations" and came to Japan. This was because he had a favorable reaction to the racial policies of Imperial Japan. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, of which he was one of the co-founders, strongly opposed the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and welcomed back Japanese Americans released from internment camps after the war. He is known for arranging jobs and inviting people to church.
In 1919, the Imperial Japan proposed an abolition of Racial Equality Proposal. Blacks in the United States supported it, but President Woodrow Wilson did not pass it because it was not unanimous. This was one of the factors that led to the outbreak of tragic racial conflicts, including the Red Summer.
In this way, there were many black people who had favorable feelings towards Japan. The legend of Tamuramaro was typically expressed in the accounts of "Distinguished Negroes Abroad" and was linked to the widespread belief among black people that "Japanese people are less discriminatory than white people," a belief that was common during and after World War II.

### Existence of theory that black people settled in ancient Asia

The theory that black people settled in Asia, including Japan, has been put forward many times. American anthropologist Roland Burrage Dixon argued that (under now-outdated racial groupings) the Japanese were a mixture of Proto-Australoid and Proto-Negroid, and that the Japanese show Negrito (a dark-skinned ethnic group living in Southeast Asia and New Guinea) characteristics. Senegalese historian and anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop also argued that the Asian ‘race’ was a mixture of black and white races. Subsequent research has revealed that 35% of Japanese people have the Y-chromosome haplogroup D, which is found in almost 100% of Andaman Islanders who are part of the Negrito grouping. It has been suggested that the two ethnic groups may be closely related.
It is now generally agreed that the Negrito ethnic groups are more closely related to Australasian ethnic groups than African ethnic groups.

### Wariness of historical revisionism

Both historically and in the modern day, Black people have feared that their history was being hidden or falsified by outsiders, especially white people. This fear is not unfounded; when the Great Zimbabwe ruins were first discovered, Western scholars did not acknowledge that they were built by black people, and continued to insist for many years that they were built by Phoenicians, Arabs, or Europeans. Similarly, the theory that Tamuramaro was a black man was bolstered by suspicions that Tamuramaro's true identity had been intentionally hidden due to a white-centric view of history.
Some proponents of the black theory believe that Japanese people, as members of a monoethnic nation, would feel ashamed that Tamuramaro, a hero, was black. Some people suspect that the statue of Sakanoue no Tamuramaro is not usually open to the public, based on the history of black Madonna statues being hidden in secluded places in Europe, and that Kiyomizu-dera is intentionally trying to hide the characteristics of the statue of Sakanoue no Tamuramaro.