Yasuke

Yasuke (or ) was a man of African origin who came to Japan in the Sengoku period and became a retainer in the household of Oda Nobunaga.
He was employed by the Japanese Sengoku daimyō Oda Nobunaga and served as a .
He was neither a menial nor an indentured servant, but a retainer who was given a stipend by Nobunaga.
Birth and early life
Among those whose names have been ascertained, he is the oldest African to appear in Japanese historical records, but his confirmed period of stay in Japan was very short - about three years, from 17 August 1579 to 21 June 1582.
There are few historical documents on Yasuke, with only fragmentary accounts in the letters of the Jesuit missionary Luís Fróis, Ōta Gyūichi's , Matsudaira Ietada's , Jean Crasset's Histoire de l'eglise du Japon and François Solier's Histoire Ecclesiastique Des Isles Et Royaumes Du Japon.
The name Yasuke was given to him by Nobunaga. His real name is unknown, and it is also unclear what he was called before that. Few details are known about him, including his date of birth, family structure, place of birth, ethnicity and native language.
However, there seems to be no doubt that he had African roots, and Luís Fróis wrote of Yasuke as Cafre in his Letters.
Jean Crasset's Histoire de l'eglise du Japon states that Yasuke was a servant brought from India when Alessandro Valignano came to Japan, while François Solier's Histoire Ecclesiastique Des Isles Et Royaumes Du Japon states that he was from Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique).
Portugal during the Age of Discovery was engaged in the slave trade and it is assumed that Yasuke was also trafficked.
It is not certain where Valignano and Yasuke met, but it seems likely that it was either in Mozambique or India, as Valignano had made a stopover in Mozambique before coming to Japan, followed by a long stay in India.
It is not clear whether Yasuke was a slave or a follower, although Portuguese law at the time seems to have allowed slaves, once freed, to be freed thereafter.
Documented life in Japan
In 1579, Yasuke arrived in Japan in the service of the Italian Jesuit missionary Alessandro Valignano, Visitor of Missions in the Indies, in India.
He had been appointed the Visitor (inspector) of the Jesuit missions in the Indies (which at that time meant East Africa, South, Southeast, and East Asia).
Valignano's party spent the first two years of their stay in Japan, mainly in Kyushu.
Entering 1581, Valignano decided to visit the capital as an envoy. He wanted to have an audience with Oda Nobunaga, the most powerful man in Japan, to ensure the Jesuits' missionary work before leaving Japan.
The Japanese were curious to see a dark-skinned person for the first time, and wherever they went, crowds gathered to catch a glimpse of Yasuke, and some were even injured.
Rumours of the big black man had spread throughout Kyoto before the party arrived, and crowds (some said to exceed 1,000) flocked to the Nanban-ji where they were staying, eager to see him. The missionaries feared the building would be destroyed, and some of the crowd attached to the gateway were injured or even crushed to death.
These events are recorded in a 1581 letter of the Jesuit Luís Fróis to Lourenço Mexia, and in the 1582 Annual Report of the Jesuit Mission in Japan also by Fróis. These were published in (1598), normally known simply as .
The commotion finally subsided when Nobunaga, who was staying in Kyoto, sent his troops. It is said that Nobunaga wanted to know the identity of the man who had caused the commotion and ordered his subordinates to bring him to him.
On 27 March 1581, Valignano, together with Luís Fróis, who had arrived in Japan earlier, had an audience with Nobunaga, and Yasuke is said to have accompanied them as an attendant.
Japan and the Jesuits have the following records.
The Shinchō Kōki describes him as follows: "A from the Christian country has arrived. He appears to be 26 or 7 years old. The blackness of his body is like that of a bull, and he is healthy and of fine physique. Moreover, he has the strength of more than ten men. The padres came with him and thanked Lord Nobunaga for his permission to proselytise.
Nobunaga's nephew gave him a sum of money at this first meeting. "
Luís Fróis's Annual Report on Japan states that Nobunaga also longed to see a black man, and summoned him, and Fr. Organtino took him to him and that Nobunaga, seeing a black man for the first time, refused to believe that his skin colour was natural and not applied later, and made him remove his clothes from the belt upwards. Valignano describes how Nobunaga, thinking that he might have ink on his body, made him take off his clothes and wash his body, but the more he washed and scrubbed, the darker his skin became.
Nobunaga then took a great liking to him and asked Valignano to give him over.
He gave him the Japanese name Yasuke, made him a retainer and placed him at his side.
An ancient manuscript of the Shinchō Kōki, known as the , handed down to the descendants of Ōta Gyūichi, states: "A black man was taken on as a vassal by Nobunaga-sama and received a stipend. His name was decided to be Yasuke. He was also given a short sword and a house. He was sometimes made to carry Nobunaga-sama's tools."
Fróis wrote in the annual report of the Jesuits: "The black man understood a little Japanese, and Nobunaga never tired of talking with him. And because he was strong and could do a few tricks, Nobunaga took great pleasure in protecting him and had him roam around the city of Kyoto with an attendant. Some people in the town thought that Nobunaga might make him as tono ("lord")."
After becoming a vassal of the Oda clan, Yasuke followed Nobunaga to Azuchi in Omi Province, where he was appointed a koshō (page).
Yasuke next appears in historical records on 11 May 1582. The Ietada Diary of Matsudaira Ietada, a vassal of Tokugawa Ieyasu, mentions that Yasuke accompanied Nobunaga on his inspection tour of the region after he destroyed his long-time arch-enemy, the Takeda clan of Kai.
The description of 11 May 1582 states: Nobunaga-sama was accompanied by a black man who was presented to him by the missionaries and to whom he gave a stipend. His body was black like ink and he was 6 shaku 2 sun (188 cm or 6 feet, 2 inches) tall. His name was said to be Yasuke.
On 14 May, Yasuke departed for Echizen Province with Fróis and the other Christians. They returned to Kyoto on 30 May.
The Honnō-ji Incident
On 21 June 1582, Oda Nobunaga was betrayed and attacked by his senior vassal Akechi Mitsuhide in the Honnō-ji Incident and Yasuke was serving near Nobunaga at this time.
After his lord committed suicide, he went to Nijō Shin-gosho, the residence of Nobunaga's heir, Nobutada, where he engaged the Akechi forces.
Luís Fróis's Annual Report on Japan contains the following statements: "A black man whom the visitor [Valignano] sent to Nobunaga went to the house of Nobunaga's son after his death and was fighting for quite a long time, when a vassal of Akechi approached him and said, 'Do not be afraid, give me that sword', so he gave him the sword. The vassal asked Akechi what should be done with the black man, and he said, 'A black slave is an animal (bestial) and knows nothing, nor is he Japanese, so do not kill him, and place him in the custody at the cathedral of Padre in India."
There are no historical documents to show the true meaning of Mitsuhide's statement, and it is not known whether it was a sign of his discriminatory mindset or an expedient to save Yasuke's life.
As a result, Yasuke was sent to the Nanban-ji and treated by Jesuit missionaries.
It is certain that Yasuke did not die, as Luís Fróis wrote five months after the Honnō-ji Incident, thanking God that he did not lose his life.
However, there are no historical sources about him since then and it is not clear what happened to him afterwards.
Information rumoured to be Yasuke
In 1584, two years after the Honnō-ji Incident, an African appeared again in Japanese history. During the Battle of Okitanawate on the Shimabara Peninsula, a black man who operated two cannons and intercepted the enemy was among the forces of Arima Harunobu, one of the daimyō who dispatched the Tenshō embassy. In Luís Fróis' History of Japan, there is an account of a Cafre (African) loading a cannon with bullets and a Malabar (Indian) igniting and firing them to repel the enemy on board an Arima warship.
(Sakai City Museum collection), drawn in 1605 by an anonymous artist, depicts a dark-skinned man wrestling a Japanese man in the presence of noble samurai. There are various theories: some believe that this samurai is Oda Nobunaga or Toyotomi Hidetsugu, while others believe that the dark-skinned man wrestling in the centre is Yasuke and the one to his right, playing the role of a gyōji, is Oda Nobunaga.
An ink-stone box made by a Rinpa artist in the 1590s, owned by Museu do Caramulo pt, depicts a black man wearing high-class clothing. Thomas Lockley argues that it could be Yasuke, as he does not appear to be subservient to the Portuguese in his Portuguese costume.
However, there is no hard evidence for them and they are all speculation. Therefore, it is not possible to determine whether the person in those byōbu and historical documents is Yasuke or not.
Human trafficking was rampant in the world at the time, and it was not uncommon for Africans and other people from European colonial areas to come to Japan as followers and slaves of Jesuit missionaries and visitors.
painted by Kano Naizen, a painter active in the same period, depicts dark-skinned followers holding parasols over Europeans.
Other references to people who appear to be African can be found in various records from other parts of Japan relating to this period, such as Toyotomi Hideyoshi rewarding the Cafre for their dancing.
In popular culture
In 1968, author Yoshio Kurusu and artist Genjirō Mita published a children's book about Yasuke titled . The following year, the book won the .
Yasuke inspired the 1971 satirical novel by Shūsaku Endō.
Since the late 20th century, various Japanese "period drama" television series and manga series have been produced about Yasuke.
Yasuke appears in the 2008 novel as one of the main characters. This novel was later made into a play in 2017.
Yasuke plays a minor role in the 2005 to 2017 manga series by Yoshihiro Yamada.
Yasuke is featured in the 2016 to 2020 manga series by Akechi Kenzaburō and Yutaka Tōdō.
Yasuke appears as Alessandro Valignano's servant in volume 29 of the ongoing manga series by Takurō Kajikawa.
The ongoing time-travel manga series Nobunaga Concerto by Ayumi Ishii portrays Yasuke as a Black baseball player from the present day.
It has been claimed that the Takashi Okazaki's Afro Samurai franchise is based on Yasuke.
The 2017 video game Nioh and its 2020 sequel feature a fictional portrayal of Yasuke, voiced by Richie Campbell.
In March 2017, Lionsgate announced plans for a live-action film about Yasuke titled Black Samurai. Michael De Luca and Stephen L'Heureux would serve as producers in a co-production between De Luca Productions and Solipsist Films, with Gregory Widen as the screenwriter. In May 2019, Deadline reported that the film, retitled Yasuke, had left Lionsgate for Picturestart, with Doug Miro replacing Widen as the screenwriter. Chadwick Boseman signed on to portray Yasuke in the film and to serve as a co-producer through his production company, Xception Content. In August 2020, Boseman died of colon cancer. As of September 2021, Picturestart's official website states that the film is "in development".
In April 2019, MGM announced plans for their own live-action film about Yasuke, to be produced by Andrew Mittman and Lloyd Braun of Whalerock Industries, with a script written by Stuart C. Paul.
Yasuke is the main protagonist in the 2021 Netflix anime series Yasuke, created by LeSean Thomas and animated by MAPPA. He is voiced by Jun Soejima in Japanese and LaKeith Stanfield in English.
Koei Tecmo's 2021 video game Samurai Warriors 5 includes Yasuke as a playable character, voiced by Paddy Ryan.
A black samurai inspired by Yasuke, named Nagoriyuki, appears in Arc System Works' 2021 fighting game Guilty Gear Strive.
In February 2023, the Brazilian samba school Mocidade Alegre of the São Paulo city carnival performed a samba-song about Yasuke, winning that year's competition.
See also
Black people in Japan
List of people who disappeared
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Matsuda, Kiichi, ed. Hōdōsha, 1987–1998.
Ōta, Gyūichi 1622.
External links
Yasuke: The Real AfroSamurai (documentary)
1580s missing person cases
16th-century African people
Japanese people of African descent
Missing person cases in Japan
Oda retainers
Year of birth unknown