page_title: Samurai
section_title: Foreign samurai
hierarchical_section_title: Samurai / Foreign samurai
caption_attribution_description: English: Gyokusenen in Kanazawa, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan 日本語: 玉泉園, 石川県金沢市 Camera: DSLR-A700Lens: SAL16105
context_page_description: Samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the 12th century to their abolition in the 1870s. They were the well-paid retainers of the daimyo. They had high prestige and special privileges such as wearing two swords. They cultivated the bushido codes of martial virtues, indifference to pain, and unflinching loyalty, engaging in many local battles. During the peaceful Edo era they became the stewards and chamberlains of the daimyo estates, gaining managerial experience and education. In the 1870s samurai families comprised 5% of the population. The Meiji Revolution ended their feudal roles, and they moved into professional and entrepreneurial roles. Their memory and weaponry remain prominent in Japanese popular culture.
context_section_description: Several people born in foreign countries were granted the title of samurai.
  After Bunroku and Keichō no eki, many people born in the Joseon dynasty were brought to Japan as prisoners or cooperators. Some of them served daimyōs as retainers. One of the most prominent figures among them was Kim Yeocheol, who was granted the Japanese name Wakita Naokata and promoted to Commissioner of Kanazawa city. 
  The English sailor and adventurer William Adams (1564–1620) was among the first Westerners to receive the dignity of samurai. The shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu presented him with two swords representing the authority of a samurai, and decreed that William Adams the sailor was dead and that Anjin Miura (三浦按針), a samurai, was born. Adams also received the title of hatamoto (bannerman), a high-prestige position as a direct retainer in the shōgun's court. He was provided with generous revenues: "For the services that I have done and do daily, being employed in the Emperor's service, the Emperor has given me a living". (Letters) He was granted a fief in Hemi (逸見) within the boundaries of present-day Yokosuka City, "with eighty or ninety husbandmen, that be my slaves or servants". (Letters) His estate was valued at 250 koku. He finally wrote "God hath provided for me after my great misery", (Letters) by which he meant the disaster-ridden voyage that initially brought him to Japan.
  Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn, a Dutch colleague of Adams on their ill-fated voyage to Japan in the ship De Liefde, was also given similar privileges by Tokugawa Ieyasu. Joosten likewise became a hatamoto samurai and was given a residence within Ieyasu's castle at Edo. Today, this area at the east exit of Tokyo Station is known as Yaesu (八重洲). Yaesu is a corruption of the Dutchman's Japanese name, Yayousu (耶楊子). Joosten was given a Red Seal Ship (朱印船) allowing him to trade between Japan and Indo-China. On a return journey from Batavia, Joosten drowned after his ship ran aground.
  Yasuke (弥助) was a Retainer of Oda Nobunaga originally from Portuguese Mozambique, Africa. Weapon bearer of Nobunaga. He served in the Honnō-ji incident. According to Thomas Lockley's African Samurai in the 'Oda vassal clan, the Maeda [archives]' there was mention of him receiving 'a stipend, a private residence ... and was given a short sword with a decorative sheath.'
  Italian Jesuit missionary, Giuseppe Chiara, entered Japan at a time when Christianity was strictly forbidden in an attempt to locate fellow priest Cristóvão Ferreira who had apostatized his Christian faith at the hands of torture by the Japanese authorities in 1633. Di Chiara was also tortured and eventually became an apostate as well. After the Shimabara Rebellion in 1638, he arrived on the island of Oshima and was immediately arrested in June 1643. He later married a Japanese woman, taking the name and samurai status of her late husband, Okamoto San'emon (Japanese: 岡本三右衛門), and lived in Japan until his death in 1685, at the age of 83.
caption: Gyokusen-en, Japanese garden made by a Korean samurai Wakita Naokata and his descendants.
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