Yasuke: In Search of the African Samurai

by Thomas Lockley

  Following the narrow hidden mountain tracks, they finally reached the rear gate of Arima’s castle just before dawn as planned, the locals delivering without a hitch. It was a promising, and comforting, start.

  Hinoe Castle was, in reality, little more than a minor fort, but at least it was sturdy and defendable. The walls were stone, the gates of thick hard wood opened onto a path leading down the mountain to the river and, beyond, the sea. The stronghold perched atop steep slopes and cliffs, almost inaccessible except from the mountainous rear approach, which was passable for a few dedicated souls such as Yasuke and Valignano. No army would ever venture that way. Arima had recently erected a large wooden cross in the enclosed courtyard and Valignano uttered a brief comment of approval. As the sun rose above the seascape spread out beneath them, Yasuke took in the striking view. The waters they’d traversed in the dead of night were revealed as speckled with verdant sand-framed islands, the sea a deep vivid blue. On the horizon was a huge hazy, smoking volcano, Mount Aso.

  They were welcomed less jubilantly than on their first day in Japan, for Hinoe Castle was still under seige. An enemy army camped at the bottom of the hill and it was difficult to bring in supplies; access was available only through the mountain passes. Thus, Arima’s staff was suitably fawning, but clearly reduced in size and quite ragged from the time spent under the partial blockade. His soldiers were equally weary and strained. But, Yasuke noted, war hardened. Men who would—despite their current state—still fight well, and to the death if necessary.

  Yasuke was already getting a good sense of the existing Japanese hierarchy. Farmers, fishermen, artisans, merchants and priests were protected by citizen-soldiers and lorded over by professional warriors—of various degrees of influence—samurai. Lord, tono, was a loosely assigned title of respect (like calling someone sir today) and normally reserved for men of landed wealth or military authority, including some samurai and nobles in the imperial court at Kyoto. Lord Arima was a moderately powerful lord, but with boyish dreams and aspirations of becoming a major force throughout the region.

  Valignano and his small team were fed. Although highly irregular for the Jesuit, Valignano also asked if he might rest for a few hours before beginning serious discussions. After the hardships of their journey through the night, even Valignano needed respite, and he was given a room with a supple, sweet-smelling floor made entirely of tightly woven rice straw—tatami.

  At midday, Valignano rose and they were fed again while silent, but attentive, servants brought them the kind of food which Arima and his steward presumed Valignano wanted to eat: meat (a rarity in Japan) with rice and some broth made from whitefish and vegetables. The meat, alas, had clearly been prepared by someone who’d little experience cooking meat. It was tough and very overdone. Mountain boar, most likely. Of course, in a castle under continual siege, they were lucky to get anything at all.

  Following their second meal, Valignano was ready again for business and Yasuke stood guard while the interpreters struggled through the complicated and delicate exchange between the Catholic Visitor and the Japanese lord.

  Young Lord Arima was in dire military straits—lacking munitions, under siege and ironically facing disunity in his domain due to his earlier persecution of Christians. (He’d previously been fiercely anti-Catholic; leading a youthful rebellion against his now-deceased Catholic father and forcing the apostasy of fifteen thousand of his father’s subjects.) Now, several years later, as he was threatened each day with being overrun by the Ryūzōji clan, Arima welcomed Valignano—and God—with an open heart and empty arsenal.

  Like so many others, Arima had been won over by the guns and trade Jesuits always seemed to carry alongside their hymnals and rosaries. The lone Portuguese black ship a few miles away in his harbor transported a small fortune in lead, saltpeter and guns—more than enough to break the siege and give the Arima clan some breathing space. Valignano made assurances that more munitions were on the way.

  One particularly juicy piece of ordnance Valignano suggested for the future was a pair of cannon which could be specially made to order in the Portuguese foundries of Goa in India. These, Arima was assured, would seal a final victory against Ryūzōji and ensure dominance of the region for decades; no one else in Japan would be able to match their power. It went without saying, however, that such weapons would only be available to those Japanese lords best allied with the Church’s ministry.

  Arima requested the holy rite of baptism.

  And, to make the depth of his conversion perfectly clear to Valignano, the young lord also offered to host Japan’s first Jesuit seminary and to destroy all Buddhist temples and shrines within the territory which he still controlled. “Just as well.” Arima grinned. “I need materials to improve this castle. Look at it! It is nothing but a hovel. Imagine what it would become with the help of your God. I will make it a shrine to him and use the destroyed heathens’ places of worship in its construction.” (Archeologists have recently determined the steps leading up to Arima’s remodeled castle were, in fact, made from the tombstones of Buddhist graveyards.)

  Before any of that, there was one more matter to attend to: the boy lord’s not-so-secret mistress. Common knowledge to all, the girl was hidden away for the visit in the ladies’ quarters. Valignano made his expectations perfectly clear. There would be no baptism, seminary or cannon unless the matter of this woman was settled. Monogamy and Catholicism were inseparable and Japanese customs of insouciant licentiousness and infidelity would not be tolerated by Mother Church.

  Arima, all denials of any such wrongdoing spent, was heartbroken but understood this foreign custom was one that he would have to pay more than lip service to, and consented. He would marry the Jesuit’s preferred wife in a Christian ceremony—they had a nearby lord’s daughter in mind—which would, hopefully in the longer run, further his aims and forge a stronger Catholic alliance.

  Yasuke hid his amusement at Arima’s telling combination of desperation and Catholic exuberance. His charge, Valignano, was certainly off to a good start. Accordingly, the Jesuit Visitor was in fine spirits on their harried return several days later back through the woods and night to the beach to meet their boat again. Only the waning moon trailed their escape, and they reached the Kuchinotsu port again without incident.

  Yasuke’s confidence in the local guard increased another notch.

  Valignano ordered the promised cannon later that same week, the letter to sail away from Japan on the same ship which had brought them.

  Not a bad start for their first week in Japan.

  Chapter Three

  The Ghosts of Africa

  Thirty miles north, near Nagasaki, another minor warlord sat in his castle being taught a lesson.

  Lord Ōmura Sumitada had been the first high-level Catholic convert in all of Japan and was, by all accounts, sincere in his Christian faith; or, at least very very good at pretending to be. For years, he’d accepted the Jesuits’ power—and large numbers of imported guns and munitions—and used both to help defend himself against rival family members (including the young lord, Arima) and far more powerful regional enemies like the Ryūzōji. As with Arima, Jesuit military supplies, and a share of the Portuguese/Chinese trade profits, were Ōmura’s hope and lifeline. Valignano and his Portuguese ship were a true godsend in every possible way.

  But the ship, and the most powerful European in Asia, were now moored a day’s travel away with that child, Arima. And how, exactly, had Ōmura wronged the Jesuits that summer? His daughter had refused an arranged marriage—the one formulated and urged by the Jesuits—to Arima, and Valignano’s potential alliance of “Christian lords,” schemed, theoretically at least, years before he even reached Japan, crumbled as Ōmura stood by his daughter’s decision.

  The setback was, to Ōmura anyway, sadly predictable. His whole life had been one long stream of small triumphs countered by larger new obstacles. Only his al
liance with the Jesuits had safeguarded his survival and enough breathing room to make it through another year, but now even that was threatened to be snatched from him by his young rival. (Who, in this world of confusing alliances and warlord intermarriage, also happened to be his uncle. Ōmura’s daughter, if the Jesuits had their way, would be marrying her younger great uncle.) Unless he was to physically force his daughter, something he was unwilling to do, Ōmura would need to up the stakes to make amends with the Jesuits. He was already baptized, years before, along with every single one of his sixty thousand subjects. Something somehow bigger had to be done. Ōmura was angry and panicked, but in a proactive and innovative state of mind, so he boarded a ship for Kuchinotsu to pay his respects to Valignano in person. If his daughter’s hand could not be offered to the Church, he had to proffer the next best thing: Nagasaki.

  All of it. The whole port city, and the land around it besides. One of the true jewels in his territory’s crown. Until 1571, Nagasaki had been nothing but a few fishing huts, occasionally host to Chinese pirate bands, an insignificant part of Ōmura’s domain. But, with a constant eye on the advantages he could win, Ōmura had given the Catholic foreigners permission to reside there in 1571. And it had grown as Christian merchants and those who were persecuted for their outlandish faith elsewhere in Japan, settled in large numbers while Ōmura retained legal control. It was now one of the best harbors in southern Japan, a new and thriving Christian-only settlement.

  The gift of a Jesuit colony in perpetuity! That would, he believed, surely fix things between them. A substantial gesture to regain Valignano’s favor and deny any other lord the rich taxes he’d lose if Kuchinotsu or another destination became the new port of call for the annual arrival of the Portuguese black ships. If the Jesuits agreed—and how could they not?—Ōmura would retain the benefits of the trade and still have Nagasaki as a safe retreat, should his enemies ever overwhelm him.

  Lord Ōmura and Valignano met in the mission building in Kuchinotsu. There, Valignano listened—Yasuke standing guard a few feet away—without comment as a second Japanese lord now made long-winded promises that were supposed to last generations. Ōmura’s offer of Nagasaki was an enormous step toward that greater purpose.

  Still, Valignano did not accept Nagasaki straightaway, but instead sent Ōmura off with empty hands and an emptier war chest, while the Visitor feigned to consider the matter. Valignano preferred to keep Ōmura on tenterhooks and thus he “considered” for weeks, which then became months.

  Nor did he grant Arima’s request for baptism until seven months later.

  For now, the Jesuits could afford, simply due to their ready access to weapons and ability to gift the black ship’s docking right, to keep both Japanese lords disappointed and nervous. All just a small part of the great game being played out across the entire country. And only a tiny taste of the drama that was sixteenth-century Japan.

  * * *

  Japan in the sixteenth century was a patchwork of ministates, mountain domains and pirate-infested islands. It was united only by a distant memory of having once been part of a Kyoto-dominated realm under the nominal rule of a shogun, a military ruler who still recognized, and permitted, the spiritual and cultural authority of an emperor (or dairi) in Kyoto to perform symbolic rituals as a traditional figurehead.

  But that balanced and peaceful realm had long since ceased to exist in any meaningful way. There hadn’t been a shogun in nearly a decade and the current emperor now lived in the decrepit remains of a crumbling palace, powerless beyond tradition and etiquette. Regional power brokers, daimyō (warlords)—or men who styled themselves as such—now vied for control of parts of what had once been a vast island empire. Their power came from family clans and geographic or religious alliances. These “lords” sometimes controlled several domains, or like Arima and Ōmura, were left with only slivers of their birthright lands as others conquered, pillaged and dispossessed them. The common people under weak lords suffered death, starvation and enslavement. Those under stronger rulers prospered, but their men were regularly conscripted into their liege’s war machines.

  Adding to the complicated map of rival lords’ domains, there were also vast areas under the control of fanatical Buddhist warrior monks who rejected all other masters, cities controlled by oligarchic merchant elites, and peripheral areas of mountains and island-dotted seas which were controlled by pirates or self-governing peasants.

  The Japanese islands had now been at brutal civil war for more than one hundred years and were, despite the efforts of several major new and rising warlords, divided into warring factions, both big and small. The politics and bloody machinations—ruthless backstabbing, politics and massacres—found here, caused reverberations that have lasted until the present day. This period of Japanese history is called, quite simply, The Age of the Country at War.

  But by the time Yasuke arrived in 1579, there were only a few major players left in these war games.

  Lord Oda Nobunaga—the warlord who would soon change Yasuke’s fortunes—stood atop them all. He’d set up his home base in Azuchi, close to Kyoto, de facto capital of the country by virtue of being the traditional residence of the emperor. Nobunaga’s rise, however, had not yet completely stopped the surviving minor warlords, bands of warrior monks and mercenary peasants from struggling for control of every remaining tiny fief and castle across the country. A perfect setting for the intentions, and deft diplomacy, of Valignano.

  * * *

  Months after its arrival in Japan, the Portuguese black ship prepared to depart at last, sailing back to Macao on the fall winds. A forlorn scene had presented itself as Yasuke accompanied Valignano to the docks to bid the vessel farewell when the last goods were loaded onto the departing nao.

  Human goods. Children.

  Most less than ten years old, being herded aboard by the sailors. There was no resistance, their young faces bewildered or terrified. Yasuke wondered what would happen to them. The comments of other Jesuits around him made it all too clear. These were “lucky” ones, those who would have their souls saved. These children, orphaned or abandoned, the suteko (the “thrown away” kids), would grow to adults in good Christian households in Christian-ruled regions of China, India, Manila, and some would be transported as far as Europe and Spanish America. The fee those good Christian households would pay, and the labor the children would perform, including sex slavery, would become the compensation for their raising and delivery from paganism. The children didn’t yet understand any of this, of course, as they held hands for succor and the sailors herded them aboard the small craft to be transported to the waiting galleon at anchor in the harbor. There was no telling how far that ship would take them.

  The scene would have brought back familiar memories for Yasuke.

  * * *

  The images from his past were faded, but his own village had been of perhaps ten large round shelters, with distinct conical roofs of thatched river reeds, and with a granary on stilts at the back. The lodging of the Nhomgol, or headman, took center stage in the village and the homes of his numerous wives and their children surrounded it. The entire village was encircled by a rough palisade of woven reeds to keep wild animals out, but was otherwise undefended. The cow herds, the center of his people’s culture, wandered freely outside the main palisade. Yasuke often slept with them, as it had been the boys’ job to guard the family livestock. It was peaceful work. But the memories which stirred now were traumatic. Anything but peaceful.

  The attackers began predawn, encircling the settlement so none could escape. The rough palisade did little to keep them out.

  Yasuke had just woken, puzzled by a strange unnatural silence. The cows’ lowing, small animal noises and scratching which normally pervaded the night and got louder as the sun rose, were strangely absent this day. As if all the animals were holding their breath, waiting for what must surely come next. The silence had not lasted long. Horns, whist
les and shouted whoops cut through the night fog which came off the Nile, as the raiders burst into the middle of the sleeping village, painted white with river mud, emerging from the mist beyond the rough village stockade. Torches now lit the whole night. The men seemed ghoulish, otherworldly, ghosts or spirits from hell. There was no resistance as the ultimate surprise of the attack had rendered the whole village powerless; there was only screaming and fire. The houses—made of reeds, wood, dung and dried mud—burned as easily as the torches which lit them.

  As Yasuke’s village fled their burning dwellings, they were taken easily; clubbed, speared, beaten and rounded up. Corralled. Any who attempted escape from the human pen were run through with spears or chased down and clubbed. One desperate woman, huge with child, had attempted to escape across the river and now lay impaled beside the shore. Many shook uncontrollably, others were frozen in shock, brutalized by the sudden new, horrific reality. They were shackled and tied together by the ghost-like raiders until more than half the village had been captured. Tales were told of slave raiders, but never in living memory had such men reached these people of the Jaang, the Dinka, so far inland, hundreds of miles away from the sea.

  When the killing started, the raiders first pulled aside any surviving male with the distinct Jaang scar marks of adulthood on his face. These were the warriors, warriors who’d failed in their most basic task, the defense of their home. Roped together, unable to move, each was run through, decapitated or clubbed to death in the mud. Now there was no one left to even attempt resistance. After the men, the slavers decided which of the remaining captives were of value. The babies were brained against the hard earth. As they were ripped from their mothers’ grasp, their wails pierced the early morning air, only to be cut short instants later. Next, the small children who also clung to their mothers screamed as they were dispatched. And, if by chance the long steel blade should pass through a child to pierce the mother, what of it?