Yasuke: In Search of the African Samurai

by Thomas Lockley

  * * *

  During the 1990s and early twenty-first century, the Japanese public came to have a reasonably good concept of Yasuke’s existence, even though few knew his full story. This was due to his increasingly regular appearances in a massive variety of media formats.

  In the 1990s, Yasuke appeared briefly twice in the wildly popular year-long historical Taiga dramas from the national television broadcaster NHK which, since 1963, have told the life of a different historical character in a dramatic way each year. His first appearance was a nonspeaking role when Valignano meets Nobunaga in 1992’s Nobunaga: King of Zipangu, and his second was, following the thread of history, Hideyoshi, a 1996 drama in which Yasuke is killed by Akechi’s men during the Honnō-ji battle.

  The fictionalized version of the African samurai’s story then appeared extensively in the long-running manga (manga is the globally popular Japanese-style of comic book art which can trace its roots back to the twelfth century and became adapted for modern comic books in the 1950s) and anime Hyouge Mono, first released in 2005. Yasuke is heroically portrayed, saving people from the burning Honnō-ji and then hunting for Nobunaga’s killer, who he finds out is not actually Akechi Mitsuhide, but—in a conspiratorial twist—Hideyoshi. Yasuke’s role in the story ends when Hideyoshi grants him his freedom in exchange for his silence.

  In 2008, again totally fictionalized, Yasuke became one of the main characters in the Japanese novel Momoyama Beat Tribe by the prolific author of light historical fiction, Amano Sumiki. In the story, after surviving the Honnō-ji battle, Yasuke is trying to earn money as a dockhand to return to Africa, but finds he is being exploited. He escapes and meets up with the other three protagonists, also down on their luck and escaping from precarious situations, to form...a street dance group! (Yasuke plays the part of a drummer.) The novel relays an optimistic message about self-renewal and overcoming status barriers. In 2017, it became a theatre production and was featured on morning television.

  In 2013, Yasuke entered the cyber age and made his debut in the world of computer gaming as a character in the long-running series of turn-based strategy role-playing video games, Nobunaga’s Ambition. This award-winning series was first published in Japanese by the video game publisher, developer and distributor Koei, now Koei Tecmo, in 1983. Several of the games have since been released outside Japan. Yasuke appears as a heroic warrior and playable character in Spheres of Influence, the fourteenth title in the series.

  More recently, in 2017, Yasuke appeared as a character in the action role-playing video game Nioh which, only two weeks after its release, had sold over one million copies worldwide. Published by Koei Tecmo and Sony Interactive Entertainment, Nioh is based on an unfinished script by the legendary Japanese filmmaker Kurosawa Akira. The main character is the English samurai William Adams who is enlisted to fight by ninja in the service of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Players have to take Adams through levels, fighting supernatural and human enemies, one of whom is Yasuke, who can be challenged to a duel as a bodyguard of the game’s villain, Edward Kelley. In the game, Yasuke is fighting to raise Nobunaga—to whom he is eternally indebted for manumitting him—from the dead.

  In 2017, also, the best-known African American jazz musician in Japan, Marty Bracey, and fellow musicians, gave a special poetry-jazz performance based on Yasuke’s life.

  * * *

  But Yasuke does not only appear strictly as himself.

  Since 1999, Yasuke-inspired characters have also found their way increasingly into mainstream works of popular culture, many of which have crossed the seas, further widening awareness of his story around the world.

  The best known of these Yasukes is the worldwide best-selling manga series Afro Samurai, first printed in 1999. Afro Samurai is set in a science fiction future and the hero, Afro, a black “samurai” is on a mission to revenge his father’s killer. The anime version (anime is essentially the animated film form of manga comics) was first released in 2007 and the main character is voice-acted by Samuel L. Jackson.

  Another example of a character based on Yasuke in another sci-fi setting is Young, who appears in the 2009 manga Nobunaga Concerto. The Japanese language manga has since been turned into an anime series in 2014, a television drama series, also in 2014, and a movie in 2016. The plot revolves around a Japanese high school student who travels back in time unintentionally and becomes Nobunaga. Episode 10 of the anime introduces Young, an African American teenaged baseball player who’s also a trapped time traveler and who goes on to serve the counterfeit Nobunaga as a counterfeit Yasuke.

  In 2007, Yasuke (or at least the idea of Yasuke) hit the big screen for the first time in the form of Taitei no Ken (The Emperor’s Sword). It was a Japanese sci-fi samurai movie, based on a series of novels by best-selling author Baku Yumemakura. The lead character, Yorozu Genkuro (played by Abe Hiroshi), is Yasuke’s grandson.

  While writing this book, no fewer than four major Yasuke film projects set in Old Japan were launched. Sometime in the near future, we’ll be seeing another representation of Yasuke on the big screen.

  * * *

  The town library in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania—a suburb of Philadelphia—is a small one-story building of faded sandstone quietly tucked in a residential street. In the spring and summer, it almost vanishes behind numerous thick trees so that one sees only its steps leading through the shade to the building hidden within. With a little stretch of the imagination, in appearance, it could be one of the residences leading up to Azuchi Castle. Inside, you’ll find a collection of more than sixty-five thousand books, DVDs, magazines and CD-ROMs.

  One of the many groups who gather within has been the Teen Reading Lounge, a nontraditional book club funded through grants provided by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council. Teens aged twelve to eighteen are treated to free books, field trips and guest speakers, and it provides the community with the opportunity to construct a course full of reading, discussion and activities that stretch far beyond a typical book club.

  This Teen Reading Lounge flyer includes some of the best-known black manga characters, including Yasuke.

  Courtesy of the artist Keville A. Bowen.

  Keville A. Bowen, a facilitator for TRL, and his coordinator Ken Norquist, used the Lounge to explore the topic of positive black history outside of America. The story of Yasuke proved the perfect introduction. Keville is a professional American manga artist, who specializes in drawing and teaching about manga with black characters. He’d only recently found the story of Yasuke. Years after graduating with a BS in Media Arts and Animation, he’d started working per-diem as an art teacher for the local libraries as well as selling self-published comics at art conventions. It was at one of these conventions that he learned about Yasuke for the first time. Keville recalls, “A barber, who remembered me from a previous comics convention, was moving his business to Japan. His excitement overflowed as he explained his love for Japanese black culture and a historical black samurai.”

  A tri-citizen himself—Trinidad, Canada and the United States—Keville understood the man’s excitement all too well. He became fascinated with the story behind “black people in Japanese history.” At the time, Keville explains, “Professor Lockley’s paper (‘The story of Yasuke: Nobunaga’s African retainer,’ published in 2016) was the most comprehensive account of the life of Yasuke and helped shaped the landscape of my course.” For Keville, Yasuke’s past was a reminder that “there was some light in a dark time of Black/African culture.” Yasuke was one positive in a wider ethnic history “generally portrayed as containing suffering and victimhood.”

  The cover of a Yasuke-themed manga book.

  By kind courtesy of the artist, Keville A. Bowen

  After some research, Keville shared this story and pitched his idea for a Black History Month–themed anime club to the Lansdowne Public Library around the time they were considering applying to the TRL program. He came to Y
asuke through other Japanese-language “black manga” (manga with black people as the protagonists) and was inspired to base an art course for teenagers on the character of Kurosuke and Yasuke’s life in general. He felt Yasuke’s story would inspire and empower his students, who are mostly African American.

  “Are there any black anime characters?” The simple question posed to a group of teen anime fans led to these same teens exploring examples of manga with black protagonists such as Knights by Murao Minoru. They also learned about successful black figures in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and then created their own comic about the black samurai, Yasuke.

  To help with their ongoing research, in April 2017, around twenty students were present for a Skype interview with me from my home in Chiba, near Tokyo. The conversation started with questions about Japanese kids’ familiarity with Yasuke’s history, and ranged to black cultural influence in Japan, which then changed to the topic of the sense of being “other” and what it’s like being a non-Japanese person living in Japan. The group also discussed anime/manga culture, its gravity within Japan and its unique portrayal of women compared to other animation traditions. The topic of exploring black history outside of the United States was such a success that the teens continued sharing more black characters in anime/manga throughout the year. “We enjoyed it so much that I continued with the Teen Reading Lounge, expanding our topics to include unknown black historical figures from America’s Civil War and encouraging teens to continue to see the world from a different perspective,” said Keville.

  * * *

  Yasuke’s story is again seen as one of inspiration, inclusion and positive action. People do not need to feel trapped by the cards that life has dealt them or the circumstances of prejudice, expectation or seemingly limited horizons. There were many men and women like him, not just from Africa, but from all over the globe. His was a time when people could make a name and fortune for themselves pretty much anywhere in the world given the right circumstances. An age before deeply institutionalized racism, industrialized and hereditary slavery, before governments were powerful enough to control their citizens’ international movements (no passports or ID cards), and before deep knowledge of the wider world removed from a narrow localized narrative. An age when to be exotic and to possess valuable information of the outside world, international contacts, foreign languages and different technological know-how was a saleable and desirable asset.

  This was Yasuke’s time.

  He entered the halls of power, lived in grand castles and fought on the front line; he became a samurai, a member of one of the most famous warrior elites in history. He was a trendsetter and pioneer who allowed other foreigners to be employed in Japan in droves for decades after until Japan entered a new age of maritime restrictions in the 1630s.

  The spirit of the most famous, indeed one of the only, Africans to play a serious part in Japanese history remains with us today, unforgotten centuries later. In the form of an ever-changing legend, an inspiration for people around the globe.

  Yasuke vanished in 1594.

  His story is only now beginning.

  * * *

  Afterword

  The Witnesses

  Luís Fróis: Fróis, the most prolific writer on Yasuke, was born in Lisbon in 1532 and joined the Jesuits in 1548. He arrived in Japan in 1563. Fróis wrote more than one hundred letters and reports about Japan, many running to thousands of words, and several books during the 1580s and ’90s. His work, which is highly observant, descriptive and even entertaining, formed much of the basis of European knowledge on Japan until the modern age and he was one of the greats of the Jesuit mission in Japan. He was remembered by a colleague as: “meritorious more than any others of the Japanese Christianism and for the deeds which during thirty-four years consumed him there, and for the memories of the successes of that Church of which he yearly gave news to Europe.” He lived the last seven years of his life in Nagasaki where he died in 1597, aged sixty-five. His last published work was an eye-witness report of the Nagasaki martyrs’ executions of 1597.

  Ōta Gyūichi: The author of The Chronicle of Oda Nobunaga, and numerous other books recording the times in which he lived, was born in 1527 and died in 1613. As a samurai he was an expert archer who took part in many of Nobunaga’s early battles. He was also a member of Nobunaga’s falconry team. By the 1570s, he had been promoted to Nobunaga’s administrative staff in both Kyoto and Azuchi. He proceeded to serve Hideyoshi and then his son in administrative capacities. Most of his writing was only published posthumously from manuscripts and diaries he wrote throughout his life. He recorded Yasuke twice, specifically covering his first audience and the fact of his promotion.

  Matsudaira Ietada: Matsudaira Ietada, 1555–1600, who recorded Yasuke once in his diary after the Takeda campaign, went on to be promoted under his kinsman Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1599, he was given command of Fushimi Castle near Kyoto. It proved a fatal appointment. In 1600, just prior to the decisive Battle of Sekigahara at which Tokugawa seized the reins of power for good, Matsudaira died defending the walls. His diary is one of the best historical sources of the times he lived in.

  Lourenço Mexia: Mexia was a close aide to Valignano and also an informant on his activities to Rome, appointed by the Jesuit Superior General himself. He was a strong supporter of Valignano’s policy of adaptation to Japanese norms, especially regarding diet. He observed that the Japanese judged people on what they ate and how they ate it, and the European’s table manners and dietary choices, especially meat, were damaging their likelihood of converting the Japanese. He must have known Yasuke well, but chose to record his presence only once due to his surprisingly swift promotion in Nobunaga’s service (this is one more mention than Valignano saw fit to include). It is from Mexia that we know about Yasuke and Nobunaga’s close conversations and potential elevation to lord status. He died in 1599.

  The Jesuits

  Alessandro Valignano: Alessandro Valignano left Japan in 1582 bound for Europe with the first Japanese embassy to Rome, but he never got there. In India, new orders awaited him, appointing him to the post of Provincial of the Jesuits in Asia. He returned to Japan twice, in 1590–1592 and 1598–1603, but was based mainly in Macao where he carried on his educational tradition by, among other things, founding St. Paul’s College of Macao (which claims to be the first European university in Asia) to train Jesuits in Chinese language and traditions to facilitate their mission there.

  Valignano was said to be a man of “tremendous energy and boundless religious ardor, a born leader of men, who by the charm of his personality and the irresistible power of his example inspired the missionaries with ever-fresher and ever-greater enthusiasm for their work.” This energy allowed him to write perhaps dozens of books and thousands of letters about the Far East, the best methods of missionary work and instruction manuals on how to logically refute “paganism” and numerous educational tracts. It is said he often worked into the early hours of the morning.

  The Japanese embassy which he sent to Rome in the 1580s, normally referred to as the Tensho Embassy, met with two Popes and wowed both European rulers and their citizens. Their visit was quite the event of the decade, with crowds of thousands turning out to greet them. Even Queen Elizabeth of England, persona non grata in Catholic lands after her excommunication in 1570, demanded two reports a week from her European spies on their progress. The leader, Ito Mancio, was appointed Cavaliere di Speron d’Oro (Knight of the Order of the Golden Spur), and is possibly the only samurai to have concurrently been a European knight also.

  After Valignano’s death, an anonymous colleague wrote, “In him we lament not only our former Visitor and Father, but, as many will have it, the Apostle of Japan. For, filled with a special love for that Mission and burning with zeal for the conversion of that realm, he set no limit to his efforts on behalf of it.”

  Valignano died in Macao in 1606, at the age of sixty-seven.
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  There is no record of him having met Yasuke again.

  Today, less than 1 percent of the Japanese population is Christian.

  Father Gnecchi Soldo Organtino: After the destruction of Azuchi, including the seminary, Organtino was resident in the safety of Lord Takayama Ukon’s Takatsuki fief until he managed to found a new mission in Osaka. Kyoto was still too volatile and uncertain. He tried to mitigate the fallout from Hideyoshi’s banning of the Jesuits in 1587, but ultimately failed. However, he managed to stay in hiding within the proximity of Kyoto to support the Christian community there, and even baptized two of Nobunaga’s grandsons. He died in 1609, in Nagasaki, at the age of seventy-six.

  Father Gaspar Coelho: The mission superior who caused so much trouble by his scheming and overly aggressive attitude did not live long enough to be chastised by Valignano on his second visit. He died in disgrace in 1590 at Kazusa, near Kuchinotsu, where Yasuke had briefly lived ten years before and Valignano had set up his first seminary.

  The Warlords

  Hideyoshi: Hideyoshi came out on top in the brief battle to succeed Nobunaga and continued his work of unifying Japan. He initially supported the Catholic missionaries in their work, but like Nobunaga had no serious religious conviction, unless it suited his political ends. The Jesuits eventually got on his nerves, and seeing them as a potential threat, like every other potential threat, he dealt with them. In 1587, he banished all Jesuits from his realm. He never seriously enforced the prescript, but it was the first warning sign that Catholicism would not have an easy future in Japan. By the early 1590s, there was nothing left to do in the unification of Japan, and Hideyoshi decided to invade Korea with the ultimate goal being to sit on the imperial throne of China and possibly conquer India as well. Although the war was clearly a failure, Hideyoshi refused to concede defeat and the worn-out samurai held on in isolated castles on the Korean coast until he died. This legacy strains East Asian relations to this day.