How did an African-born warrior make the leap from a bodyguard to a European missionary, to elite warrior and confidant to Japan’s most powerful warlord, to 21st-century pop culture icon? In a February 18 online talk for the Museum, author and Nihon University instructor Prof. Thomas Lockley traces the mysterious history and growing cross-cultural impact of the figure popularly known as Yasuke.
From Priest’s Bodyguard to Japanese Military Elite
Little is known about the Yasuke’s life before he stepped foot on Japanese shores in 1579. As Prof. Lockley outlines in his 2019 book African Samurai: The True Story of a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan, the young soldier was likely trafficked from northeastern Africa and fought as a slave or mercenary in India before being hired by Alessandro Valignano, the Jesuit order’s chief missionary priest in Asia.
As Valignano’s bodyguard, the man who would come to be known as Yasuke initially worked for two years in Japan, soaking in the language and local etiquette. But it was a chance encounter with Oda Nobunaga, Japan’s most powerful warlord, that would eventually lead to Yasuke’s ascenscion into of the country’s elite.
Within a matter of months, Yasuke was a close confidant of Nobunaga, and the first foreigner to be granted samurai status. Rumours abounded that he would be given a lordship of his own. However, a general called Akechi attacked Nobunaga with overwhelming force forcing him to perform seppuku. Yasuke rescued the severed head from capture, but then fades into history.
Bio
Thomas Lockley is an associate professor at Nihon University College of Law in Tokyo. He has researched and published on a number of historical figures, especially lesser known people who have fallen between the cracks of history, but is primarily known for his work on Yasuke, the African warrior who fought for the Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga in the 1580s. He regularly appears on Japanese television, features in articles from media outlets such as CNN and the BBC, and gives lectures related to Yasuke and other lesser known characters in Japanese history. Lockley has written books about Yasuke both in Japanese translation and in English.
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