Angry Planet - How A Legendary Black Samurai Became an Anti-Imperialist Icon

Episode Date: April 19, 2019

It’s a story some of you may know, it’s been told over and over in different forms. A gaijin, an outsider, comes to Japan and ingratiates themselves with the local military power. From James Clavell’s Shogun, to a bad Tom Cruise movie, to William Adams, it’s a story told over and over in both Japan and the West. Some of those stories have a kernel of truth and few are as fascinating as that of Yasuke—a Samurai born in Africa.  Here to help us unravel the mystery and history of this legendary Samurai is Thomas Lockley. Lockley is a professor at Nihon University College in Tokyo and a visiting scholar at the University of London. Along with Geoffrey Girard, Lockley is the author of the book African SamuraI: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast? Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. In the beginning of the 21st century, he's been seen as an anti-imperialist icon. He's been used as a pop culture icon. He's used in computer games, in movies. His story is adapted to other stories into the future, like Afro Samurai.

You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the front lines. Here are your hosts. Hello and welcome to War College. I'm Matthew Galt. And I'm Derek Gannon. It's a story some of you may know what's been told over and over in different forms. A Geigen, an outsider, comes to Japan and ingratiates themselves with the local military power. From James Klovel Shogun to a bad Tom Cruise movie to William Adams, it's a story told over and over in both Japan and the West.

Some of those stories have a kernel of truth, and few are as fascinating as that of Yuske, a samurai born in Africa. Here to help us unravel the mystery and history of this legendary samurai is Thomas Lockley. Lockley is a professor at Nihon University College at Tokyo and a visiting scholar at the University of London. Along with Jeffrey Gerard,

Lockley is the author of the book African Samurai, the true story of Yuske, a legendary black warrior in feudal Japan. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. So who was Yuske? Yaska was, he's a bit of a mystery. We know details about his life, but we don't know everything. However, we can work out exactly where he came from, which is East Africa, at some point

of East Africa, and we know that he came through India to arrive in Japan, and he also came through Macau. We know this because he was with, he was the bodyguard of a Jesuit called Valiano who he arrived with. After that, we know a lot about him in Japan because he fascinated the people so much. And so he became a superstar, essentially, not just a warrior and a respected warrior at that, but he became a man that people wanted to see. There were crowds, in Kyoto and other cities that clamored to get a glimpse of him. People even died in these crowds. The Jesuit church was almost destroyed by the crowd, trying to get a look at him. So he's a man of many interesting points, I have to say. All right, let's dig into some of that story just a little bit

here. Let's start with his appearance in Japan. How did he get there? He came with the Jesuits. Is that correct? He was a bodyguard, a valet, to the chief Jesuit in all of Asia, whose name was Valiano, yes. Okay, and how did, what was the reaction? You kind of talked about the crowds a little bit. Why was there this reaction to him? Well, it's a very good question. Firstly, there's the obvious one that they'd never seen an African before.

In the West's where there was a lot of maritime interactions with the world, they would have seen black-skinned people before. But in the capital where Valiano and Yaske were traveling to, this was probably the first African who had been there. So therefore, that of his own was a novelty. Number two, he was huge. He was a giant. He was probably what we'd say around about six foot two, six foot three.

And the average height of people, that's well over a foot, bigger than the average height of even large people in those days in Japan. thirdly he was very strong he's recorded as having the strength of ten men by the Japanese sources of course we can't take that literally that he had the strength of ten men but it does mean that he was an extremely strong and big looking guy he would have looked how a bodyguard should look intimidating but we also know that he was an affable kind of guy he smiled a lot he was easy to get to know and the people really like to see him there's one more

The more hypothesis I have is that gods in Japan are often depicted with very dark skin, and therefore the people may have seen him as a foreign god, if you like, come to visit them and bestow his grace and blessings upon them. And I also think it's interesting to put his arrival in the context of the time in Japan. This is the Singoku period, which is the warring states period, which is a very fascinating a turbulent time in Japanese history, can you explain a little bit about why that's important? Absolutely, it's important.

The only reason Valiano really needed a bodyguard was because he was going into a war zone. The area where they got to originally, Kyushu, which is the very west of Japan, was divided up between a number of warring lords

and they were right in the middle of the battle, essentially. They were almost on the front line where they first arrived about five miles from the front line and the lord who was hosting them was actually under siege when they arrived so from day one they were in a war zone

the rest of the country to a lesser or larger extent was also at war nobunaga whose name will come later on as Yaske's future employer was the greatest of the lords and he had succeeded in subduing perhaps a quarter of the country

and all the main industrial cities and important financial centers, as well as the religious center of Kyoto. So, but he was still fighting on three or four fronts at this time. You've got what you call it a real classic war zone. As you said, it's called the age of the country. It war, the Cinquefiti Day. And it really meant that the country was at war. everybody was literally at war all the time.

All right. And why were the Jesuits there? The Jesuits were there for various reasons. They were a very new militant order. They'd only been formed about 40 years before this. They were dedicated to cantering the Reformation in Europe. And they thought the best way to do this was to expand the word of the Catholic church around the world. They'd got to Japan in 1548 and they'd started off very successfully,

prostitizing and making converts. And by the time Yaskay got there, 30 years later, they had around about 100,000 converts and it was the most successful of their missions outside of Europe. So they were there in force by this time because they could see that they were saving souls to make up for all the heretic Lutherans Protestants who had abandoned the Catholic Church in Europe. I'm kind of interested. How did he come into the employ of the Jesuits? How did they find him to date? Did he seek them out? Was he a mercenary or a pirate before that? And his employ the right word. Yeah, is that and the right word? It is the right word. He was almost definitely at the time.

when he was employed, he was either a freelance or he was a military slave. He would have been a military slave at the beginning because there were tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of African military slaves in India at this period. The Indians valued the Africans a lot. And in fact, when we say the word slave, it doesn't necessarily have the same connotations as we're thinking about from the modern age. These slaves would have been pretty well off high status people, they would, they often did run countries or run states. Yaske would have been just one man among, among these. He would probably, I don't necessarily think that he would have,

there wouldn't have been money changing hands for his employment. He would have perhaps sold himself for a bonus, if you like. And then Valiana would have been paying him wages. almost all slaves in the Far East, although they had limited freedom as to who their employer was, they were paid wages and they were often employed in extremely specialist positions, including military, but also building, carpentry, boat building, all sorts of other things, which were in those days respectable professions. Yaske would have been employed either in Goa, which in Western India or in Kochi,

Corchin, as it was called then, which is also on Western India, where the Jesuits had very successful missions there. We don't know the details of that, but we do know that when he arrived in Japan, he was described as having come from India. So we can hypothesize that that was the case. So technically he was kind of like a gun for hire. Like he already knew how to fight, correct? Like he knew the art of war in the region of Africa. Okay. No question. So he probably He was trained in India, not in Africa, but he would have been trained in India as a boy, or maybe 12 years old. He would have been bought by another African probably to join the African's army, essentially, and he would have been trained up there as a teenager. It is possible and probably likely that as a warrior, when he arrived in Japan, he made contact with other warriors.

there were local warriors seconded to the Josiewitz by friendly lords he would have had contact with them and in fact he may well have acted as a kind of officer for them as he was directly responsible for Valiano's well-being and life so he may well have coordinated

the Japanese warriors who came into contact with him so it's very highly likely that he did start to pick up local techniques there and they would also have picked up local techniques from him new techniques from him and that was possibly one of the main reasons why Nobunaga was so keen on employing him later on is because he could give a whole new way of looking at the world.

All right, let's talk about Oda Nobunaga, because this is another one of those figures out of Japanese history that is now also kind of mythic, right? So what was it, what is it about him that kind of lends itself to that? And also, how did he, how did Yosuke catch his eye? How did they meet and how did he become, you know, come to be employed by him. I'll take that point first because it goes on to the riot that I was talking about before. The riot in Kyoto, I think there are probably several thousands of people bashing down the Jesuit church to get a look at him. People died in the crowds, stones were being

thrown. Nubunaga's his residence, which he commandeered a temple as his local residence, was only five minutes walk away. And he heard the commotion and demanded to know, who was breaking his peace, essentially. He sent his soldiers, they dispersed the crowds, probably fairly quickly, and Yaske was granted an immediate audience with Nobunaga, who was fascinated. The story goes that he asked,

he thought Yaske was a joke, that the Jesuits had painted a man to fascinate Nobunaga. So he asked for Yaske's skin to be cleaned, or scrubbed. Of course, the pigment did not come off. And then he invited Yask to a party, and they partied the day away. After that, it seems that he either asked Valiano for his service, or Valiano tactfully said, why don't you have Yasker as your man?

And he immediately entered the service of Japan's foremost warlord of the time. And perhaps Japan's foremost warlord of all time, as he's probably the most famous and revered of all the generals in Japanese history. As you said earlier on, this was the Sengoggeda, the age of the country at war. It wasn't a comfortable time to be living. People were routinely killed, enslaved,

dispersed all around the country and abroad as well. Nobunaga brought peace to a land which desperately needed peace. he was the first of the three great unifiers, the two that come after him are Hideoshi and Tokugawa Yasu. But Nobunaga started it off, and that is why he is revered as the most famous and perhaps the most notorious world in Japanese history as well. And it's kind of at this period that you as a historian have more sources to work with, right?

because I'm also very interested in that. Like, how did you put this story together? It's a long book, very well researched and thorough. Lots of footnotes, lots of primary sources. How did you do that? Well, it took a long time. Nine years. It took.

It didn't start off as that kind of project. It started off more as a, I want to know more about this guy because he's fascinating kind of thing. And as an academic, that automatically transferred into footnotes and reading more and more sources. So therefore, it kind of blossomed in of itself over the years and turned into the book, which you probably have in front of you now. Yeah, I'm also interested in many other stories. This period is a fascinating period. And therefore, I think a lot of these stories all fit in together.

the world and Japan were very interlinked at this period, and therefore pretty much everything comes in to make connections somewhere. And I think I would like to think that that's what the book is the result of making connections with all sorts of other issues. It's interesting that you say that Japan and the rest of the world were interconnected at the time, because that's not always the case with Japan, correct? So the legend goes. I would say that actually Japan has always been far more contacted, far more in contact than many other areas of the world.

The legend or the theory of Sakoku, which starts about 60 years after, 50 years after the Aske's time, of disconnection from the rest of the world, it was actually only disconnection from Europe. It wasn't disconnection from the world as a whole. Connections with all other Asian countries were essentially extremely good during this time, and also international trade flourished.

During the same period, the only Europeans who were allowed to trade in Japan with the Dutch, they carried on a massive trade, which was a real bonus for their empire. And many of the artefacts that were brought back to Europe then became copied by Europeans to make pottery like Wedgwood and Delft. So you can say that actually there were quite a lot. on cultural interactions as well, even if it's not specifically in Japan, the effects were being felt all over the world. So Matthew Perry didn't, in fact, discover Japan at all. He just resumed relationships with Europe, essentially. When you first stumbled onto this story,

did you consider it an urban legend initially? Was it just like, this doesn't make any sense? where did you find your sources? Like, you know, you talked about your sources. It took you nine years. That's amazing timeline. I mean, that's a thoroughly research book, but how do you differentiate between that? I mean, how did you start to realize that this is actually a true story? Or is this something that's celebrated in Japan?

It is celebrated in Japan. That's the first point. The second point is, I knew it was a true story from the start. Yaskay is only one of many such people, mercenaries, warriors. martial artists that come from various parts of the world. You mentioned William Adams earlier on. There were loads of Koreans and Chinese people, especially over the next 50 years. Later on in history, we have other Europeans as well.

We have Tom Cruise, although that, he's actually based on the story for Frenchmen. This was a common theme in Japanese history. I mean, when you think of all the samurai that ever were, these foreign samurai or people that came from abroad to become samurai are only a tiny, tiny percentage, but they do exist. And their existence has been known about for a very long time. So at no point thought it was an urban legend. However, when you look at when you go out from just the small details that we do have, and you look at the fact that he might have been considered as a god, etc., then the story turns his. into something more and he becomes a legend. Back to the modern day, he is pretty much revered

and has been for the second half of the 20th century as well as in the beginning of the 21st century, he's been seen as an anti-imperialist icon, he's been used as a pop culture icon, he's used in computer games in movies, his story is adapted to other stories into the future like Afro Samurai. There are loads of books in Japan, which have him as a character of some description.

He's by far and away from being a hidden or a secret character. What was his service like under Nobu Naga? What was he doing for him? Well, at the beginning, I suspect that he was pretty much a novelty. He would have been taken in as he would have been employed as somebody to make Nobunaga look good. However, very soon after that, we find that Nobunaga actually consult him. He finds him both entertaining and informative as a person. And we therefore thereafter see him being promoted.

He's given a house. He's given a sword. He's given the servants. He's given money, a stipend, which these are the signs of a, not just a warrior, but as a samurai. He's been kept as a retainer. of the Lord Nobunaga. After this, we also know that he went on at least one campaign with Nobunaga.

As there's an observation of him during that campaign. And then finally, he was at Nobunaga's side when Nobunaga was forced to perform Sepuku, perform a ritual suicide. And legend has it. This is a legend, there are no documents, not that I found anyway. A legend had it within Nobunaga's ancestors now, successors now, that Yaske took Nobunaga's head for safekeeping and presented it to his son, who was the heir to the

clan. Really? That's crazy. I know it's crazy. So that's the legend part. That is the legend part. It's within the order family to this day. So it's probably has truth to it. So do us do some of the listeners, and I know a lot of their listeners are intelligent, but what is the title samurai what does that mean what what's what what sort of moniker does that mean to be held a samurai is uh samurai means servant um a servant to a lord um it has specifically in japanese history the meaning of a warrior servant to a lord um therefore the in the the meaning would be that you are submissive to your lord and you will carry out his every order Of course, in reality, that didn't always happen.

The samurai were humans and subject to human wins the same as everybody else. And often there was treachery as well. However, the samurai in general were fearsome worries, feared throughout Asia, feared as far away as Europe, the king of Spain, specifically ordered his own men not to fight the Japanese unless the Japanese were to invade the Philippines, for example. therefore we have a bit of a legend which spread around the world about these fearsome warriors we also have lots of facts as well from raids in china and Korea as to what these warriors got up to when we come back to what samurai actually means at the time that yasker was a

samurai it's a little bit more hazy than later on in history about 20 years after this samurai becomes coded as a cast, an immovable cast. Everybody who is samurai will be samurai forever and their successes after them until the end of time, essentially. And this carried on until 1873. So that's what's 300 years after, after Yasko. At Yaskoske's time, it essentially meant somebody who is paid to fight for a lord. Now you mentioned Afro Samurai earlier

And I'm interested in I mean I've seen that It's a great You know anime Why do you What's what's the What's the Why is there a mystique around the samurai

Why is it so popular do you think in the West? People just kind of romanticize that Why? And especially This idea of like a Geishen samurai too I think is interesting Because like you said it's Yoske is far from the only one

What I should have said previously was the word samurai is hardly ever used in Japan. It's a word which is, the Japanese would use the word bushi or other words which just mean warrior. Samurai has become an English word as much as a Japanese word and then has come back into Japanese to be used more in Japanese than it ever used to be. That doesn't mean that it wasn't used in Japan. It's a historical word. But the word itself has been romanticized along with the men and the women who held that title. Why? Well, there's both the stories from Yaske's time that spread around the world. And then you have the period when there's less contact with Europe until the mid-1850s, around 1854.

The legends have continued to blossom. You have, for example, stories like Gulliver's Travels, which Gulliver goes to a country of little people and has all his problems there. That's the only country that's actually identifiable in Gulliver's travels because Gulliver goes to Nagasaki, which is, of course, a city in Kushu. So the legend metamorphosed over,

a couple of hundred years. And then in the 1850s you have, again, probably mainly British diplomats and scholars who collected stories of warriors and they did romanticise it. There's no question because they were fascinated by these stories. In a way, the imperialist myth had been that the Europeans were the pinnacle of civilization.

And therefore, when Europeans actually looked closely at China Japan, Korea and other places, and found that actually there was equally developed civilizations with equally developed or even more developed senses of honor and chivalry, etc. A lot of Europeans then came to question themselves as to what the basis of their own imperial thoughts were. And so this is also where we come back later on to Yaske as an anti-imperial icon for the Japanese as well. Anyway, I'll stop there for this one.

I'm going beyond myself. Something kind of ties into that. You mentioned earlier that Yaske is an anti-imperial icon. Can you talk about that a little bit? Sure. The first book that ever told his story reasonably factually was in 1968. It was a children's book, actually. It's illustrated.

It's an early form of manga, if you like. And it was written by an author, a female author called Curusur. She specifically in her afterword in the book says that she sees him as the antidotes to all the European, the fat European generals and diplomats that carved up Africa. And this is at the period when African states were just starting to become independent from Europe for the first time for 70 years or so since Europe had started colonising Africa in the late 19th century. so she sees him as an antidote to that. A couple of years later, there's another book written also about Yaske, less factually accurate this time called Korombo,

which is written by the same author that wrote Silence, the movie, which was so popular a few years ago, Endor Shusakou. And he uses Yaske in a different way. This is most definitely an adult book. He uses Yaske, as a fool the embodiment is a far

less, far more pessimistic view of Africa of the time he uses Jaske as a metaphor for the Africa of the time which is although more independent more independent nations was still being used and carved up by the Europeans and indeed Americans for their own

ends and you could probably say to a certain extent that would hold today. I'm wondering, okay, so you live in Japan, correct? You're a stranger in a strange land, maybe not so much anymore. But is that why you felt drawn to this story? Yeah, absolutely. There's no question. That was part of the initial attraction of it.

The parallels with my life are zero. I was neither born a slave nor brought here on a ship taking two years or had any of the other difficulties that Yaske must have come across. However, yeah, I'm in my 20th year, either in Japan or in connection with Japan now. And, yeah, it does take something to discover a new culture, of course. And I would like to think I'm perhaps not so much of a stranger anymore, but I think it's a fair point. When did you first learn about him? What was the initial attraction moment?

2009. I was actually looking at something on William Adams, on Wikipedia. I think I was making a lesson. I'm a teacher. And at the bottom of the Wikipedia article, there's often links to similar stories or other things you might find interesting. And Yaske's just happened to be one of them.

I had no idea about this. It was sound like a fascinating story. clicked on it and everything started from there essentially within a year I kind of started my research and even started to write what I first thought would be a fiction book because I thought there was not enough for a fact book that book didn't come off the ground in the end mainly due to family reasons I had two children etc but as they got a bit older then I went back to the Yasker project and this book which you hold now was born.

I want to go back for a second. The, when Nobunaga created, or went ahead and, and, uh, you said something about Sepaku, how he, of course,

it's a ritual of its embalment and long with being beheaded. And Yasuke was, uh, was his samurai. So now he's masterless. So he, what happened to him after that?

Did he move to another warlord? Did he get his own land? Did he become a lord himself? I just want, just for me i just wanted to go back what happened to him after uh you know and they called shogun like shogun nobonaga like what happened when he lost his his master well nobunaga wasn't a shogun he refused the title although he was he had been offered it um he was uh probably waiting for a better time to when he really did have the country under his control

to get it nobinaga um cut his belly um his lover ranmaru uh chopped his head. Yaskay probably then helped Ramaru also in Sepuku by chopping his head, and then he took Nobunaga's head to Nobunaga's son. At this point, Nobunaga's son is the head of the clan. So Yaske is still a samurai for Nobunaga's son. However, within an hour or so, Nobunaga's son is also dead in the same coup. Yaske fights to the end with his son as well who's called Novut Thada and then

the Asse is taken before the master of the coup who's called Akechimitsu Hideh and he Akkehima Sida insults him says he should have killed himself got no honour then he sends Yaske back to the Jesuit church where the Jesuits are

very very pleased to see him and they praise the Lord that he's alive and well. That's the last historical recording we have of his life. What happened after that? We don't know. However, I hypothesized in the book that he probably kept his head down for a bit in Kyoto in the church, then made his way back to the west, Nagasaki probably, probably worked for the Jesuits there for a bit as, again, hired muscle. they were just reinforcing Nagasaki at the time. It was their city. They're building walls.

They're putting guns on the walls, et cetera, et cetera. He would have been very useful there. Then what happens after that? There are lots of other recordings of similar types of black men in Japan at this time. Whether they're Yaskia or not, we do not know. And that is very sad. But the book will take you through many of these. sightings how likely it is that they were Yasker, how likely it wasn't that they were Yasker, etc.

I suspect he ended the service of another lord. He's a very useful man with several languages under his about probably about four languages. He's got immense knowledge of the world, immense knowledge of war, and he's obviously proved himself in war as well in Japan. So it would have been a bit of a coup for another law to then employ Nobunaga's ex-black samurai, if you look. Did he have a wife? We don't know whether he had a wife, but we do know many of the other Africans did have wives and children. It would be lovely to think that one of them was him and that he did have wives and children. So he just kind of fades from the historical record at that point?

As soon as Nobunaga employs him on the first day, he's given riches. So he would have been a wealthy man. On the first day, he's given a whole, he's given 37.5 kilos. It's about 70 pounds worth of copper coins. I think personally that might have been a bit of a joke to see if he could lift the 70 pounds of copper coins as well. But that's an awful lot of money. And from then on, he's also got an awful lot of money coming in from other sources too.

So he's not going to be a poor man. can afford wives, he can afford children, you can afford social status. Thank you so much for coming on to War College and telling us the story. Thank you for having me, and thank you for reaching out to find me as well. Thank you for listening to War College. Our guest was Thomas Lockley, and his book is out April 30th. It's called African Samurai, The True Story of Yoske, a legendary black warrior in feudal Japan. War College is me, Matthew Galt, Galt, Derek Gannon, and Kevin Nodell. It was created by me and Jason Fields, who's really happy he just got a big story done.

You can find us wherever find podcasts or podcasted. If you like us, please leave a rating and a review on iTunes. It helps others find the show. In the coming weeks, we'll be talking about LSD, that's right, LSD, and unearthing a Cold War plan to nuke the moon. Until then, stay safe out there.