Bondage and Bushido
In African Samurai, Thomas Lockley reveals the incredible story of a captive’s rise to warrior.
Nobunaga called for water and a brush. He commanded his guest…to strip to the waist.
The African warrior awaited the scrubbing and held a smile, little worried his skin would change color.”
Thomas Lockley could hardly believe his sources: the man history remembers as “Yasuke” had just escaped a frenzied Kyoto mob. Apprehended for disturbing the peace, he was delivered to Oda Nobunaga, the most powerful daimyo warlord in 16th-century Japan.
“It has everything,” says Lockley, 41, of African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan. “Drama, mystery, action—truth is certainly stranger than fiction.”
Originally from Britain, the Nihon University associate professor happened on the improbable tale of Yasuke nearly a decade ago while hunting for more classroom content.
“Of all the hundreds of stories I’ve found over the years,” says Lockley, who speaks at the Club this month, “Yasuke’s is my favorite.”
Lockley and co-author Geoffrey Girard’s narrative reads more like a thriller than an academic treatise, but copious references bear out the facts.
Likely enslaved as a child in sub-Saharan Africa, Yasuke arrived in western Japan in 1579 as an indentured bodyguard to an Italian Jesuit proselytizing throughout the war-torn country.
Two years later, the unprecedented sight of a towering, spear-wielding black man walking the streets of Kyoto whipped gawking crowds into a deadly crush. And when Oda set his eyes on Yasuke, he suspected him of inking his skin black.
How the former slave managed to turn the all-powerful daimyo’s curiosity to his advantage epitomizes an uncanny resourcefulness Yasuke showed time and again.
“In the Jesuit sources, [Yasuke’s] Japanese is described as tanno dearu, or adequate,” says Lockley. “There’s another account which states that Nobunaga never tired of talking to him, so it may well have been more than simply adequate.”
Officially endowed with the katana and wakizashi swords of a samurai retainer, Yasuke proved his mettle in battle alongside Oda’s troops. He was now an honored member of Japan’s preeminent clan.
Then, in 1582, a top lieutenant double-crossed Oda and thousands descended on the daimyo’s Kyoto residence. Vainly, the skeleton force of defenders—including Yasuke—resisted. He survived but vanishes from the historical record thereafter. Lockley postulates several paths the African may have taken but nothing is certain.
“He’s representative of millions of people who slipped through the cracks of history,” Lockley says. “There may be millions of Yasukes.”
Since African Samurai hit shelves last year, scholars and readers of all stripes have been reaching out, Lockley says, thanking him for bringing Yasuke and a diverse take on Japanese history to the fore.
Inevitably, there are also the deniers. Ridiculous, they claim, that a black man could ever be a samurai.
“It’s extremely gratifying,” Lockley says. “Bigots maybe need to see another side of the story.”
Words: Owen Ziegler
Illustration: Blood Bros.
Meet the Author: Thomas Lockley
January 29 | 7–8pm | Washington & Lincoln rooms | ¥1,500 (guests: ¥1,800) | Copies of African Samurai available for ¥3,060
