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CLASSIC: Yasuke, the African Samurai · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians, as we said earlier, we're taking the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: week off in celebration of Labor Day. But don't worry,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: we've still got plenty of nerdy things from the archives
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: that we can't wait to share with you. Especially this
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: one is a straight up anime story.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Well, it actually is. There is, I believe, Afro Samurai.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: which is an anime-style cartoon series, I believe from Adult Swim,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: or at least it was on Adult Swim when I
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: saw it. There are also multiple films based on the
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: life of Yasuke, a samurai warrior of African descent in
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: feudal Japan, which was unusual at the time, to say
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: the least. Yes, very much to say the least. We
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: can't wait.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: For you to join us on this wild ride, folks.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: So tune in as we learn how a Japanese daimyo
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: named Oda Nobunaga was fascinated by a stranger from Africa.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, and just to add, Ben, there is entirely an
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: animated series called Yasuke that has at least one season,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: and that is available as we speak on Netflix. Let's
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: roll the tape.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians. I've got to say, first, I'm Ben.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Hi. Oh, hey, Ben. It's me, Noel, your old pal.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: And there's our super producer, Casey Pegram.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: Hello.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: We're in a different studio today. Just peek behind the curtain.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: So Casey's actually physically sitting in the same room with us.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's weird. I have to... Like be quiet and
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: not make noise.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Can't be crinkling a wrapper or something.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: And you're craning your neck to look at us from
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: the side. And we can smell each other's musks.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is a very small little hot box
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: that we're in right now. Sorry, the musk might be me. Oh, no, no.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: It's a melange of all of our musks. And all
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: of our musks combined, we are Ridiculous History. A potpourri.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: of perfect ridiculousness. Yeah.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Did you guys see the movie? What was it with
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Forrest Whitaker? Was it Ghost Dog?
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Way of the Swammer? Yeah, with the RZA soundtrack? Or
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: was it GZA? I think it was RZA. RZA's soundtrack.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: GZA does production, but is more, I think, known for
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: his verses.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: When Wu-Tang forms like Voltron, I believe that RZA is
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: the head.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I just saw RZA in the new Jim Jarmusch movie. Oh, yeah?
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: How'd he do?
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  Speaker 3: He was great for his scene. I had issues with
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: the movie.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I heard the movie was very painfully self-aware. Yeah.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: But no, he's got a little cameo. He's with Whoopi S.,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: so he makes a delivery. That's pretty much it.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I do want to– I'm still a Jarmusch addict, so
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I'll check out Don't Die. But this is interesting because
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the concept of Ghost Dog, right, is that he is
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: a samurai and people are often taken aback because they're thinking–
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: How can this black man be a samurai?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Well, but to be fair, he's also like a modern-day
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: kind of self-prescribed samurai, isn't he? Right.
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  Speaker 1: He's not dressed as a samurai in the 16th century
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: would be.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: But today we're going to talk about a historical ghost
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: dog kind of figure, right? Yes.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Yasuke, the enslaved African man who became a samurai and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: fought for Nobunaga. Also, a soft note to any of
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: our Japanese-speaking friends, any of your fellow Japanese-speaking listeners in
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the audience, none of us speak Japanese.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Should we have brought in Lauren Vogelbaum as a Japanese
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: consultant on this one?
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  Speaker 1: You know, I thought about it, Noel, but I didn't
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: want to spring it on her at the last minute.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: She's still recovering from jet lag from Hawaii. Mm-hmm, yeah.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: We welcomed her back yesterday, and it was bittersweet because,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: you know, I said, welcome back. I'm sorry you had
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: to leave Hawaii.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: I just sang her the Welcome Back Cotter song. Mm-hmm.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: With open arms.
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  Speaker 1: Nice.
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  Speaker 2: And then we shared a whiskey. You were there. I
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: was there. I was there.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I said aloha. She said mahalo. And that is the
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  Speaker 1: extent of my Hawaiian language knowledge.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And you left it at that. And just so you know,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: our knowledge of the Japanese language is similarly light. But
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  Speaker 2: we're going to do our best on these here pronunciations.
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  Speaker 3: Here's the thing.
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  Speaker 2: It's not unheard of in the history of the samurai
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  Speaker 2: for non-Japanese people. individuals to reach the heights, work their
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: way up to the ranks of the samurai. You may
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: have seen that Tom Cruise movie. What is it? The
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Last Samurai? The Last Samurai. I have problems with that film. Well,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: isn't it kind of a white savior kind of like
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: narrative a little bit? It's like Blood Diamond.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: And Blood Diamond is this very similar thing with Leonardo DiCaprio.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Someone is killing a bunch of people, but then they
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: do one decent thing, and because they happen to be white,
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  Speaker 1: they're praised.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: And if I'm not mistaken, don't they both do bad
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: accents in both of those movies?
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: My favorite Afrikaner or South African accent is Leonardo DiCaprio.
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  Speaker 2: They have a word for people like me in Buntu.
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  Speaker 1: It means white mining Africa.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 1: That's actually, that's The accent is so terrible that I
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: did a pretty good job of what Leonardo DiCaprio was doing.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Isn't Ubuntu also a type of Linux software? I was
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: going to say it's a Linux distro. I think it is, yeah.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: But if I'm not mistaken, so English sailor William Adams,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: who was born in 1564, died in 1620, came to
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Japan in 1600, and he did just what we said,
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: rose through the ranks and became himself. a very notable samurai,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: but he was English. Didn't Tom Cruise not do an
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  Speaker 2: English accent in the movie, if I'm not mistaken? I
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  Speaker 2: don't remember. I don't think so. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I was watching it, I think, on a
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  Speaker 1: plane or something. Yeah, this guy, the English guy, comes
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  Speaker 1: after Yasuke.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. He's just the most famous because I've never
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: heard of Yasuke.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just the most famous. There was also one
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  Speaker 1: from shortly after Yasuke's period who was from South Korea.
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  Speaker 1: There were several from South Korea.
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  Speaker 2: There was.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: One guy from the Netherlands, and then there was William Adams,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, and then there was a Chinese national, and
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: then there was one.
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  Speaker 2: Who was unknown. Oh, The Unknown Samurai. That'd be a
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: good movie. That's a great idea. Just name alone. It's
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: a cool name. Let's just start with the name and
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: work backwards. But no, we have this gentleman whose name
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: is Yasuke, and I can only imagine that that was
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: his name that he was given after... Coming to Japan.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: But they refer to him in all the research that
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  Speaker 2: we've seen as that from the start. So we don't
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: know what his name was before this, but I can
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  Speaker 2: only assume that that's the case. Would you agree? Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Or at the very least, it's a Japanization of his
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: original name. So we have a couple of theories about
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  Speaker 1: his life, but we don't really know anything for certain
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  Speaker 1: about his original life before he arrived in Japan. According
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: to some books, people just sort of assumed that he
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  Speaker 1: was from Portuguese-controlled Mozambique, because a lot of the people
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  Speaker 1: of color who were traveling to Japan from Africa were
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: coming from Mozambique.
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  Speaker 2: No, that's right, because he was an enslaved person, and
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  Speaker 2: he was traveling with a group of Europeans, or I
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: believe a gentleman from Portugal, and he was sort of
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: like a manservant to this, was it a Jesuit? It
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  Speaker 2: was some kind of religious, a member of a religious order,
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  Speaker 2: if I'm not mistaken.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yes.
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  Speaker 1: He arrived in 1579 as the servant of a Jesuit missionary,
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  Speaker 1: Alessandro Valigano. And Alessandro had been appointed what they called
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  Speaker 1: the visitor or the inspector of Jesuit missions in the Indies.
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  Speaker 1: So that was South and East Asia and East Africa.
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  Speaker 1: So he would travel around to all the missions owned
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  Speaker 1: by the Jesuits.
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  Speaker 2: And a lot of this research comes from a gentleman
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  Speaker 2: named Thomas Lockley. who wrote a book called African Samurai,
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  Speaker 2: the true story of Yasuke, a legendary black warrior in
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  Speaker 2: feudal Japan. And Ben, as you said at the top
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  Speaker 2: of the show, one of the theories is that he
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  Speaker 2: came from Mozambique. Others suggest that he came from Sudan
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  Speaker 2: and trained as a child soldier in Goa in India. Right, right.
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  Speaker 1: The idea being that because of his... To the Japanese,
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary height. He was about a foot taller than the
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  Speaker 1: average Japanese person. And because of his very, very dark skin,
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  Speaker 1: he might have been a member of the Dinka in Sudan.
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  Speaker 1: So let's stick with Lockley for a second. This is, again,
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  Speaker 1: this is all speculative. There are no corroborating documents on
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  Speaker 1: Yasuke's time. His agreed-upon adventure, as far as the documents go,
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  Speaker 1: really does kind of begin in Japan. But Lockley spent
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  Speaker 1: nine years researching the story of this man, Yasuke. And
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  Speaker 1: he believes that Yasuke was abducted from his family by
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  Speaker 1: slave traders, either of Arab or Indian origin, and then
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  Speaker 1: trafficked across the Indian Ocean through Arab countries. And as
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  Speaker 1: you said, Noel, trained as a child soldier. And it's
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  Speaker 1: during this time that Lockley speculates Yasuke meets Alessandro Vallegano.
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  Speaker 1: the most powerful Jesuit missionary of the day. So Goa
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  Speaker 1: was a huge trading missionary military hub.
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  Speaker 2: Coastal.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for the Portuguese empires. And it was a huge
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  Speaker 1: center of the slave trade. So it's quite plausible that
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  Speaker 1: this is where the Jesuits encountered it.
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  Speaker 2: For the first time, right? Yep, I agree completely. Let's
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: backtrack just a little bit and give a little bit
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: of context of what was going on in 16th century
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Japan at the time. Huge divides going on, a lot
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: of isolation from the outside world. The country was split
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: into various provinces, and they were ruled by these feudal
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: lords that were– OK, I'm going to do my best
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  Speaker 2: on this one. They were called– I think it's daimios.
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  Speaker 2: And this is, of course, a nation that is an island.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: So it has a lot of water that causes it
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: to be isolated in that way. So it really creates
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: its own kind of universe, very isolated. And that is
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: until European explorers, you know, with ships and fleets– seeking adventure,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: decided to make their way into this, what they saw
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  Speaker 2: as a very exotic land that they either wanted to
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: conquer or, you know, learn from, or I don't know
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: what the motivation, what do you think, Ben?
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: They didn't have the most successful results at first. The
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Japan and
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: they brought their entire culture with them, which included the
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: religion and included slavery.
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  Speaker 2: And it included our hero, Yasuke.
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  Speaker 1: So as we established, Shisuke arrives in Japan in 1581,
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  Speaker 1: and his arrival triggers a literal riot. He lands in Kyoto,
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  Speaker 1: and people wanted to see this extraordinary person and be
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: in his presence because they had never seen anything like this.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And the next few pieces of this story may be
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: offensive to some listeners, but But I have personal insight
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  Speaker 1: on this, too, because this happened to some of my
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  Speaker 1: friends when they went to rural China.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, no way. Yeah. Yes way. Yes way, Ted.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a warlord, the most powerful warlord in Japan,
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  Speaker 1: Nobunaga Oda. And he sees Yasuke. And at first, he
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: believes this is not a human being. It's either a
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: demon or a god, a daikokuten, a god of prosperity,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: because they're usually represented by black statues and temples. And
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  Speaker 1: so this is what he does. He tries to rub
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: what he thinks is ink off of this man's skin
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: and makes him like strip to his waist and then
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: try to rub it off.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: And then he goes, oh, my God. He's fascinated by them. Yeah.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: This is really this is your skin. This is not
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: paint or ink. This has happened within our lifetimes to
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: people in rural China. I had a friend who was
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: traveling out toward western China. Some older person came up
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: and without so much as a buy or leave, they
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  Speaker 1: grabbed my pal's arm and they spat on his arm
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  Speaker 1: and tried to rub.
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  Speaker 2: Off the skin.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: And they didn't think it was mean. And afterwards, they
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: wanted pictures with him. They wanted to talk.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Spitting on people is never polite behavior, I wouldn't say. No, no.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: There has to be a better way to do it.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I can't think of a culture where that's appropriate.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: But this is true.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: We can kind of see, if we exercise some empathy,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: how amazing this must be. This guy is taller than
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: literally everyone. His skin seems amazing to you, right? And
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: once Oda is finally convinced that this Yasuke character is real,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: he immediately throws a feast for the guy, and it
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: turns from a riot to a party. Also, again, these
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: are warlord rules, so he pretty much decides the tone
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of the room.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, totally. And the riot element you're talking about, I think,
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: referred to folks trying to get a look at the guy, right? Yeah, exactly.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Literally just like a kind of feeding frenzy to kind
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: of like, oh, see, because, oh, it's important to remember,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: this certainly would have been one of the first, if
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: not the first, many of these folks had ever seen
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: of a black man. Yeah, absolutely.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: And this is not necessarily a movie moment where it's
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: like Oda is at the Kyoto port. Lord Nobunaga, as
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: he was called, asked for an audience when he heard
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: about all this commotion, and that's when he does the
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: whole thing about rubbing the pigment from his skin and
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: then throwing his feast, and then he hires Yasuke. He
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: makes him his retainer and his bodyguard.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, he did eventually make him his bodyguard. For a
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: little while, though, he was treated a little bit more
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: as kind of like a source of amusement or kind
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: of like a novelty, kind of an oddity, right? But
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: then he demonstrated, because of his training as a child soldier—
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: And his military prowess, he demonstrated very quickly that he
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: was a very competent and powerful warrior. And he began
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: to learn martial arts as well. Right, right.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: And he was also versed in Japanese. So we think
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: he probably had these conversations. According to Lockley, Oda loved
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: just sitting around and shooting the breeze with Yasuke. You know,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: tell me more about your life. There are no records
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: of how much he earned at his time, you know,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: when he was first sort of a novelty. And then
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: when within a month, he's a warrior. We don't know
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: how much he was paid. So Lockley says it's tough
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: to know how high Yasuke ranked. And that's why people,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: that's why you'll hear a lot of people, including this author,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: speculate that he was the equivalent.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Of a page or a bodyguard. That's right. But what
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: we do know is a Tokyo-based publisher by the name
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: of Matt Ault who works for a publishing house called
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Alt Japan, had this to say, that Yasuke was no
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: longer seen as human chattel or any kind of indentured servant,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: but he was like all vassals, meaning a samurai is
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: beholden to their lord, the warlord, Oda, right?
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Right, and that's why in less than a year, Yasuke
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: went from being a page to becoming one of the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: upper echelons of Japan's warrior class, the samurai. We should
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: stop just for a second and talk about what a
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: samurai actually is, because I suspect that many of us
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: may have a couple of misconceptions. So these are warriors
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of pre-modern Japan, and later they become the military ruling
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: class and the highest ranking social caste of the Edo period,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: which is 1603, 1867. They had this sort of code, right,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: a code by which one would live, maybe similar to
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: the idea of chivalry, but this was Confucian in design, right,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: or in influence. This Bushido, the way of the warrior,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: stressed things like loyalty to your master, self-discipline, respectful, ethical behavior,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and there was also a lot of Zen Buddhism in there.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: But these might be filling any number of roles. You know,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: some samurai eventually essentially became bureaucrats.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: But not at this time. No, not at this time.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: But Yusuke was literally Oda's right-hand man. He got all
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: of this special treatment, preferential treatment. He was gifted a
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: ceremonial samurai sword or a katana sword. He dined privately
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: regularly with Oda, which was very enviable among the other samurai.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: He was kind of his favorite, it would seem, based
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: on what we know. He also had his own private residence,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: which wasn't for everybody. and just seemed to be a
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: real asset to the warlord and have a really prominent
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: position in that society.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Right. And again, when we're talking about the society, we
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: have to emphasize this is a fractured society. This is
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: not the unified Japan with which we are familiar today.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of interior fighting. This is the era
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: of warring states. It's a turbulent century in history. And
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: just in the same way that the Alamo or Antietam
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: conjures these images of generals and founding fathers, so do
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the key struggles of this period, also called the Sengoku,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: according again to Alt. And Yasuke knows that he is
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: not going to have, he might have a future when
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: he's older as some sort of bureaucrat if he makes it,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: but in this very violent time, he's going to fight.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: So within a year of his arrival, he joins Lord
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Nobunaga's forces in their invasion of the Iga province, I-G-A.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: And they attacked this place, which is ringed with mountains.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: It was called a ninja hotbed with 40,000 to 60,000 troops,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and they conquered it.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is from Lockley's account. He said that
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: this first foray into battle was a success. His second,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: there was kind of a twist in the story, right?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: So according to Lockley's account, in June of 1582, Nobunaga's
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: samurai general, Mitsuhide Akichi... attacked his master, Nobunaga, at his
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: residence in Kyoto. He launched a tactical offensive. The attack
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: kicked off something that's known as the Battle of Hono-ji Temple.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: And that kind of put the kibosh on Nobunaga's plans
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: to bring together these splintered factions in Japan, right? He
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: wanted to unify the country. Under his control, as most
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: warlords do. That's fair. You know what would make this
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: place great? If I were in charge. That'd be swell.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: It doesn't take warlords to think that way, but most do. Yep.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: So it's a tragic, dramatic moment in Japanese history. And
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: in Yasuke's personal history, he is fighting tooth and nail
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: during this siege, this storming of the temple. And when
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Lord Nobunaga sees that defeat appears imminent and unavoidable, he
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: goes back to his thinking of the code under which
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: he has functioned for most of his life. And he says,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: this general has betrayed me. so I have no choice
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: but to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: And that's when, I mean, it's a very specific way
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: of killing oneself, and it's pretty grisly. Oh, it gives
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: me the heebie-jeebies just talking about it, thinking about it.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: You're disemboweling yourself. You're disemboweling yourself with a very specific
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: short blade. You stick it in, and then you pull
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: it sideways, and essentially your guts just spill out wherever
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: you stand, and then you fall over dead. I imagine
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: it wouldn't be.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: A And if it's something where enemy forces are giving
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: you the option to choose that honorable way out, I believe,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: and someone checked me on this, I believe the idea
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: was that you were given the option of using the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: short knife, and if you faltered or you didn't do
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: it correctly or you hesitated, there would be someone standing
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: next to you or nearby with a sword, and they
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: would decapitate you.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in fact, Oda's last order to Yasuke was to
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: take his sword and his decapitated head to his son. Wow.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: That's daddy. Oh, my God. That's grisly.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Yasuke probably took the head after the guy died, after
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Lord Nobunaga died. And he had to take this head
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: because it couldn't fall into someone else's hands.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: It was considered very dishonorable.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: So he goes back to Azuchi Castle and starts working
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: for Nobunaga's son, Odo Nobutada. His son also committed suicide.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: after suffering defeat at the hands of the same treacherous general.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: That's right. And at this point, Yasuke is what we
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: call a ronin, or what the Japanese refer to as
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: a ronin, which is a samurai without a master. And
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: that's an image that you see throughout, you know, cinema
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: and like fiction, the idea of the roving, wandering ronin
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: who is beholden to no one. And you think of
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: them as almost like a vigilante of justice out to,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: you know, Right wrongs or whatever. I don't know. Or
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: the crime film with Robert De Niro. Also that. I
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't even remember what happened at Ronin,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: but I remember being a little unimpressed.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Maybe I need to watch it again. Maybe I was
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: too young. I don't know that I ever saw that.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: And this is where we kind of lose the plot
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: on Yasuke a little bit, right? Lockley does some more
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: of his speculation that he knows and loves so well.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: the idea is that Yasuke could have possibly gone back
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: to the Jesuit missionaries. Who knows?
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: He could have been a guard for the Jesuits, but
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: he could have been a sailor. He could have been
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a pirate.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: That'd be fun. It's just dream big. He just needed
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: a change. The whole handing over the decapitated head of
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: his master to the sun, that probably would have turned
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: him a little bit.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Well, let's step back a little bit, too, and see
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: that although Lord Nobunaga was pretty progressive in seeing past color,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Mitsuhide was super racist. He said, this Yasuke character is
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: not human. He's not Japanese, not even human.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: He's a beast.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: And I refuse to acknowledge him as a samurai. And
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: he said the problem with this, one of the reasons
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: he was so offended, probably racism, xenophobia. But another reason
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: is that Yasuke did not commit seppuku, which was the
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Eastern tradition of Instead, he offered his sword to the general,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: which is Western tradition.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Interesting. So you think it really is kind of the
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: case that Oda, the original master, was a pretty progressive
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: dude for the time. In this instance. No, in this instance.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: In this single instance. What I'm saying is the way
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: he was treated would not have been the norm. He
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: kind of went out on a limb. But if you
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: think about it, too, I mean, yes, they obviously became friends,
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: but in his primary— impetus was probably like look at
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: this big strapping dude that i can put to work
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: for me you know yeah there's a little bit of
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: racism even in that exactly that's that's the thing it's
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: sort of like.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Uh frederick vilhelm would have said that he loved the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: potsdam giants and was good friends with them right but
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: he would still kill them if they didn't do what
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: he wanted of course so So this is almost where
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the tale ends. Despite his relatively brief time as a samurai,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: he's been a hero in fiction and a lot of
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: stuff has been based off of him, including the great
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: animated series Afro Samurai.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: So good. Loosely based. Sure. Yeah, 100%.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: So loosely based in that it just happens to be
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: a samurai.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: And the thing too is there may have been others
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: like him, but we just don't have... the same kind
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: of documentation that we do about him. He was pictured
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: in a lot of traditional Japanese screen paintings where he
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: stands out among the crowd. You can definitely tell there's
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: like one black person among all of these Japanese folks.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: And he appears multiple times, right? Right, right.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: There's some, I guess, compelling stuff, but it's circumstantial. This
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: is the best documented case we have of this sort
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: of contact. There is another figure in Japanese history that
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: some experts will say is of African descent, a fellow
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: named Sakonoye no Tamoramaro.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: That's a tough one, Ben. You did very well. I
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: did a horrible, piss-poor job on that. I disagree. Well,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: thank you.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: He was a warrior who, from about 758 to 811 A.D.,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: was a palace guard, and he was placed in command
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: of forces that the emperor had sent to fight the
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: indigenous people, the Ainu. This warrior was said to have
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: a black complexion. But that's kind of grasping at straws.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: There's no one who said this guy came from Africa.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: And lest we have dropped too many spoilers in this,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: there is a pretty amazing looking dramatization of this story
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: that's coming to Netflix in the not too far future,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: where Yatsuke is going to be played by Chadwick Boseman
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: of Black Panther fame. Yes, that's right.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Phenomenal actor. And Yatsuke does not have a release date yet.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: The news on the street is just news about casting,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to watch it. I mean, I already
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: have Netflix. It's kind of a sunk cost, right? What
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: am I going to do?
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Not watch it? Exactly. No, you're not going to not
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: watch it. Right. Yeah. And, you know, I am very
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: much looking forward to it now that Game of Thrones
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: has let us all down so hard. And also, you know,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: just the fact that it's gone. The fact that it
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: was a disappointing ending is neither here nor there. I
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: need something to fill the vacuum that is my Sunday
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: night and the hole in my heart. I'm just waiting
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: for the books.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think the story's over because there are still
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: two more books. If you're listening, George R.R. Martin, I
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: know you're a big fan of this show. Maybe that's it.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Maybe, George, if you're listening.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe you've just been so busy listening to ridiculous history
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: that you haven't had time to sit down and write
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: those other two novels. If so, we apologize to every
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Song of Ice and Fire fan out there.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all our fault. It's mainly Casey's. We got
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: a very noncommittal nod there. We did.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: It's okay.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: What else we got?
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Well, this is the end of our episode, but not
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the end of our show. We'd like to hear your
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: stories of other, let's say, unorthodox outsiders who made a
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: name for themselves in society, similar to the way Yasuke did.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? And this could traverse gender, ethnicity,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: religious creed.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Let us not forget that Religious differences that seem relatively
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: minor to a lot of us today in an increasingly
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: secular United States.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Were huge deals for thousands of years. It's true. It's true. Yeah,
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: write us in. Give us your stories of outsiders making
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: a splash. You can write to us at ridiculous at iheartradio.com.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: You can also hit us up on our Facebook group,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: The Ridiculous Historians, where I think all you have to
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: do is name us. Either me, Ben, or Casey, or
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: just say something cute.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Or, yeah, just make one of us laugh. Yes, you
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: can also find us on our Twitters, on our Instagram.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: You can find our personal adventures on Twitter or Instagram.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I'm at Ben Bolin HSW on Twitter, and I'm at
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Ben Bolin on Instagram.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I don't really tweet too much. I occasionally lurk in
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: other people's tweets, but not my thing. So I am
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: pretty exclusively on Instagram, at HowNowHSW. Noel Brown. Big thanks
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: to super producer Casey Pegram for holding it down in
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: the sweat box. Big thanks to Alex Williams who composed
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: our theme. Big thanks to Gabe Luzier. Big thanks to
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Christopher Haciotis.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to you for listening and extra big thanks
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: to you, Noel.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: I return your thanks with thanks of my own for
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: you and all you do for Just, you know, history
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: at large. One day, this is so weird. I have
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: this dream. It has nothing to do with anything.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: I have this dream of throwing like an old-fashioned pizza
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: party for us and all the ridiculous historians. You know,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: like where you would rent out a skating rink or
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: bowling alley.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: I just got to find the right location. Tell us
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: if you'd be down for that. Totally. We should totally
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: do a meet-up. Maybe we should get on the historians
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: page and see if there's enough folks in Atlanta to
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: hang out sometime. Let's check it out. We'll see you soon, folks.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app Apple
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows