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Yasuke, the African Samurai · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: to the show, follow Ridiculous Historians. I've got to say first,
0:31
Speaker 1: I'm Ben. Hi. Oh hey Ben, it's me. No, they're
0:34
Speaker 1: all pal And there's our super producer, Casey Pegram. Hello.
0:40
Speaker 1: We're in a different studio today. Just peek behind the curtain.
0:43
Speaker 1: So Casey is actually physically sitting in the same room
0:47
Speaker 1: with us. This is Yeah, it's weird. I have to
0:50
Speaker 1: like be quiet and not make noise, can't be crinkling
0:53
Speaker 1: a wrapping, craning your neck to look at us from
0:55
Speaker 1: the side, and we have a really and we can
0:57
Speaker 1: smell each other's musks. I mean, this is a very
1:00
Speaker 1: small little hot box that we're in right now. Might
1:03
Speaker 1: be Oh no, no, it's it's it's a melange of
1:05
Speaker 1: our all of our musks and all of our musks combined.
1:07
Speaker 1: We are Ridiculous History, a pot pourri of perfect ridiculousness. Yeah,
1:12
Speaker 1: did you guys see the movie What was it with
1:15
Speaker 1: Forest Whittaker? Was it Ghost Dog? The soundtrack? Is this soundtrack?
1:24
Speaker 1: Jis does production, but is more I think known for
1:27
Speaker 1: his verses when we're saying forms like vultron, I believe
1:30
Speaker 1: that Riza is the head. I just saw riz in
1:32
Speaker 1: the new Gym Jarmers movie, Oh yeah, how do you do?
1:35
Speaker 1: He was great for his scene. I had issues with
1:37
Speaker 1: the movie. I heard the movie was very like painfully
1:40
Speaker 1: self aware. Yeah, but but no, he's like got a
1:43
Speaker 1: little cameo. He's with whoops. So he makes a delivery.
1:47
Speaker 1: That's pretty much it. That's great. I I do want
1:49
Speaker 1: to I'm still a Jarmus Shaddic, so I'll check out
1:51
Speaker 1: Dead Don't Die. But this is interesting because in the
1:55
Speaker 1: concept of ghost Dog, right, is that he is a
1:59
Speaker 1: samurai and people are often taken aback because they're thinking,
2:04
Speaker 1: how can this black man be a samurai? Well, but
2:06
Speaker 1: to be fair, he's also like a modern day kind
2:08
Speaker 1: of self described samurai, isn't he right? He does it.
2:11
Speaker 1: He's not dressed as uh samurai in the sixteenth century
2:15
Speaker 1: would be. But today we're gonna talk about a historical
2:19
Speaker 1: ghost dog kind of figure. Right. Yes, yes, Suke, the
2:23
Speaker 1: enslaved African man who became a samurai and fought for Nobunaga.
2:29
Speaker 1: Also soft note to any of our Japanese speaking friends
2:34
Speaker 1: in your fellow Japanese speaking listeners in the audience. None
2:38
Speaker 1: of US speak Japanese. Should we have brought in Lauren
2:41
Speaker 1: Voge Obamas, a Japanese consultant on this one. You know,
2:44
Speaker 1: I thought about it, No, but I didn't want to
2:46
Speaker 1: spring it on her at the last minute. She's still
2:48
Speaker 1: recovering from jet lag from Hawaii. Yeah. We we welcomed
2:53
Speaker 1: her back yesterday and it was it was bitter sweet
2:56
Speaker 1: because you know, and said welcome back. I'm sorry you
3:00
Speaker 1: had to leave Hawaii. I just sing are the welcome
3:02
Speaker 1: back caughtter song with open arms, and then we shared
3:05
Speaker 1: a whiskey. You were there, I was there, I was there.
3:08
Speaker 1: I said a looha. She said mahallow. Then that is
3:11
Speaker 1: the extent of my Hawaiian language. You left it at that.
3:14
Speaker 1: And just so you know, our our our knowledge of
3:16
Speaker 1: the Japanese language is similarly. U light. We're gonna do
3:20
Speaker 1: our best on these here pronunciations. UM. Here's the thing.
3:23
Speaker 1: It's not unheard of in the history of the samurai
3:26
Speaker 1: for non Japanese individuals to reach the heights. Uh, I
3:31
Speaker 1: mean work their way up to the ranks of the samurai. Um.
3:35
Speaker 1: You may have seen that Tom Cruise movie the was
3:38
Speaker 1: it the last samurai Samurai I have problems with that film. Well,
3:41
Speaker 1: isn't it kind of a white savior kind of like
3:43
Speaker 1: narrative a little slight blood diamond, you know, and blood
3:47
Speaker 1: Diamond is the is this very similar thing with Leonardo DiCaprio.
3:51
Speaker 1: Someone is killing a bunch of people, but then they
3:53
Speaker 1: do one decent thing and because they happen to be white,
3:55
Speaker 1: their praise. And if I'm not mistaken, don't they both
3:58
Speaker 1: do bad accents and both of the movies my favorite,
4:01
Speaker 1: uh my favorite offered Connor or South African Accident is Leonardo.
4:06
Speaker 1: They have a wood for people, locked me in them too.
4:09
Speaker 1: It means white mining a Freakay? Who wow, that's actually
4:15
Speaker 1: that's the accent is so terrible that I did a
4:18
Speaker 1: pretty good job of what Leonardo DiCaprio was doing. Isn't
4:22
Speaker 1: also a type of Lennox software? Yeah? But if I'm
4:28
Speaker 1: not mistaken, So English sailor William Adams, who was born
4:32
Speaker 1: in um came to Japan in sixteen hundred and he
4:36
Speaker 1: did just what we said, rose through the ranks and
4:38
Speaker 1: became himself a very notable samurai. But he was English.
4:43
Speaker 1: Didn't Tom Cruise not doing English accent in the movie.
4:45
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken. I don't remember. I don't think
4:47
Speaker 1: so then I you know, I was watching a shink
4:50
Speaker 1: on a plane or something. Yeah, this guy, the English guy,
4:54
Speaker 1: comes after Yasuke, and he's just the most famous because
4:58
Speaker 1: I've never heard of Yeah, he's just the most famous.
5:00
Speaker 1: There was also one from shortly after yasukes period who
5:05
Speaker 1: was from South Korea. There were several from South Korea.
5:08
Speaker 1: There was one guy from the Netherlands, and then there
5:13
Speaker 1: was William Adams you mentioned, and then there was a
5:16
Speaker 1: Chinese national, and then there was one who was unknown,
5:21
Speaker 1: the Unknown Samurai. That'd be a good movie. That's a
5:23
Speaker 1: great idea to start with the name and work backwards.
5:27
Speaker 1: But no, we have this gentleman whose name is Yasuke,
5:30
Speaker 1: and I can only imagine that that was his name
5:33
Speaker 1: that he was given after coming to Japan becoming But
5:37
Speaker 1: they refer to him in all the easearchs that we've
5:38
Speaker 1: seen as that from the starts. We don't know what
5:40
Speaker 1: his name was before that, but I can only assume
5:42
Speaker 1: that that's the case. Would you agree, yeah, yeah, or
5:44
Speaker 1: it's at the very least it's a japanization of his
5:48
Speaker 1: original name. So we have a couple of theories about
5:51
Speaker 1: his life, but we don't really know anything for certain
5:55
Speaker 1: about his his original life before he arrived in Japan.
6:00
Speaker 1: And according to some books, people just sort of assumed
6:04
Speaker 1: that he was from Portuguese controlled Mozambique because a lot
6:08
Speaker 1: of the people of color who were traveling to Japan
6:12
Speaker 1: from Africa, We're coming from Mozambique. You know that's right,
6:15
Speaker 1: because Um, he was an enslaved person. Uh, and he
6:19
Speaker 1: was traveling with a group of Europeans or I believe
6:24
Speaker 1: a gentleman from Portugal, and he was sort of like
6:26
Speaker 1: a man servant to this. Um was it a Jesuit,
6:28
Speaker 1: It was. It was some kind of religious a member
6:31
Speaker 1: of a religious order, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, yes.
6:34
Speaker 1: He arrived in fifteen seventy nine as the servant of
6:38
Speaker 1: a Jesuit missionary, Alessandro Valigano. And Alessandro had been appointed
6:44
Speaker 1: what they called the visitor or the inspector of Jesuit
6:47
Speaker 1: missions in the Indies, so that was South and East
6:51
Speaker 1: Asia and East Africa. So he would travel around to
6:54
Speaker 1: all the missions owned by the Jesuits. And a lot
6:57
Speaker 1: of this research comes from a gentleman aimed Thomas Lockley,
7:01
Speaker 1: who wrote a book called African Samurai. The true story
7:04
Speaker 1: of Yasuke, a legendary black warrior in fetal Japan and
7:08
Speaker 1: ben as you said at the top of the show,
7:10
Speaker 1: one of the theories that he came from Mozambique. Others
7:14
Speaker 1: suggest that he came from Sudan, uh and even and
7:18
Speaker 1: trained as a child soldier in Goa and India, right right.
7:24
Speaker 1: The idea being that because of his to the Japanese
7:28
Speaker 1: extraordinary height is about foot taller than the average Japanese person,
7:32
Speaker 1: and because of his very very dark skin, he might
7:35
Speaker 1: have been a member of the Dinka in Sudan. So
7:40
Speaker 1: let's stick with Lockley for a second. This is again,
7:42
Speaker 1: this is all speculative. There are no cooperating documents on
7:46
Speaker 1: Yasuke's time. His agreed upon adventure, as far as the
7:49
Speaker 1: documents go, really does kind of begin in Japan. But
7:54
Speaker 1: Lockley spent nine years researching the story of this of
7:57
Speaker 1: this man, Yes Suke, and he eaves that Yessuke was
8:01
Speaker 1: abducted from his family by slave traders either of Arab
8:05
Speaker 1: or Indian origin, and then trafficked across the Indian Ocean
8:09
Speaker 1: through Arab countries and as you said, normal trained as
8:12
Speaker 1: a child soldier. And it's during this time that Lockley
8:18
Speaker 1: speculates Yasuke meets Alessandro Vallighano. Uh, the most powerful Jesuit
8:23
Speaker 1: missionary of the day. So go Up was a huge
8:28
Speaker 1: trading missionary military hub coastal, yeah, for the Portuguese Empires,
8:34
Speaker 1: and it was a huge center of the slave trade.
8:37
Speaker 1: So it's it's quite plausible that this is where the
8:41
Speaker 1: Jesuits encounter Yasuke for the first time. Right, I agree completely.
8:45
Speaker 1: Let's back try just a little bit and give a
8:46
Speaker 1: little bit of context of what was going on in
8:49
Speaker 1: sixteenth century Japan at the time. Uh, huge divides going on. Um,
8:55
Speaker 1: a lot of isolation from the outside world. Uh. The
8:58
Speaker 1: country was split into various provinces and they were ruled
9:02
Speaker 1: by these feudal lords that were Okay, I'm gonna do
9:04
Speaker 1: my best on this one. They were called I think
9:06
Speaker 1: it's dim yos um. And this is of course a
9:10
Speaker 1: a nation that is an island, so it has a
9:13
Speaker 1: lot of water that causes it to be isolated in
9:16
Speaker 1: that way. Um, so it really creates its own kind
9:20
Speaker 1: of universe, very isolated, and that is until European explorers,
9:26
Speaker 1: you know, with ships and fleets seeking adventure, decided to
9:30
Speaker 1: make their way into this what they thought saw as
9:32
Speaker 1: a very exotic land that they either wanted to conquer
9:36
Speaker 1: or you know, learned from or I don't know what
9:38
Speaker 1: the motivated. What do you think? Then they didn't have
9:40
Speaker 1: the most successful results at first. The Portuguese were the
9:44
Speaker 1: first Europeans to arrive in Japan, and they brought their
9:49
Speaker 1: entire culture with them, which included the religion and included slavery,
9:53
Speaker 1: and it included our hero. So as we established, Jisuke
10:03
Speaker 1: arrives in Japan in fifteen eighty one, and his arrival
10:09
Speaker 1: triggers a literal riot. He he lands in Kyoto, and
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Speaker 1: people wanted to see this extraordinary person and be in
10:17
Speaker 1: his presence because they had never seen anything like this.
10:21
Speaker 1: And the the next few pieces of this story may
10:25
Speaker 1: be offensive to some listeners, but I have personal insight
10:29
Speaker 1: on this too, because this happened to some of my
10:31
Speaker 1: friends when they went to rural China. Yeah, yes, way, yes,
10:35
Speaker 1: way to uh So, there's a warlord, the most powerful
10:39
Speaker 1: warlord in Japan, Noble Naga Oda, and he sees Yasuke,
10:44
Speaker 1: and at first he believes this is not a human being.
10:47
Speaker 1: It's either a demon or a god uh daiko kutin
10:52
Speaker 1: or god of prosperity, because they're usually represented by black
10:55
Speaker 1: statues and temples. And so he does this is what
10:58
Speaker 1: he does. He tries to rub what he thinks his
11:00
Speaker 1: ink off of this man's skin and makes him like
11:05
Speaker 1: stripped to his waist and then try to rub it
11:07
Speaker 1: off him. And then he goes, oh my god, he's
11:09
Speaker 1: fascinated by the Yeah, this is really this is your skin.
11:13
Speaker 1: This is not paint or ink. This has happened within
11:16
Speaker 1: our lifetimes. Two people in rural China had a friend
11:19
Speaker 1: who was traveling out toward western China. Some older person
11:25
Speaker 1: came up and without as so much as a by
11:27
Speaker 1: your leave, they grabbed my pal's arm and they spat
11:31
Speaker 1: on his arm and tried to rub rub off this
11:35
Speaker 1: and they were they didn't think it was mean. And
11:38
Speaker 1: afterwards they you know, they wanted pictures with him, they
11:41
Speaker 1: wanted to talk. Spending on people is never polite behavior.
11:45
Speaker 1: I wouldn't I wouldn't say no, no. I I guest
11:49
Speaker 1: culture where that's appropriate. But this is true. You can
11:52
Speaker 1: we can kind of see if we exercise some empathy,
11:55
Speaker 1: how amazing this must be. This guy is taller than
11:58
Speaker 1: literally everyone. His his skin seems amazing to you, right,
12:04
Speaker 1: And once Oda is finally convinced that this Yasuke character
12:08
Speaker 1: is real, he immediately throws a feast for the guy,
12:11
Speaker 1: and it turns from a riot to a party. Also, again,
12:15
Speaker 1: these are warlord rules, so he pretty much decides the
12:19
Speaker 1: tone of the room. Oh totally. And the riot element
12:21
Speaker 1: you're talking about, I think referred to folks trying to
12:23
Speaker 1: get a look at the guy, right, Yeah, literally, just
12:26
Speaker 1: like a kind of feeding frenzy to kind of like
12:28
Speaker 1: oh see, because oh, it's important to remember this certainly
12:31
Speaker 1: would have been one of the first, if not the first,
12:34
Speaker 1: many of these folks never seen of a of a
12:36
Speaker 1: black man. Yeah, absolutely, And this is not it's not
12:39
Speaker 1: necessarily a movie moment where it's like Oda is at
12:42
Speaker 1: the Kyoto port Lord Nobunagas who was called asked for
12:47
Speaker 1: an audience when he heard about all this commotion, and
12:51
Speaker 1: that's when he does the whole thing about rubbing the
12:54
Speaker 1: pigment from his skin and then throwing his feast, and
12:56
Speaker 1: then he hires Yasuke. He makes him his retainer and
13:00
Speaker 1: his bodyguard. Yes he did, uh, eventually making his bodyguard
13:04
Speaker 1: for a little while though, he was treated a little
13:06
Speaker 1: bit more as like a kind of like a source
13:08
Speaker 1: of amusement or kind of like a novelty. But then
13:12
Speaker 1: he demonstrated because of his training right as a child
13:15
Speaker 1: soldier and his military prowess, he demonstrated very quickly that
13:19
Speaker 1: he was a very competent and powerful warrior. Um. And
13:23
Speaker 1: he began to learn martial arts as well, right, right,
13:27
Speaker 1: And he was also versed in Japanese, so we think
13:31
Speaker 1: he probably had these conversations. According to Lockley, Oda loved
13:37
Speaker 1: just sitting around and shooting the breeze with Yasuke. You know,
13:41
Speaker 1: tell me more about your life. There are no records
13:44
Speaker 1: of how much he earned at his time, you know,
13:47
Speaker 1: when he was first sort of a novelty and then
13:49
Speaker 1: when within a month he's a warrior. Uh, we don't
13:54
Speaker 1: know how much he was paid. So Lockley says, it's
13:57
Speaker 1: tough to know how high Yasuke ranked. And that's why people,
14:02
Speaker 1: that's why you'll hear a lot of people, including this author,
14:04
Speaker 1: speculate that he was the equivalent of a page or
14:07
Speaker 1: a bodyguard. That's right. But what we do know is
14:09
Speaker 1: a Tokyo based publisher by the name of Matt Alt,
14:12
Speaker 1: who works for a publishing house called All japan Um,
14:15
Speaker 1: had this to say that Yasuke was no longer seen
14:18
Speaker 1: as human shadow or any kind of like an indentured servant,
14:22
Speaker 1: but he was like all vassals, meaning you know, a
14:26
Speaker 1: samurai is a is beholden to their lord, the war lord,
14:31
Speaker 1: right right, And that's why in less than a year
14:33
Speaker 1: Yasuke went from being a page to becoming one of
14:36
Speaker 1: the upper echelons of Japan's warrior class, the samurai. We
14:42
Speaker 1: should stop just for a second and talk about what
14:44
Speaker 1: a samurai actually is, because I suspect that many of
14:50
Speaker 1: us may have a couple of misconceptions. So these are
14:53
Speaker 1: warriors of pre modern Japan, and later they become the
14:58
Speaker 1: military ruling class and the highest ranking social cast of
15:03
Speaker 1: the Adol period, which sixteen o three eighteen sixty seven.
15:07
Speaker 1: They had this sort of code, right, a code by
15:10
Speaker 1: which one would live. May be similar to the idea
15:13
Speaker 1: of chivalry, but this was Confucian in in design, right
15:17
Speaker 1: or in influence. This bushido, the way of the warrior,
15:21
Speaker 1: stress things like loyalty to your master self, discipline, respectful
15:25
Speaker 1: ethical behavior, and there was also a lot of zen
15:28
Speaker 1: Buddhism in there. But these might be um filling any
15:32
Speaker 1: number of roles. You know, some samurai eventually essentially became bureaucrats,
15:38
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But uh, but not at
15:41
Speaker 1: this time. No, no, no no, no, not at this time.
15:42
Speaker 1: But but but you say, it was literally Oda's like right
15:44
Speaker 1: hand man. He got all of this special treatment, um
15:48
Speaker 1: preferential treatment. He was gifted a ceremonial samurai sword or
15:52
Speaker 1: a katana sword. Um. He dined privately regularly with with
15:56
Speaker 1: Oda um, which was very enviable among the other samurai.
16:01
Speaker 1: He was kind of his favorite. It would seem based
16:03
Speaker 1: on what we know. He also had his own private
16:07
Speaker 1: residence which wasn't for everybody, and just seemed to be
16:11
Speaker 1: a real asset to the warlord and have a really
16:15
Speaker 1: prominent position in that society. Right and again, when we're
16:18
Speaker 1: talking about this society, we have to emphasize this is
16:21
Speaker 1: a fractured society. This is not the unified Japan with
16:25
Speaker 1: which we are familiar today. There's a lot of interior fighting.
16:29
Speaker 1: This is the air of warring states. It's a turbulent
16:32
Speaker 1: century in history, and just just in the same way
16:36
Speaker 1: that the Alamo or Antietam conjures these images of generals
16:41
Speaker 1: and founding fathers, so do the key struggles of this period,
16:44
Speaker 1: also called the Sinoku. According again to alt And Yosuke
16:50
Speaker 1: knows that he is not going to have He might
16:52
Speaker 1: have a future when he's older as some sort of
16:55
Speaker 1: bureaucrat if he makes it, but in this very violent time,
16:58
Speaker 1: he's going to fight. So within a year of his arrival,
17:01
Speaker 1: he joined Lord Noble Naga's forces in their invasion of
17:06
Speaker 1: the Ega province I g a uh and they attacked
17:10
Speaker 1: this place which is ringed with mountains. It was called
17:13
Speaker 1: a ninja hotbed, with forty thousand to sixty thousand troops
17:17
Speaker 1: and they conquered it. Yeah, and this is from Lockley's account.
17:21
Speaker 1: He said that this first um foray into battle was
17:25
Speaker 1: a success. His second there was kind of a twist
17:29
Speaker 1: in the story, right, So according to Lockley's account, in
17:31
Speaker 1: June two, Noble Naga samurai general Mitsuhide Akichi attacked his
17:39
Speaker 1: master No Monaga at his residence in Kyoto. He launched
17:44
Speaker 1: a tactical, you know offensive. The attack kicked off something
17:48
Speaker 1: that's known as the Battle of Hono g Temple um
17:52
Speaker 1: and that kind of put the Kai bosh on Noble
17:55
Speaker 1: Naga's plans to bring together these fat entered factions in Japan. Right,
18:01
Speaker 1: he wanted to unify the country under his control. More lords,
18:07
Speaker 1: do you know it would make this place great? H
18:10
Speaker 1: if I were in charge? Two? Uh. It doesn't take
18:15
Speaker 1: warlords to think that way, but most do yep. So
18:19
Speaker 1: it's it's a tragic, dramatic moment in Japanese history and
18:26
Speaker 1: in Yasuke's personal history. He is fighting tooth and nail
18:30
Speaker 1: during this siege, this storming of the temple, and when
18:34
Speaker 1: Lord Nobunaga sees that defeat appears imminent and unavoidable, he
18:41
Speaker 1: goes back to his thinking of the code under which
18:45
Speaker 1: he has functioned for most of his life, and he says, ah,
18:48
Speaker 1: this general has betrayed me, so I have no choice
18:52
Speaker 1: but to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide. And that's when
18:56
Speaker 1: I mean. It's a very specific way of killing oneself,
18:59
Speaker 1: and it's pretty great. Lee. Oh, it gives me the
19:01
Speaker 1: he b g's just talking about it. Thinking about it,
19:03
Speaker 1: you're disemboweling you. You're disembowing yourself with a very specific
19:07
Speaker 1: short blade. You stick it in and then you pull
19:09
Speaker 1: it sideways, and essentially your guts just spill out wherever
19:13
Speaker 1: you wherever you stand, and then you fall over dead.
19:16
Speaker 1: Imagine it wouldn't be a quick death. And if it's
19:19
Speaker 1: if it's something where enemy forces are giving you the
19:22
Speaker 1: option to choose that honorable way out, I believe and
19:26
Speaker 1: when checked me on this, I believe the idea was
19:28
Speaker 1: that you were given the option of using the short knife,
19:30
Speaker 1: and if you faltered or you didn't do it correctly,
19:32
Speaker 1: or you hesitated, there would be someone standing next to
19:35
Speaker 1: you or nearby with a sword and they would decapitate you. Yeah.
19:39
Speaker 1: In fact, Odah's last order to Yasuke was to take
19:43
Speaker 1: his sword and his decapitated head to his son. Wow,
19:49
Speaker 1: that's daddy, Oh my god. He Yasuki probably took the
19:55
Speaker 1: head after after the guy had died. Afterward, Newbunaga died
20:00
Speaker 1: and he had to take this head because it couldn't
20:04
Speaker 1: fall into someone else's hands. It was considered very dishonorable.
20:07
Speaker 1: So he goes back to Azuchi castle and starts working
20:10
Speaker 1: for noble Naga's son, Odo Nobutada. His son also committed
20:16
Speaker 1: suicide after suffering defeat at the hands of the same
20:20
Speaker 1: treacherous general. That's right, and at this point, Yes, Suke
20:24
Speaker 1: is what we call a ronan or what them started
20:26
Speaker 1: with the Japanese referred to as a ronan, which is
20:29
Speaker 1: a samurai without a master. And that's an image that
20:32
Speaker 1: you see throughout you know, cinema and like fiction, the
20:36
Speaker 1: idea of the roving, wandering ronan who was beholden to
20:39
Speaker 1: no one, and you think of them as almost like
20:40
Speaker 1: a vigilante of justice out to you know, right wrongs
20:44
Speaker 1: or whatever. I don't know. The crime film with Robert
20:47
Speaker 1: de Niro also that I don't know, like you know,
20:51
Speaker 1: I don't even remember what happened at Ronan, but I
20:53
Speaker 1: remember being a little unimpressed. Maybe I need to watch
20:56
Speaker 1: it yet, maybe just too young. I don't know that
20:58
Speaker 1: I ever saw that. And this is where we kind
21:04
Speaker 1: of lose the plot on Yessuke a little bit, right,
21:08
Speaker 1: um luckily does some more of his speculation that he
21:10
Speaker 1: knows and loves so well. Uh. The idea is that
21:14
Speaker 1: Yessuke could have possibly gone back to the Jesuit missionaries.
21:19
Speaker 1: Who knows. He could have been a guard for the Jesuits,
21:22
Speaker 1: but he could have been a sailor, he could have
21:23
Speaker 1: been a pirate. It's just dream big. He just you know,
21:27
Speaker 1: he doesn't need a change, you know, the whole like
21:29
Speaker 1: handing over the decapitated head of his master to a
21:32
Speaker 1: son that probably would have turned him a little bit. Well,
21:35
Speaker 1: let's step back a little bit too and see that
21:37
Speaker 1: although Lord Nobunaga was pretty progressive and seeing past color,
21:42
Speaker 1: Mitsuhid was super racist. He said, this Yasuke character is
21:47
Speaker 1: not human. He's not Japanese, not even human. He's a beast,
21:51
Speaker 1: and I refuse to acknowledge him as a samurai. And
21:58
Speaker 1: he said, the problem with is one of the reasons
22:01
Speaker 1: he was so offended probably racism, senophobia. But but another
22:05
Speaker 1: reason is that Yasuke did not commit sepukul, which was
22:09
Speaker 1: the Eastern tradition. Instead he offered his sword to the general,
22:13
Speaker 1: which is Western tradition. Interesting, so you think it really
22:17
Speaker 1: is kind of the case that oda uh the original master,
22:21
Speaker 1: was a pretty progressive dude for the time, in this
22:24
Speaker 1: instant and in this instance, this single What I'm saying
22:28
Speaker 1: is the way he was treated would not have been
22:30
Speaker 1: the norm. You know, but maybe, but if you think
22:34
Speaker 1: about it too, I mean, yes, they obviously became friends,
22:36
Speaker 1: but his primary impetus was probably like, look at this
22:40
Speaker 1: big strapping dude that I can put to work for me.
22:43
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, there's a little bit of racism even
22:46
Speaker 1: in that exactly. That's that's the thing. It's sort of like, uh,
22:51
Speaker 1: Frederick Wilhelm would have said that he loved the Potsdam
22:56
Speaker 1: giants and was good friends with him, right, but he
22:59
Speaker 1: would still kill them if they didn't do what he wanted,
23:02
Speaker 1: of course. So so this is almost where the tail ends.
23:07
Speaker 1: Despite his relatively brief time as a samurai, he's been
23:12
Speaker 1: um a hero in fiction, and a lot of stuff
23:14
Speaker 1: has been based off of him, including the great animated
23:17
Speaker 1: series Afro Samurai loosely based ye, so loosely based in
23:23
Speaker 1: that it just happens to be a samurai. And the
23:27
Speaker 1: thing is there may have been others like him, but
23:29
Speaker 1: we just don't have the same kind of documentation that
23:32
Speaker 1: we do about him. Um. He was pictured in a
23:35
Speaker 1: lot of traditional Japanese screen paintings where you he you
23:39
Speaker 1: can he stands out among the crowd. You can definitely
23:41
Speaker 1: tell there's like one black person among all of these
23:46
Speaker 1: Japanese folks, and he appears multiple times, right right, right,
23:51
Speaker 1: There's some I guess compelling stuff, but it's it's circumstantial.
23:55
Speaker 1: This is the best documented case we have of this
23:58
Speaker 1: sort of contact. There is another figure in Japanese history
24:01
Speaker 1: that some experts will say is of African descent. Fellow
24:05
Speaker 1: names Saka No Tamo Ramaro. That's a tough one, Ben,
24:09
Speaker 1: he did very well. I did a horrible, piss poor job.
24:12
Speaker 1: I disagree. We'll thank you. He was a warrior who
24:15
Speaker 1: from about seven fifty eight to eight eleven a d
24:19
Speaker 1: was a palace guard, and he was placed in command
24:22
Speaker 1: of forces that the emperor had sent to fight the
24:24
Speaker 1: indigenous people. The I knew this warrior was said to
24:27
Speaker 1: have a black complexion, but that's kind of grasping at straws,
24:33
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. There's no one who said
24:35
Speaker 1: this guy came from Africa. Unless we have dropped too
24:38
Speaker 1: many spoilers in this Uh. There is a pretty amazing
24:42
Speaker 1: looking dramatization of this story that's coming to Netflix in
24:46
Speaker 1: the not too far future, where uh Yetsuke is going
24:50
Speaker 1: to be played by Chadwick Boseman of Black Panther Thing. Yes,
24:54
Speaker 1: that's right, phenomenal actor, and Yasuke does not have a
24:58
Speaker 1: release date yet. The news on the street is just
25:01
Speaker 1: news about casting, but I'm gonna watch it. I mean,
25:04
Speaker 1: I already have Netflix. It's kind of a sunk cost, right,
25:07
Speaker 1: What am I gonna do not watch it? Exactly? No,
25:10
Speaker 1: you're not gonna not watch it? Yeah, and you know, um,
25:14
Speaker 1: I am very much looking forward to it now that
25:16
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones has let us all down so hard. Uh.
25:19
Speaker 1: And also you know, just the fact that it's gone,
25:21
Speaker 1: like not done, the fact that it was a disappointing
25:23
Speaker 1: ending is neither here nor there. I need something to
25:26
Speaker 1: fill the vacuum that is my Sunday night in the
25:28
Speaker 1: hole in my heart. I'm just waiting for the books.
25:30
Speaker 1: I don't think the story is over, because there's still
25:33
Speaker 1: two more books. If you're listening, George R. R. Martin,
25:36
Speaker 1: now you're a big fan of this show, maybe that's it.
25:40
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe, George, if you're listening, maybe you've just been
25:43
Speaker 1: so busy listening to ridiculous history that you haven't had
25:46
Speaker 1: time to sit down and write those other two novels.
25:49
Speaker 1: If so, we apologize to every Song of Ice and
25:52
Speaker 1: Fire fan out there. It's all our fault. It's mainly cases.
25:57
Speaker 1: We got a very noncommittal nod there did Okay, It's okay. Um,
26:05
Speaker 1: what else we got. Well, it's uh, this is the
26:08
Speaker 1: end of our episode, but not the end of our show.
26:13
Speaker 1: We'd like to hear your stories of other, let's say,
26:17
Speaker 1: unorthodox outsiders who made a name for themselves in society
26:22
Speaker 1: similar to the way yasuke did you know what I mean?
26:24
Speaker 1: And this could traverse gender, ethnicity, religious creed. Let us
26:29
Speaker 1: not forget that religious differences that seem relatively minor to
26:33
Speaker 1: a lot of us to date in an increasingly secular
26:36
Speaker 1: United States were huge deals for thousands of years. It's true,
26:40
Speaker 1: It's true. Yeah, right, Asai, and give us your stories
26:43
Speaker 1: of outsiders making a splash. You can write to us
26:46
Speaker 1: at Ridiculous at I heart radio dot com. You can
26:50
Speaker 1: also hit us up on our Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historians,
26:53
Speaker 1: where I think all you have to do is name
26:55
Speaker 1: either me Ben or Casey, or just say something cute
26:57
Speaker 1: or yeah, just make it make one of us laugh. Yes.
27:01
Speaker 1: You can also find us on our twitters on our Instagram.
27:06
Speaker 1: You can find our personal adventures on Twitter or Instagram.
27:10
Speaker 1: I'm at ben Bowland hs W on Twitter and I'm
27:12
Speaker 1: at ben Bowland on Instagram. I don't really tweet too much.
27:16
Speaker 1: I occasionally learn in other people's tweets, but not not
27:20
Speaker 1: my things, So I am pretty exclusively on Instagram at
27:22
Speaker 1: how now Noel Brown. Big thanks to super producer Casey
27:26
Speaker 1: Pagram for holding it down in the sweat box. Big
27:29
Speaker 1: thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme. Big thanks
27:31
Speaker 1: to Gabe Lousier. Big thanks to Christopher Hasiotis. Big thanks
27:37
Speaker 1: to you for listening, and extra big thanks to you know.
27:41
Speaker 1: I return your thanks with thanks of my own for
27:46
Speaker 1: you and all you do for the just you know,
27:49
Speaker 1: history at large. One day, this is so weird. I
27:52
Speaker 1: I have this dream there's nothing to do with anything,
27:55
Speaker 1: have this dream of throwing like an old fashioned pizza
27:58
Speaker 1: party for us and all the ridiculous storians you know,
28:01
Speaker 1: like where you would rent out as skating rink or
28:03
Speaker 1: bowling alley. I just gotta find the right location. Tell
28:06
Speaker 1: us if you'd be down for that. Totally, we should
28:08
Speaker 1: totally do a meet up. We should get on the
28:09
Speaker 1: historians page and to see if there's enough folks in
28:11
Speaker 1: Atlanta to hang out sometimes. Let's check it out. Let's
28:14
Speaker 1: see you soon, folks. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
28:20
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever
28:23
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.