Yasuke

Person · Open Library

Born: 1940
Works: 1

Top works

A study of Agnicayana, ukhāsaṃbharaṇa
Religious and cultures of Sri Lanka & South India

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 896
Total plays: 7,747

via Last.fm · yasuke

Key facts

Military person.name: Yasuke
Military person.image: Rinpa style ink-stone box (cropped).jpg
Military person.caption: Rimpa-style suzuri-bako (detail) from 1590s possibly depicting Yasuke
Military person.death_date: After June 1582 (aged 27 or older)
Military person.birth_place: Portuguese Mozambique (most likely)

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Gender: male
Citizenship: Japan
Place of birth: Portuguese Mozambique
Occupation: squire
Conflict: Honnō-ji Incident
Image: Black sumo wrestler in 17th century.jpg

Show 5 more facts

date of birth: 1555-00-00
Commons category: Yasuke
name: 弥助
name in kana: やすけ
name in native language: 弥助

Sources (2)

via Wikidata · CC0

~12 min read

Encyclopedic overview

14 sections

Contents

Birth and early life
Documented life in Japan
Honnō-ji Incident
Possible depictions of Yasuke
In popular culture
Literature
Manga and anime
Film
Video games
Music
See also
Notes
References
Further reading

was a samurai of African origin who served Oda Nobunaga between 1581 and 1582, during the Sengoku period, until Nobunaga's death.

According to historical accounts, Yasuke first arrived in Japan in the service of Italian Jesuit Alessandro Valignano. Nobunaga summoned him out of a desire to see a black man. Subsequently, Nobunaga took him into his service and gave him the name Yasuke. As a samurai, he was granted a sword, a house, and a stipend. Yasuke accompanied Nobunaga until his death and fought at the Honnō-ji Incident until the death of Oda Nobutada. Afterwards, Yasuke was sent back to the Jesuits. There are no subsequent records of his life.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Yasuke” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.