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Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians, as we said earlier, we're taking the

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Speaker 1: week off in celebration of Labor Day. But don't worry,

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Speaker 1: we've still got plenty of nerdy things from the archives

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Speaker 1: that we can't wait to share with you. Especially this

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Speaker 1: one is a straight up anime story.

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Speaker 2: Well, it actually is. There is, I believe, Afro Samurai.

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Speaker 2: which is an anime-style cartoon series, I believe from Adult Swim,

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Speaker 2: or at least it was on Adult Swim when I

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Speaker 2: saw it. There are also multiple films based on the

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Speaker 2: life of Yasuke, a samurai warrior of African descent in

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Speaker 2: feudal Japan, which was unusual at the time, to say

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Speaker 2: the least. Yes, very much to say the least. We

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Speaker 2: can't wait.

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Speaker 1: For you to join us on this wild ride, folks.

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Speaker 1: So tune in as we learn how a Japanese daimyo

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Speaker 1: named Oda Nobunaga was fascinated by a stranger from Africa.

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Speaker 2: Oh, and just to add, Ben, there is entirely an

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Speaker 2: animated series called Yasuke that has at least one season,

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Speaker 2: and that is available as we speak on Netflix. Let's

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Speaker 2: roll the tape.

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show,

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Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians. I've got to say, first, I'm Ben.

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Speaker 2: Hi. Oh, hey, Ben. It's me, Noel, your old pal.

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Speaker 2: And there's our super producer, Casey Pegram.

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Speaker 3: Hello.

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Speaker 1: We're in a different studio today. Just peek behind the curtain.

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Speaker 1: So Casey's actually physically sitting in the same room with us.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's weird. I have to... Like be quiet and

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Speaker 3: not make noise.

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Speaker 2: I know.

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Speaker 3: Can't be crinkling a wrapper or something.

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Speaker 2: And you're craning your neck to look at us from

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Speaker 2: the side. And we can smell each other's musks.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely.

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Speaker 2: I mean, this is a very small little hot box

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Speaker 2: that we're in right now. Sorry, the musk might be me. Oh, no, no.

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Speaker 2: It's a melange of all of our musks. And all

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Speaker 2: of our musks combined, we are Ridiculous History. A potpourri.

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Speaker 2: of perfect ridiculousness. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Did you guys see the movie? What was it with

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Speaker 1: Forrest Whitaker? Was it Ghost Dog?

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Speaker 2: Way of the Swammer? Yeah, with the RZA soundtrack? Or

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Speaker 2: was it GZA? I think it was RZA. RZA's soundtrack.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 1: GZA does production, but is more, I think, known for

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Speaker 1: his verses.

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Speaker 2: When Wu-Tang forms like Voltron, I believe that RZA is

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Speaker 2: the head.

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Speaker 3: I just saw RZA in the new Jim Jarmusch movie. Oh, yeah?

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Speaker 2: How'd he do?

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Speaker 3: He was great for his scene. I had issues with

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Speaker 3: the movie.

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Speaker 2: I heard the movie was very painfully self-aware. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But no, he's got a little cameo. He's with Whoopi S.,

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Speaker 3: so he makes a delivery. That's pretty much it.

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Speaker 2: That's great.

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Speaker 1: I do want to– I'm still a Jarmusch addict, so

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Speaker 1: I'll check out Don't Die. But this is interesting because

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Speaker 1: the concept of Ghost Dog, right, is that he is

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Speaker 1: a samurai and people are often taken aback because they're thinking–

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Speaker 1: How can this black man be a samurai?

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Speaker 2: Well, but to be fair, he's also like a modern-day

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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

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Speaker 1: would be.

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Speaker 2: But today we're going to talk about a historical ghost

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Speaker 2: dog kind of figure, right? Yes.

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Speaker 1: Yasuke, the enslaved African man who became a samurai and

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Speaker 1: fought for Nobunaga. Also, a soft note to any of

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Speaker 1: our Japanese-speaking friends, any of your fellow Japanese-speaking listeners in

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Speaker 1: the audience, none of us speak Japanese.

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Speaker 2: Should we have brought in Lauren Vogelbaum as a Japanese

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Speaker 2: consultant on this one?

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Speaker 1: You know, I thought about it, Noel, but I didn't

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Speaker 1: want to spring it on her at the last minute.

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Speaker 2: She's still recovering from jet lag from Hawaii. Mm-hmm, yeah.

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Speaker 1: We welcomed her back yesterday, and it was bittersweet because,

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Speaker 1: you know, I said, welcome back. I'm sorry you had

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Speaker 1: to leave Hawaii.

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Speaker 2: I just sang her the Welcome Back Cotter song. Mm-hmm.

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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

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Speaker 2: was there. I was there.

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Speaker 1: I said aloha. She said mahalo. And that is the

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Speaker 1: extent of my Hawaiian language knowledge.

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Speaker 2: And you left it at that. And just so you know,

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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

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Speaker 2: way up to the ranks of the samurai. You may

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Speaker 2: have seen that Tom Cruise movie. What is it? The

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Speaker 2: Last Samurai? The Last Samurai. I have problems with that film. Well,

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Speaker 2: isn't it kind of a white savior kind of like

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Speaker 2: narrative a little bit? It's like Blood Diamond.

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Speaker 1: And Blood Diamond is this very similar thing with Leonardo DiCaprio.

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Speaker 1: Someone is killing a bunch of people, but then they

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Speaker 1: do one decent thing, and because they happen to be white,

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Speaker 1: they're praised.

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Speaker 2: And if I'm not mistaken, don't they both do bad

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Speaker 2: accents in both of those movies?

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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

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Speaker 1: did a pretty good job of what Leonardo DiCaprio was doing.

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Speaker 2: Isn't Ubuntu also a type of Linux software? I was

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Speaker 2: going to say it's a Linux distro. I think it is, yeah.

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Speaker 2: But if I'm not mistaken, so English sailor William Adams,

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Speaker 2: who was born in 1564, died in 1620, came to

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Speaker 2: Japan in 1600, and he did just what we said,

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Speaker 2: rose through the ranks and became himself. a very notable samurai,

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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

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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.

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Speaker 1: One guy from the Netherlands, and then there was William Adams,

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Speaker 1: you mentioned, and then there was a Chinese national, and

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Speaker 1: then there was one.

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Speaker 2: Who was unknown. Oh, The Unknown Samurai. That'd be a

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Speaker 2: good movie. That's a great idea. Just name alone. It's

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Speaker 2: a cool name. Let's just start with the name and

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Speaker 2: work backwards. But no, we have this gentleman whose name

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Speaker 2: is Yasuke, and I can only imagine that that was

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Speaker 2: his name that he was given after... Coming to Japan.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Speaker 2: believe a gentleman from Portugal, and he was sort of

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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.

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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

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Speaker 2: backtrack just a little bit and give a little bit

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Speaker 2: of context of what was going on in 16th century

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Speaker 2: Japan at the time. Huge divides going on, a lot

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Speaker 2: of isolation from the outside world. The country was split

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Speaker 2: into various provinces, and they were ruled by these feudal

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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.

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Speaker 2: So it has a lot of water that causes it

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Speaker 2: to be isolated in that way. So it really creates

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Speaker 2: its own kind of universe, very isolated. And that is

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Speaker 2: until European explorers, you know, with ships and fleets– seeking adventure,

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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

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Speaker 2: conquer or, you know, learn from, or I don't know

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Speaker 2: what the motivation, what do you think, Ben?

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Speaker 1: They didn't have the most successful results at first. The

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Speaker 1: Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Japan and

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Speaker 1: they brought their entire culture with them, which included the

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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

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Speaker 1: in his presence because they had never seen anything like this.

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Speaker 1: And the next few pieces of this story may be

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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

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Speaker 1: believes this is not a human being. It's either a

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Speaker 1: demon or a god, a daikokuten, a god of prosperity,

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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

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Speaker 1: what he thinks is ink off of this man's skin

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Speaker 1: and makes him like strip to his waist and then

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Speaker 1: try to rub it off.

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Speaker 2: And then he goes, oh, my God. He's fascinated by them. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: This is really this is your skin. This is not

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Speaker 1: paint or ink. This has happened within our lifetimes to

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Speaker 1: people in rural China. I had a friend who was

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Speaker 1: traveling out toward western China. Some older person came up

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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.

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Speaker 1: And they didn't think it was mean. And afterwards, they

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Speaker 1: wanted pictures with him. They wanted to talk.

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Speaker 2: Spitting on people is never polite behavior, I wouldn't say. No, no.

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Speaker 2: There has to be a better way to do it.

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Speaker 2: I can't think of a culture where that's appropriate.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But this is true.

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Speaker 1: We can kind of see, if we exercise some empathy,

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Speaker 1: how amazing this must be. This guy is taller than

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Speaker 1: literally everyone. His skin seems amazing to you, right? And

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Speaker 1: once Oda is finally convinced that this Yasuke character is real,

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Speaker 1: he immediately throws a feast for the guy, and it

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Speaker 1: turns from a riot to a party. Also, again, these

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Speaker 1: are warlord rules, so he pretty much decides the tone

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Speaker 1: of the room.

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Speaker 2: Oh, totally. And the riot element you're talking about, I think,

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Speaker 2: referred to folks trying to get a look at the guy, right? Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 2: Literally just like a kind of feeding frenzy to kind

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Speaker 2: of like, oh, see, because, oh, it's important to remember,

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Speaker 2: this certainly would have been one of the first, if

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Speaker 2: not the first, many of these folks had ever seen

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Speaker 2: of a black man. Yeah, absolutely.

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Speaker 1: And this is not necessarily a movie moment where it's

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Speaker 1: like Oda is at the Kyoto port. Lord Nobunaga, as

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Speaker 1: he was called, asked for an audience when he heard

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Speaker 1: about all this commotion, and that's when he does the

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Speaker 1: whole thing about rubbing the pigment from his skin and

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Speaker 1: then throwing his feast, and then he hires Yasuke. He

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Speaker 1: makes him his retainer and his bodyguard.

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Speaker 2: Yes, he did eventually make him his bodyguard. For a

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Speaker 2: little while, though, he was treated a little bit more

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Speaker 2: as kind of like a source of amusement or kind

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Speaker 2: of like a novelty, kind of an oddity, right? But

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Speaker 2: then he demonstrated, because of his training as a child soldier—

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Speaker 2: And his military prowess, he demonstrated very quickly that he

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Speaker 2: was a very competent and powerful warrior. And he began

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Speaker 2: to learn martial arts as well. Right, right.

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Speaker 1: And he was also versed in Japanese. So we think

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Speaker 1: he probably had these conversations. According to Lockley, Oda loved

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Speaker 1: just sitting around and shooting the breeze with Yasuke. You know,

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Speaker 1: tell me more about your life. There are no records

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Speaker 1: of how much he earned at his time, you know,

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Speaker 1: when he was first sort of a novelty. And then

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Speaker 1: when within a month, he's a warrior. We don't know

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Speaker 1: how much he was paid. So Lockley says it's tough

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Speaker 1: to know how high Yasuke ranked. And that's why people,

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Speaker 1: that's why you'll hear a lot of people, including this author,

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Speaker 1: speculate that he was the equivalent.

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Speaker 2: Of a page or a bodyguard. That's right. But what

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Speaker 2: we do know is a Tokyo-based publisher by the name

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Speaker 2: of Matt Ault who works for a publishing house called

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Speaker 2: Alt Japan, had this to say, that Yasuke was no

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Speaker 2: longer seen as human chattel or any kind of indentured servant,

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Speaker 2: but he was like all vassals, meaning a samurai is

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Speaker 2: beholden to their lord, the warlord, Oda, right?

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Speaker 1: Right, and that's why in less than a year, Yasuke

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Speaker 1: went from being a page to becoming one of the

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Speaker 1: upper echelons of Japan's warrior class, the samurai. We should

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Speaker 1: stop just for a second and talk about what a

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Speaker 1: samurai actually is, because I suspect that many of us

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Speaker 1: may have a couple of misconceptions. So these are warriors

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Speaker 1: of pre-modern Japan, and later they become the military ruling

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Speaker 1: class and the highest ranking social caste of the Edo period,

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Speaker 1: which is 1603, 1867. They had this sort of code, right,

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Speaker 1: a code by which one would live, maybe similar to

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Speaker 1: the idea of chivalry, but this was Confucian in design, right,

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Speaker 1: or in influence. This Bushido, the way of the warrior,

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Speaker 1: stressed things like loyalty to your master, self-discipline, respectful, ethical behavior,

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Speaker 1: and there was also a lot of Zen Buddhism in there.

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Speaker 1: But these might be filling any number of roles. You know,

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Speaker 1: some samurai eventually essentially became bureaucrats.

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Speaker 2: You know what I mean?

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Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 2: But not at this time. No, not at this time.

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Speaker 2: But Yusuke was literally Oda's right-hand man. He got all

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Speaker 2: of this special treatment, preferential treatment. He was gifted a

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Speaker 2: ceremonial samurai sword or a katana sword. He dined privately

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Speaker 2: regularly with Oda, which was very enviable among the other samurai.

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Speaker 2: He was kind of his favorite, it would seem, based

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Speaker 2: on what we know. He also had his own private residence,

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Speaker 2: which wasn't for everybody. and just seemed to be a

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Speaker 2: real asset to the warlord and have a really prominent

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Speaker 2: position in that society.

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Speaker 1: Right. And again, when we're talking about the society, we

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Speaker 1: have to emphasize this is a fractured society. This is

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Speaker 1: not the unified Japan with which we are familiar today.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of interior fighting. This is the era

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Speaker 1: of warring states. It's a turbulent century in history. And

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Speaker 1: just in the same way that the Alamo or Antietam

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Speaker 1: conjures these images of generals and founding fathers, so do

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Speaker 1: the key struggles of this period, also called the Sengoku,

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Speaker 1: according again to Alt. And Yasuke knows that he is

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Speaker 1: not going to have, he might have a future when

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Speaker 1: he's older as some sort of bureaucrat if he makes it,

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Speaker 1: but in this very violent time, he's going to fight.

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Speaker 1: So within a year of his arrival, he joins Lord

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Speaker 1: Nobunaga's forces in their invasion of the Iga province, I-G-A.

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Speaker 1: And they attacked this place, which is ringed with mountains.

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Speaker 1: It was called a ninja hotbed with 40,000 to 60,000 troops,

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Speaker 1: and they conquered it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is from Lockley's account. He said that

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Speaker 2: this first foray into battle was a success. His second,

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Speaker 2: there was kind of a twist in the story, right?

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Speaker 2: So according to Lockley's account, in June of 1582, Nobunaga's

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Speaker 2: samurai general, Mitsuhide Akichi... attacked his master, Nobunaga, at his

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Speaker 2: residence in Kyoto. He launched a tactical offensive. The attack

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Speaker 2: kicked off something that's known as the Battle of Hono-ji Temple.

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Speaker 2: And that kind of put the kibosh on Nobunaga's plans

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Speaker 2: to bring together these splintered factions in Japan, right? He

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Speaker 2: wanted to unify the country. Under his control, as most

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Speaker 2: warlords do. That's fair. You know what would make this

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Speaker 2: place great? If I were in charge. That'd be swell.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't take warlords to think that way, but most do. Yep.

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Speaker 1: So it's a tragic, dramatic moment in Japanese history. And

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Speaker 1: in Yasuke's personal history, he is fighting tooth and nail

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Speaker 1: during this siege, this storming of the temple. And when

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Speaker 1: Lord Nobunaga sees that defeat appears imminent and unavoidable, he

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Speaker 1: goes back to his thinking of the code under which

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Speaker 1: he has functioned for most of his life. And he says,

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Speaker 1: this general has betrayed me. so I have no choice

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Speaker 1: but to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide.

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Speaker 2: And that's when, I mean, it's a very specific way

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Speaker 2: of killing oneself, and it's pretty grisly. Oh, it gives

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Speaker 2: me the heebie-jeebies just talking about it, thinking about it.

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Speaker 2: You're disemboweling yourself. You're disemboweling yourself with a very specific

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Speaker 2: short blade. You stick it in, and then you pull

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Speaker 2: it sideways, and essentially your guts just spill out wherever

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Speaker 2: you stand, and then you fall over dead. I imagine

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Speaker 2: it wouldn't be.

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Speaker 1: A And if it's something where enemy forces are giving

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Speaker 1: you the option to choose that honorable way out, I believe,

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Speaker 1: and someone checked me on this, I believe the idea

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Speaker 1: was that you were given the option of using the

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Speaker 1: short knife, and if you faltered or you didn't do

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Speaker 1: it correctly or you hesitated, there would be someone standing

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Speaker 1: next to you or nearby with a sword, and they

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Speaker 1: would decapitate you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, in fact, Oda's last order to Yasuke was to

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Speaker 2: take his sword and his decapitated head to his son. Wow.

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Speaker 2: That's daddy. Oh, my God. That's grisly.

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Speaker 1: Yasuke probably took the head after the guy died, after

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Speaker 1: Lord Nobunaga died. And he had to take this head

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Speaker 1: because it couldn't fall into someone else's hands.

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Speaker 2: It was considered very dishonorable.

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Speaker 1: So he goes back to Azuchi Castle and starts working

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Speaker 1: for Nobunaga's son, Odo Nobutada. His son also committed suicide.

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Speaker 1: after suffering defeat at the hands of the same treacherous general.

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Speaker 2: That's right. And at this point, Yasuke is what we

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Speaker 2: call a ronin, or what the Japanese refer to as

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Speaker 2: a ronin, which is a samurai without a master. And

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Speaker 2: that's an image that you see throughout, you know, cinema

390
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Speaker 2: and like fiction, the idea of the roving, wandering ronin

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Speaker 2: who is beholden to no one. And you think of

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Speaker 2: them as almost like a vigilante of justice out to,

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Speaker 2: you know, Right wrongs or whatever. I don't know. Or

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Speaker 2: the crime film with Robert De Niro. Also that. I

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Speaker 2: don't know.

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Speaker 1: You know, I don't even remember what happened at Ronin,

397
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Speaker 1: but I remember being a little unimpressed.

398
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Speaker 2: Maybe I need to watch it again. Maybe I was

399
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Speaker 2: too young. I don't know that I ever saw that.

400
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Speaker 2: And this is where we kind of lose the plot

401
00:22:23,490 --> 00:22:26,930
Speaker 2: on Yasuke a little bit, right? Lockley does some more

402
00:22:27,050 --> 00:22:29,130
Speaker 2: of his speculation that he knows and loves so well.

403
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Speaker 2: the idea is that Yasuke could have possibly gone back

404
00:22:35,350 --> 00:22:37,590
Speaker 2: to the Jesuit missionaries. Who knows?

405
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Speaker 1: He could have been a guard for the Jesuits, but

406
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Speaker 1: he could have been a sailor. He could have been

407
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Speaker 1: a pirate.

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Speaker 2: That'd be fun. It's just dream big. He just needed

409
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Speaker 2: a change. The whole handing over the decapitated head of

410
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Speaker 2: his master to the sun, that probably would have turned

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Speaker 2: him a little bit.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's step back a little bit, too, and see

413
00:22:54,410 --> 00:22:59,180
Speaker 1: that although Lord Nobunaga was pretty progressive in seeing past color,

414
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Speaker 1: Mitsuhide was super racist. He said, this Yasuke character is

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Speaker 1: not human. He's not Japanese, not even human.

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Speaker 2: He's a beast.

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Speaker 1: And I refuse to acknowledge him as a samurai. And

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Speaker 1: he said the problem with this, one of the reasons

419
00:23:19,270 --> 00:23:23,190
Speaker 1: he was so offended, probably racism, xenophobia. But another reason

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Speaker 1: is that Yasuke did not commit seppuku, which was the

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Speaker 1: Eastern tradition of Instead, he offered his sword to the general,

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Speaker 1: which is Western tradition.

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Speaker 2: Interesting. So you think it really is kind of the

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Speaker 2: case that Oda, the original master, was a pretty progressive

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Speaker 2: dude for the time. In this instance. No, in this instance.

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Speaker 2: In this single instance. What I'm saying is the way

427
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Speaker 2: he was treated would not have been the norm. He

428
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Speaker 2: kind of went out on a limb. But if you

429
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:54,290
Speaker 2: think about it, too, I mean, yes, they obviously became friends,

430
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Speaker 2: but in his primary— impetus was probably like look at

431
00:23:57,850 --> 00:24:00,390
Speaker 2: this big strapping dude that i can put to work

432
00:24:00,430 --> 00:24:03,200
Speaker 2: for me you know yeah there's a little bit of

433
00:24:03,260 --> 00:24:06,640
Speaker 2: racism even in that exactly that's that's the thing it's

434
00:24:06,740 --> 00:24:07,580
Speaker 2: sort of like.

435
00:24:07,380 --> 00:24:13,399
Speaker 1: Uh frederick vilhelm would have said that he loved the

436
00:24:13,460 --> 00:24:16,790
Speaker 1: potsdam giants and was good friends with them right but

437
00:24:16,850 --> 00:24:18,990
Speaker 1: he would still kill them if they didn't do what

438
00:24:19,030 --> 00:24:23,970
Speaker 1: he wanted of course so So this is almost where

439
00:24:24,030 --> 00:24:28,209
Speaker 1: the tale ends. Despite his relatively brief time as a samurai,

440
00:24:28,550 --> 00:24:31,899
Speaker 1: he's been a hero in fiction and a lot of

441
00:24:31,930 --> 00:24:34,440
Speaker 1: stuff has been based off of him, including the great

442
00:24:34,580 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 1: animated series Afro Samurai.

443
00:24:36,500 --> 00:24:39,900
Speaker 2: So good. Loosely based. Sure. Yeah, 100%.

444
00:24:39,900 --> 00:24:42,380
Speaker 1: So loosely based in that it just happens to be

445
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: a samurai.

446
00:24:44,020 --> 00:24:46,290
Speaker 2: And the thing too is there may have been others

447
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:49,300
Speaker 2: like him, but we just don't have... the same kind

448
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,820
Speaker 2: of documentation that we do about him. He was pictured

449
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 2: in a lot of traditional Japanese screen paintings where he

450
00:24:57,640 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 2: stands out among the crowd. You can definitely tell there's

451
00:24:59,619 --> 00:25:04,530
Speaker 2: like one black person among all of these Japanese folks.

452
00:25:05,070 --> 00:25:08,410
Speaker 2: And he appears multiple times, right? Right, right.

453
00:25:08,930 --> 00:25:13,030
Speaker 1: There's some, I guess, compelling stuff, but it's circumstantial. This

454
00:25:13,130 --> 00:25:16,150
Speaker 1: is the best documented case we have of this sort

455
00:25:16,170 --> 00:25:19,590
Speaker 1: of contact. There is another figure in Japanese history that

456
00:25:19,850 --> 00:25:23,330
Speaker 1: some experts will say is of African descent, a fellow

457
00:25:23,390 --> 00:25:26,070
Speaker 1: named Sakonoye no Tamoramaro.

458
00:25:26,470 --> 00:25:28,230
Speaker 2: That's a tough one, Ben. You did very well. I

459
00:25:28,290 --> 00:25:31,150
Speaker 2: did a horrible, piss-poor job on that. I disagree. Well,

460
00:25:31,170 --> 00:25:31,570
Speaker 2: thank you.

461
00:25:32,170 --> 00:25:36,340
Speaker 1: He was a warrior who, from about 758 to 811 A.D.,

462
00:25:36,460 --> 00:25:39,820
Speaker 1: was a palace guard, and he was placed in command

463
00:25:39,859 --> 00:25:42,260
Speaker 1: of forces that the emperor had sent to fight the

464
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:45,540
Speaker 1: indigenous people, the Ainu. This warrior was said to have

465
00:25:45,619 --> 00:25:50,410
Speaker 1: a black complexion. But that's kind of grasping at straws.

466
00:25:50,590 --> 00:25:51,210
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?

467
00:25:51,570 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: There's no one who said this guy came from Africa.

468
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:57,580
Speaker 2: And lest we have dropped too many spoilers in this,

469
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 2: there is a pretty amazing looking dramatization of this story

470
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:05,070
Speaker 2: that's coming to Netflix in the not too far future,

471
00:26:05,690 --> 00:26:10,210
Speaker 2: where Yatsuke is going to be played by Chadwick Boseman

472
00:26:10,330 --> 00:26:12,390
Speaker 2: of Black Panther fame. Yes, that's right.

473
00:26:12,510 --> 00:26:16,790
Speaker 1: Phenomenal actor. And Yatsuke does not have a release date yet.

474
00:26:16,910 --> 00:26:19,909
Speaker 1: The news on the street is just news about casting,

475
00:26:19,930 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 1: but I'm going to watch it. I mean, I already

476
00:26:22,700 --> 00:26:25,500
Speaker 1: have Netflix. It's kind of a sunk cost, right? What

477
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:26,100
Speaker 1: am I going to do?

478
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 2: Not watch it? Exactly. No, you're not going to not

479
00:26:29,020 --> 00:26:32,260
Speaker 2: watch it. Right. Yeah. And, you know, I am very

480
00:26:32,300 --> 00:26:34,790
Speaker 2: much looking forward to it now that Game of Thrones

481
00:26:34,830 --> 00:26:37,710
Speaker 2: has let us all down so hard. And also, you know,

482
00:26:37,730 --> 00:26:40,570
Speaker 2: just the fact that it's gone. The fact that it

483
00:26:40,609 --> 00:26:42,990
Speaker 2: was a disappointing ending is neither here nor there. I

484
00:26:43,030 --> 00:26:44,970
Speaker 2: need something to fill the vacuum that is my Sunday

485
00:26:44,990 --> 00:26:47,530
Speaker 2: night and the hole in my heart. I'm just waiting

486
00:26:47,630 --> 00:26:48,230
Speaker 2: for the books.

487
00:26:48,450 --> 00:26:50,690
Speaker 1: I don't think the story's over because there are still

488
00:26:50,830 --> 00:26:53,990
Speaker 1: two more books. If you're listening, George R.R. Martin, I

489
00:26:54,210 --> 00:26:57,830
Speaker 1: know you're a big fan of this show. Maybe that's it.

490
00:26:58,090 --> 00:26:59,510
Speaker 2: Maybe, George, if you're listening.

491
00:26:59,869 --> 00:27:02,770
Speaker 1: Maybe you've just been so busy listening to ridiculous history

492
00:27:02,850 --> 00:27:04,870
Speaker 1: that you haven't had time to sit down and write

493
00:27:04,930 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: those other two novels. If so, we apologize to every

494
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:10,620
Speaker 1: Song of Ice and Fire fan out there.

495
00:27:10,780 --> 00:27:15,380
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all our fault. It's mainly Casey's. We got

496
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:17,879
Speaker 2: a very noncommittal nod there. We did.

497
00:27:18,180 --> 00:27:19,090
Speaker 3: It's okay.

498
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:23,440
Speaker 2: What else we got?

499
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:28,620
Speaker 1: Well, this is the end of our episode, but not

500
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:31,810
Speaker 1: the end of our show. We'd like to hear your

501
00:27:31,930 --> 00:27:37,629
Speaker 1: stories of other, let's say, unorthodox outsiders who made a

502
00:27:37,690 --> 00:27:41,290
Speaker 1: name for themselves in society, similar to the way Yasuke did.

503
00:27:41,470 --> 00:27:45,149
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? And this could traverse gender, ethnicity,

504
00:27:45,290 --> 00:27:46,330
Speaker 2: religious creed.

505
00:27:46,730 --> 00:27:50,460
Speaker 1: Let us not forget that Religious differences that seem relatively

506
00:27:50,530 --> 00:27:53,070
Speaker 1: minor to a lot of us today in an increasingly

507
00:27:53,130 --> 00:27:54,710
Speaker 1: secular United States.

508
00:27:54,690 --> 00:27:59,150
Speaker 2: Were huge deals for thousands of years. It's true. It's true. Yeah,

509
00:27:59,190 --> 00:28:02,550
Speaker 2: write us in. Give us your stories of outsiders making

510
00:28:02,570 --> 00:28:07,450
Speaker 2: a splash. You can write to us at ridiculous at iheartradio.com.

511
00:28:07,750 --> 00:28:10,189
Speaker 2: You can also hit us up on our Facebook group,

512
00:28:10,310 --> 00:28:11,970
Speaker 2: The Ridiculous Historians, where I think all you have to

513
00:28:11,990 --> 00:28:14,189
Speaker 2: do is name us. Either me, Ben, or Casey, or

514
00:28:14,210 --> 00:28:15,070
Speaker 2: just say something cute.

515
00:28:15,350 --> 00:28:18,810
Speaker 1: Or, yeah, just make one of us laugh. Yes, you

516
00:28:18,890 --> 00:28:23,450
Speaker 1: can also find us on our Twitters, on our Instagram.

517
00:28:23,990 --> 00:28:27,410
Speaker 1: You can find our personal adventures on Twitter or Instagram.

518
00:28:27,490 --> 00:28:30,530
Speaker 1: I'm at Ben Bolin HSW on Twitter, and I'm at

519
00:28:30,730 --> 00:28:32,510
Speaker 1: Ben Bolin on Instagram.

520
00:28:32,670 --> 00:28:35,310
Speaker 2: I don't really tweet too much. I occasionally lurk in

521
00:28:35,350 --> 00:28:38,270
Speaker 2: other people's tweets, but not my thing. So I am

522
00:28:38,370 --> 00:28:42,170
Speaker 2: pretty exclusively on Instagram, at HowNowHSW. Noel Brown. Big thanks

523
00:28:42,230 --> 00:28:44,930
Speaker 2: to super producer Casey Pegram for holding it down in

524
00:28:44,970 --> 00:28:47,790
Speaker 2: the sweat box. Big thanks to Alex Williams who composed

525
00:28:47,810 --> 00:28:51,740
Speaker 2: our theme. Big thanks to Gabe Luzier. Big thanks to

526
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:53,620
Speaker 2: Christopher Haciotis.

527
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:57,220
Speaker 1: Big thanks to you for listening and extra big thanks

528
00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,860
Speaker 1: to you, Noel.

529
00:28:59,940 --> 00:29:03,820
Speaker 2: I return your thanks with thanks of my own for

530
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 2: you and all you do for Just, you know, history

531
00:29:07,460 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 2: at large. One day, this is so weird. I have

532
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:12,660
Speaker 2: this dream. It has nothing to do with anything.

533
00:29:12,940 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: I have this dream of throwing like an old-fashioned pizza

534
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,820
Speaker 1: party for us and all the ridiculous historians. You know,

535
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:20,820
Speaker 1: like where you would rent out a skating rink or

536
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:21,660
Speaker 1: bowling alley.

537
00:29:22,180 --> 00:29:23,980
Speaker 2: I just got to find the right location. Tell us

538
00:29:24,020 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 2: if you'd be down for that. Totally. We should totally

539
00:29:25,740 --> 00:29:27,610
Speaker 2: do a meet-up. Maybe we should get on the historians

540
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:29,650
Speaker 2: page and see if there's enough folks in Atlanta to

541
00:29:29,770 --> 00:29:32,210
Speaker 2: hang out sometime. Let's check it out. We'll see you soon, folks.

542
00:29:36,500 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app Apple

543
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:42,430
Speaker 2: Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows