YASUKE
First Black Japanese Samurai (1500s)
Yasuke first appears in history in 1579 as an attendant of the Jesuit missionary Alessandro Valignano who was coming to Japan to visit the missions that had been set up there. Yasuke was most likely a slave. Yasuke’s black skin generated a lot of interest from the native Japanese and many are said to have come to see him at the church which the Jesuits had constructed in Kyoto. This commotion caught the interest of the Daimyo, Lord Nobunaga, who asked for an audience with him.
