Yasuke: The First African Samurai

Yasuke: The First African Samurai

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Episode #171- Who Was The African Samurai? (Part I)
Our Fake History

Near the end of Japan's "Warring States" period a remarkable visitor arrived in the country with a group of European Jesuit missionaries. He was a soldier originally from East Africa acting as a bodyguard for the ranking Jesuit in Japan. The Japanese would come to know this man a ...  Show more

G. Girard and T. Lockley, "African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan" (Hanover Square Press, 2021)
New Books in East Asian Studies

The remarkable life of history's first foreign-born samurai and his astonishing journey from Northern Africa to the heights of Japanese society. When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s, he had already traveled much of the known world. Kidnapped as a child, and trained into ...  Show more

Yasuke, the African Samurai
Ridiculous History

Japanese Daimyo Oda Nobunaga was fascinated by the mysterious, towering slave of a visiting Jesuit missionary, and soon this man, Yasuke, joined Nobunaga's court, eventually becoming a full-on samurai. Join the guys as they explore the strange life of the African-born samurai, Ya ...  Show more

The Samurai
Short History Of...

After a bloody battle on September 22nd, 1877, Saigo Takamori and his loyal warriors pause on a hillside overlooking Kagoshima. They’ll never surrender, but they’re wounded, exhausted, and massively outnumbered, and Saigo already knows how this will end. Because his noble Samurai ...  Show more