the first foreign-black man to achieve the status of a samurai warrior.

 Almost 500 years ago, a tall African man arrived in Japan. He would go on to become the first foreign-born man to achieve the status of a samurai warrior.

Yasuke a tall African man, arrived in Japan in 1579 and made history as the first foreign-born man to become a samurai warrior. Yasuke was originally a slave from Mozambique and was brought to Japan by Portuguese traders. 

The powerful Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga was fascinated by Yasuke's tall stature and dark skin, and upon seeing him, ordered his servants to try and rub the "black ink" off his skin. Despite this strange encounter, Nobunaga took Yasuke into his service, granting him a sum of money, a house, and a katana. From then on, Yasuke loyally served Nobunaga as an honored samurai, fighting alongside him in fierce battles. He went from being a piece of Portuguese property to a member of the Japanese elite.

His height was 6 shaku 2 sun (roughly 6 feet, 2 inches)… he was black, and his skin was like charcoal,” a fellow samurai, Matsudaira Ietada, described him in his diary in 1579. The average height of a Japanese man in 1900 was 157.9m (5 feet 2 inches) so Yasuke would have towered over most Japanese people in the 16th Century, when people were generally shorter due to worse nutrition.

Yasuke met Nobunaga shortly after his arrival in Japan and he piqued his interest, the filmmakers say, by being a talented conversationalist. Yasuke already spoke some Japanese and the two men got on well, according to academic Thomas Lockley, who has written a book on Yasuke. According to Lockley, Yasuke entertained Nobunaga with tales from Africa and India, where Lockley believed Yasuke had spent some time before going to Japan.

“He was unlike the Jesuits, who had a religious agenda for the soul of Japan,” Webb said.

The African warrior and the Japanese warlord had a lot in common. Nobunaga was a great fan of the martial arts and spent a lot of time practicing them. He was also an eccentric person, who according to Webb, often dressed in Western-style clothes and sought the company of highly disciplined and intelligent people.