Yasuke (彌介) (c. 1556-?) is a Japanese name used to refer to a black slave who for a short time was in the service of the Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga. He is unnamed in contemporary accounts and is sometimes erroneously referred to as "Kurusan".
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Yasuke is mentioned in some of the 1581 letters of the Jesuits Luis Frois and Lorenço Mexia and in the 1582 Annual Report of the Jesuit Mission in Japan. These were published in Cartas in 1598. They are translated in full in Vols. 3-5 and 3-6 of Juuroku... and there is no reference to him in Frois's History.
Yasuke arrived in Japan in 1579 as the servant of the Italian Jesuit Alessandro Valignano, who had been appointed the Visitor (inspector) of the Jesuit missions in the Indies, i.e. S. and E. Asia, an extremely high position, so Yasuke must have been quite trustworthy. He accompanied Valignano when the latter came to the capital area in March 1581 and caused something of a sensation. Nobunaga heard about him and expressed a desire to see him. He thought the black color might be paint, so he had him strip from the waist up. Nobunaga's nephew gave him money. In May, Yasuke accompanied a group of Jesuits on a short trip to the province of Echizen. Yasuke could speak some Japanese, so Nobunaga enjoyed talking with him and was also impressed by his strength. At Nobunaga's request, Valignano left Yasuke with Nobunaga before Valignano left central Japan later that year. Nobunaga treated Yasuke with such great favor that people in Azuchi even said he would probably be made a 'tono' (lord). This did not happen, however.
In June 1582, Nobunaga was attacked and killed in Honnō-ji in Kyoto by the army of Akechi Mitsuhide. Yasuke was also there at the time. Immediately after Nobunaga's death, Yasuke went to the lodging of Nobunaga's heir Oda Nobutada and withdrew with him to Nijô Castle. When that too was attacked by Akechi, Yasuke fought alongside the Nobutada forces for a long time. Finally he surrendered his sword to Akechi's men. They asked Akechi himself what to do with him. Akechi said that the black man was a beast and did not know anything, and furthermore, he was not Japanese, so they should not kill him but take him to the church [in Kyoto] of the Visitor from India, so they did, much to the relief of the Jesuits there who had worried about him. There is no information about him after that.
The "Lord Nobunaga Chronicle" (信長公記 Shinchōkōki) has a description of Yasuke's first meeting with Nobunaga. "On the 23rd of the 2nd month [March 23, 1581], a black page (黒坊主 "kuro-bōzu") came from the Christian countries. He looked about 26 [24 or 25 by Western count] or 27 years old; his entire body was black like that of an ox. The man was healthy and good-looking. Moreover, his strength was greater than that of 10 men."
This seems to be all that contemporary records say about him.
Yasuke was featured in the children's historical fiction novel, Kuro-suke (くろ助) by Yoshio Kurusu with illustrations by Genjirou Minoda, published in 1943. It features a highly fictionalized and sympathetic account of Yasuke's life in Japan under Nobunaga. It received the Children's Prize of the Japanese Association of Writers in 1969.[1]
Since there is little known about him, many have written without knowing much about him. According to unattributed accounts, Yasuke may have come from Mozambique, Bakongo, or Italy. Bakongo was located in the region of the modern Democratic Republic of Congo and had extensive trade with the Portuguese.
Sometimes it is said that at his first meeting with Nobunaga, Nobunaga tried to have the color scrubbed off. His height is said to have been 6 shaku 2 sun (6 ft. 2 in., or 188 cm.); if so, his tall stature would have been very imposing to the Japanese of the day.
What he did during his year of service with Nobunaga in not known. It has been suggested that he may have been a bodyguard or simply a curiosity.
Some accounts say he was killed in Honnō-ji, but this is clearly incorrect, since it contradicts the only source associating him with the Honnō-ji incident at all. Statements that he was sent to a monastery are likely based on Akechi's sending him to the Jesuit church.
Although popular unsubstantiated internet sources state that the nickname most commonly given to the African was "kuru-san" (erroneously explaining that "kuru" is Japanese for "black" and Kuru-san roughly translates as "Mr. Black-man"), this is impossible. The Japanese word for "black" is "kuro" rather than "kuru", and the suffix "~san" was not used during the sengoku period of Japanese history.