Q&A
Were there any non-Japanese samurai?
an African slave who gained fame and respect
SHORT ANSWER
An African slave would have stood out in the ranks of the elite Japanese warrior class
LONG ANSWER
A handful of foreign visitors to Japan were honoured as samurai, including Englishman William Adams and his Dutch shipmate Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn, who were both granted the title of hatamoto (a high-ranking samurai). The first and most famous was not a trader, diplomat or explorer, but a slave. Yasuke, possibly from modern-day Mozambique or South Sudan, was in the service of an Italian Jesuit missionary when he arrived in 1579. Japanese people had not seen men as tall and strong as Yasuke, or a person of his colour, so turned out in droves to see him.
Soon, he was being summoned to meet Oda Nobunaga, a warlord who was so impressed by the African that he took him into his own service. Yasuke was given money, a home and a katana sword, the weapon of a samurai warrior, and became Nobunaga’s faithful retainer, or kashin.