Ever since it was revealed that Yasuke would be one of the playable protagonists in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, fans and sudden historical experts have been constantly debating about whether he should be in the game or not. Gone is the former understanding that this game series often takes liberties with real historical people, and now there’s a constant debate around the truth of Yasuke’s story.
Following a controversy surrounding historian Thomas Lockley who appeared to have conjured the modern understanding of Yasuke, Japanese historian Yu Hirayama weighed in with his own take in a lengthy post on Twitter/X. The post reads as follows:
“It seems like there’s a lot of talk about Yasuke, a black man who served Oda Nobunaga. There are very few historical documents about him, but there’s no doubt that he was a “samurai” who served Nobunaga. Regardless of one’s social status, if one’s master promoted one to the rank of “samurai,” one could become one in medieval (warring states) society. I can say this because the historical documents state that ① Nobunaga gave him a “stipend,” ② he was given a house, and ③ he was given a sword.”
“Being given a ‘stipend’ and serving Nobunaga closely fulfills the important requirements of a ‘contract between master and servant’ and ‘agreement to receive a stipend.’ It is also important that he was allowed to carry a sword, so he was a two-sworded servant and not a servant (servants were not allowed to carry swords). And if he was given a house, there’s no room for doubt. He was probably a slave until Nobunaga took over the missionary slave, but due to the above ① to ③ , he probably became a ‘samurai’ of his own volition. During the Honnoji Incident, Akechi’s side did not kill Yasuke because he was an ‘animal’ or ‘not Japanese’, but that was only because Akechi did not recognize Yasuke as a “samurai” (probably because he had discriminatory feelings). At that time, it was common for a master to promote someone of low status to a ‘samurai.'”
Hirayama does acknowledge that there’s not a lot of evidence, and so it’s likely that this debate will continue for the foreseeable future. What we do know is that Ubisoft isn’t going to change its mind on the matter, and we’ll be seeing Yasuke as a samurai in Assassin’s Creed Shadows when it launches this November.