Question 1

Who was Yasuke?

Accepted Answer

An African man who arrived in Japan in 1579 and became a **retainer of Oda Nobunaga**, the warlord who did most to unify the country — the only person of African origin known to have held such a position in sixteenth-century Japan.

**What the records say.** He arrived in the service of the Jesuit visitor Alessandro Valignano, probably from Mozambique or the surrounding region, though his origin is not certainly established. Japanese sources record that his appearance drew enormous crowds in Kyoto, to the point where the press of people caused injuries.

**Nobunaga's reaction** is recorded in some detail: he is described as suspecting the man's skin was coloured with ink and having him wash, then — satisfied it was not — taking him into his service. He was given a stipend, a residence and a sword, and appears in Japanese records under the name Yasuke. Accounts describe him as tall, strong and able to converse in Japanese.

**What he did.** He accompanied Nobunaga and was present at the **Honno-ji incident** in 1582, when Nobunaga was betrayed by a subordinate and died. Yasuke then fought alongside Nobunaga's heir, was captured, and — according to the account — was spared and returned to the Jesuits, with the victor reportedly regarding him as not being Japanese and therefore not subject to the same fate.

**After that he disappears from the record entirely**, and nothing certain is known of his later life.

**Why the sources are limited.** He is documented in Jesuit correspondence and in a small number of Japanese accounts, several of them written later. **The result is a figure who is genuinely historical and thinly evidenced**, which is precisely the condition in which fiction accumulates.

**What is disputed.** Whether he held formal samurai status is argued among historians — the term's meaning in the period is itself contested, and the records describe a retainer with a stipend and a sword rather than using a title. **The popular claim is stronger than the evidence supports**, while the underlying facts remain remarkable.

Question 2

Who was Ibn Battuta?

Accepted Answer

Ibn Battuta (1304 – c. 1369) was a Moroccan scholar and traveller whose journeys covered a distance far exceeding Marco Polo's, across some three decades — and whose account is one of the richest

Question 3

Who was Queen Nzinga?

Accepted Answer

Nzinga Mbande (c. 1583–1663) ruled the kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba, in what is now Angola, and spent roughly four decades resisting Portuguese expansion and the slave trade that drove it — by war

Question 4

Who was Shaka, and how reliable are the accounts of him?

Accepted Answer

Shaka kaSenzangakhona (c. 1787–1828) transformed the Zulu from a small chiefdom into a dominant regional power — and almost everything commonly said about him derives from sources that are

Question 5

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Accepted Answer

The famous account — poisoned, shot, beaten, drowned, and surviving each — comes almost entirely from one participant's self-serving memoir, and the physical evidence contradicts key parts of it. The

Question 6

Who was Olaudah Equiano?

Accepted Answer

A formerly enslaved man who bought his own freedom and became a leading figure in the British abolitionist movement, principally through an autobiography that was a genuine publishing phenomenon and

Question 7

Who was Mansa Musa and was he really the richest person in history?

Accepted Answer

Mansa Musa ruled the Mali Empire in West Africa from about 1312 to 1337, at a point when Mali controlled major gold-producing regions and the trans-Saharan trade routes that carried that gold north.

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