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LITTLE KNOWN BLACK HISORY FACT SAKANOUYE NO TAMURAMARO THE BLACK SAMURAI
"For a Samurai to be brave, he must have a bit of Black blood."
--Japanese Proverb
THE BLACK PRESENCE IN EARLY JAPAN
Although the island nation of Japan, occupying the extreme eastern extensions of Asia, is assumed by many to have been historically composed of an essentially homogeneous population and culture, the accumulated evidence (much of which has been quietly ignored) places the matter in a vastly different light, and though far more study needs to be done on the subject, it seems indisputable that Black people in Japan played an important role from the most remote phases of antiquity into at least the ninth century.
SAKANOUYE NO TAMURAMARO: SEI-I TAI-SHOGUN OF EARLY JAPAN
Of the Black people of early Japan, the most picturesque single figure was Sakanouye no Tamuramaro, a warrior symbolized in Japanese history as a "paragon of military virtues," and a man who has captured the attention of some of the most distinguished scholars of twentieth century America. Perhaps the first such scholar to make note of Tamuramaro was Alexander Francis Chamberlain (1865-1914). An anthropologist, Chamberlain was born in Kenninghall, Norfolk, England, and was brought to America as a child. In April 1911 the Journal of Race Development published an essay by Chamberlain entitled "The Contribution of the Negro to Human Civilization. " While discussing the African presence in early Asia, Chamberlain stated in an exceptionally frank and matter of fact manner:
"And we can cross the whole of Asia and find the Negro again, for when, in far-off Japan, the ancestors of the modern Japanese were making their way northward against the Ainu, the aborigines of that country, the leader of their armies was Sakanouye Tamuramaro, a famous general and a Negro."
Dr. W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963), perhaps the greatest scholar in American history, in his book, The Negro (first published in 1915), placed Sakanouye Tamuramaro within a list of some of the most distinguished Black rulers and warriors in antiquity. In 1922, Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) and Charles Harris Wesley (1891-?) in a chapter called "Africans in History with Others," in their book The Negro in Our History, quoted Chamberlain on Tamuramaro verbatim. In the November 1940 issue of the Negro History Bulletin (founded by Dr. Woodson), artist and illustrator Lois Maillou Jones (1905-1998) contributed a brief article entitled "Sakanouye Tamura Maro." In the article Jones pointed out that:
"The probable number of Negroes who reached the shores of Asia my be estimated somewhat by the wide area over which they were found on that continent. Historians tell us that at one time Negroes were found in all of the countries of southern Asia bordering the Indian Ocean and along the east coast as far as Japan. There are many interesting stories told by those who reached that distant land which at that time they called `Cipango.'
One of the most prominent characters in Japanese history was a Negro warrior called Sakanouye Tamura Maro. Sakanouye was a warrior symbolized in early Japanese history as a "paragon of military virtues.
Adwoa Asantewaa B. Munroe referenced Tamuramaro in the 1981 publication What We Should Know About African Religion, History and Culture, and wrote that "He was an African warrior. He was prominent during the rule of the Japanese Emperor Kwammu, who reigned from 782- 806 A.D." In 1989 Dr. Mark Hyman authored a booklet entitled Black Shogun of Japan in which he stated that "The fact remains that Sakanouye Tamuramaro was an African. He was Japanese. He was a great fighting general. He was a Japanese Shogun."
Sakanouye no Tamuramaro is regarded as an outstanding military commander of the early Heian royal court. The Heian Period (794-1185 C.E.) derives its name from Heian-Kyo, which means "the Capital of Peace and Tranquility, " and was the original name for Japan's early capital city--Kyoto. It was during the Heian Period that the term Samurai was first used. According to Papinot, the "word comes from the very word samuaru, or better saburau, which signifies: to be on one's guard, to guard; it applied especially to the soldiers who were on guard at the Imperial palace."
The samurai have been called the knights or warrior class of Medieval Japan and the history of the samurai is very much the history of Japan itself. For hundreds of years, to the restoration of the Meiji emperor in 1868, the samurai were the flower of Japan and are still idolized by many Japanese. The samurai received a pension from their feudal lord, and had the privilege of wearing two swords. They intermarried in their own caste and the privilege of samurai was transmitted to all the children, although the heir alone received a pension.
The "paragon of military virtues," Sakanouye no Tamuramaro (758-811) was, in the words of James Murdoch:
"In as sense the originator of what was subsequently to develop into the renowned samurai class, he provided in his own person a worthy model for the professional warrior on which to fashion himself and his character. In battle, a veritable war-god; in peace the gentlest of manly gentlemen, and the simplest and unassuming of men."
Throughout his career, Tamuramaro was rewarded for his services with high civil as well as military positions. In 797 he was named "barbarian-subduing generalissimo" (Sei-i Tai-Shogun), and in 801-802 he again campaigned in northern Japan, establishing fortresses at Izawa and Shiwa and effectively subjugating the Ainu.
In 810 he helped to suppress an attempt to restore the retired emperor Heizei to the throne. In 811, the year of his death, he was appointed great counselor (dainagon) and minister of war (hyobukyo).
Sakanouye no Tamuramaro "was buried in the village of Kurisu, near Kyoto and it is believed that it is his tomb which is known under the name of Shogun-zuka. Tamuramaro is the founder of the famous temple Kiyomizu-dera. He is the ancestor of the Tamura daimyo of Mutsu." Tamuramaro "was not only the first to bear the title of Sei-i-tai-Shogun, but he was also the first of the warrior statesmen of Japan."
In later ages he was revered by military men as a model commander and as the first recipient of the title shogun--the highest rank to which a warrior could aspire."
By Runoko Rashidi
