Yasuke was a man of African origin who served as a retainer and weapon-bearer to the Japanese daimy? Oda Nobunaga. In 1579, Yasuke arrived in Japan in the service of the Italian Jesuit missionary Alessandro Valignano, Visitor of Missions in the Indies, in India. He is thought by some to have been the first African he had ever seen. He was present during the Honn?-ji Incident, the forced suicide of Nobunag? at the hands of his general Akechi Mitsuhide.