The lecture took place on 24 February 2024 and combined a longue durée perspective on Japanese presence in Luzon since the mid-sixteenth century with questions on how historical actors and historiography influenced public and cultural diplomacy between Japan and the Philippines in recent decades. But what is a "Philippine samurai"? Below, Birgit Tremml-Werner provides a summarized explanation diving into the topic.

WOuld you like the watch the whole lecture? It is available on the Asian Centre Youtube channel:

Youtube: The Samurai of the Philippines

Read an article about the lecture at the University of the Philippines website: 

New AC Adjunct Professor lecture on Samurai in the Philippines

Read more about Birgit Tremml-Werners research here: 

Birgit Tremml-Werner

Birgit Tremml-Werner. Foto: Sofia Ekelund

The "Philippine Samurai"

The term “Philippine samurai” is analytical and as such both provocative and misleading. However, the trope of samurai, or perhaps more correctly, ronin (masterless samurai) is very present in both academic and public history.

Since the mid-sixteeenth century, a large number of members of the warrior class left Japan in search of new opportunities. Their memory prevails in maritime and global history, not least because of the existence of early modern Japanese towns all across Southeast Asia from Cambodia to the Philippines.

These mobile actors participated in illicit trade and piracy, many of them converted to Christianity, and others served as mercenaries for Southeast Asian rulers or European colonial masters. Spanish, Dutch, and Chinese accounts of the seventeenth-century attribute to these Japanese a spirit of being brave, belligerent, and sly. By the late nineteenth century, this trope of militarily superior, adventurous, so-called “pioneers” was discovered by Japanese imperialists promoting a new wave of Japanese southward expansion in the spirit of claiming leadership in Pan-Asianism.

This new interest in historical actors led to a surge in source editions and historical writing that would push the image of the Japanese samurais’ essential role in Southeast Asian development and civilization to the extreme. While this has been debunked, the idea of a unique Japanese presence in Manila and the heroization of certain individuals in the presence still lingers in the collective memory and is used for various agendas, such as the beatification process of the “Christ’s Samurai” Takayama Ukon in 2017.

Birgit Tremml-Werner