An Introduction to African and Afro-Diasporic Peoples and Influences in British Literature and Culture before the Industrial Revolution

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Renaissance and early modern scholarship is increasingly reclaiming the presence and significance of race and Black lives in English history, challenging a long tradition of exclusion and misrepresentation.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The reclamation movement: scholars, institutions, and public events are bringing attention to race in Renaissance and early modern studies after a history of marginalization.
• Key scholarly contributions: recent books and archives document Black Tudor society, race in early modern England, and Black lives in English archives from 1550–1677.
• Shift from description to judgment: English travel narratives transformed "blackness" from a neutral skin-color descriptor into a racist judgment tied to assumptions of barbarity.
• Common confusion: early theories wrongly attributed skin color solely to climate; travelers like John Pory concluded it must be hereditary when climate alone couldn't explain variations.
• Fabrication and stereotype: many English travel narratives were extensively invented, projecting fears and stereotypes (e.g., "savage killers," importing Asian tigers into African descriptions) onto peoples they never actually encountered.

📚 The scholarly reclamation effort

📚 Institutional and public engagement

• The Globe Theatre and University of Sussex held a "Shakespeare and Race" event in August 2018.
• Ayanna Thompson convened a "Race Before Race" symposium in January 2019 at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
• A sequel symposium, "Race and Periodization," was co-sponsored by the Center and the Folger Shakespeare Library in September 2019.
• Twitter conversations (#RaceB4Race) extended the scholarly dialogue beyond academic venues.
• These efforts demonstrate the "outsider status of critical race studies approaches to Renaissance scholarship broadly and to Shakespeare studies in particular" is being challenged.

📖 Key scholarly works

The excerpt lists several important contributions to documenting race and Black presence in early modern England:

Author(s)	Title	Focus
Miranda Kaufmann	Black Tudors: The Untold Story	Black lives in Tudor England
Onyeka Nubia	England's Other Countrymen: Black Tudor Society	Black Tudor society
Ania Loomba & Jonathan Burton	Race in Early Modern England: A Documentary Companion	Documentary evidence of race
Imtiaz Habib	Black Lives in the English Archives, 1550-1677: Imprints of the Invisible	Archival traces of Black lives
Susheila Nasta & Mark U. Stein (eds.)	The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing	Black and Asian British writing history

• These works recover "imprints of the invisible"—evidence of Black presence that has been overlooked or excluded.
• The scholarship addresses both Tudor and early modern periods (roughly 1500–1677).

🗺️ English travel narratives and fabrication

🗺️ The Cape of Good Hope as contact point

• To sail between England and Asia, ships typically required a resupply break at the Cape of Good Hope (southwest coast of Africa).
• Since the 1590s, these stops exposed English sailors and traders to native peoples and Dutch East India Company settlers.
• English people at home had "significant interest in reading their travel narratives."

🎭 Extensive fabrication in travel accounts

Many travel narratives "were extensively fabricated."

Example: Thomas Stevens' letter in Richard Hakluyt's The Principal Navigations

• Stevens wrote from "no more than five miles from the Cape" that the land was "so full of Tigers, and people that are savage, and killers of all strangers."
• Linda E. Merians notes Stevens "never set foot on land at the Cape."
• He "reports far beyond what he could possibly have witnessed."
• He "imagines barbarous peoples" and "imports tigers (native not to Africa but to Asia)."

Why this matters:

• Travelers' expectations were "so set" that they projected stereotypes onto peoples they never encountered.
• These fabrications shaped English perceptions of African peoples at home.

🖊️ Pattern of praise and dismissal

• English narratives about the Cape throughout the seventeenth century "tend to praise themselves and the landscape of the Cape while dismissing and denigrating the peoples."
• The narratives elevate English travelers and African geography while dehumanizing African peoples.

🔄 Transformation of "blackness" from description to judgment

🔄 The shift traced by Merians

Linda E. Merians traces a critical transformation in how English writers used the term "blackness":

Before the shift:

• Blackness was "a descriptive of skin color, generally without associating the people's color with the travelers' assumptions about their morals and culture."
• It functioned as a neutral physical observation.

After the shift:

• Blackness became "a racist judgment where the description of blackness was tied to a judgment of barbarity."
• Skin color became conflated with moral and cultural inferiority.

Don't confuse:

• The term "blackness" itself didn't change, but its meaning and associations transformed from neutral description to racist judgment.
• This shift reflects how language can encode and reinforce prejudice over time.

🌍 Widespread English perceptions

• The beliefs about African peoples "reinforce and are reinforced by widespread English perceptions of blackness as signaling immorality."
• Matthieu A. Chapman writes that "most scholars [...] today [believe] that the early modern English placed blacks at one of two extremes: either as objects to be feared and loathed or as objects of exoticism and wonder."
• Both extremes dehumanize: one through fear and hatred, the other through objectification and othering.

🌡️ Theories of skin color and their contradictions

🌡️ The climate theory challenged

• One popular theory held that hot climate caused dark skin.
• The peoples of the Cape provided "a counter-example to one popular theory of skin color."

John Pory's observation (in Leo Africanus's The History and Description of Africa):

• "It could not be a hot climate that made the people of the Cape so dark skinned, as there are other even hotter climates where the people are much lighter skinned."
• Pory concludes that "skin color must be hereditary."

Why this matters:

• The climate theory was empirically inadequate—it couldn't explain observed variations.
• The shift to hereditary explanations laid groundwork for later racial categorizations.
• Don't confuse: Pory's conclusion was based on observing inconsistencies in the climate theory, not on understanding genetics (which didn't exist as a science at the time).

🧬 From environment to inheritance

• The move from environmental (climate) to hereditary explanations represents an important conceptual shift.
• Hereditary explanations could more easily support fixed racial categories and hierarchies.
• Example: If climate determines skin color, moving to a different climate might change it; if heredity determines it, the characteristic becomes fixed and inheritable, supporting ideas of permanent racial difference.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

English travel narratives from the seventeenth century fabricated and exaggerated accounts of African peoples, transforming neutral descriptions of skin color into racist judgments that linked blackness to barbarity and immorality.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Fabricated narratives: English travelers extensively invented details about Africa, reporting things they never witnessed (e.g., tigers in Africa, savage peoples at the Cape).
• Transformation of blackness: Descriptions of skin color shifted from neutral observations to racist judgments associating blackness with barbarity and immorality.
• Climate theory debunked: Observations at the Cape disproved the theory that hot climates caused dark skin, leading to the conclusion that skin color was hereditary.
• Common confusion: Don't confuse early neutral descriptions of skin color with later racist judgments—the shift happened gradually through the seventeenth century.
• Classical prejudices imported: Renaissance veneration of Greek and Roman literature brought ancient prejudices into English culture, reinforcing negative perceptions of blackness.

📖 Fabricated travel narratives

📖 Extensive invention in exploration accounts

• English people at home had significant interest in reading travel narratives from explorers, but many accounts were extensively fabricated.
• Travelers reported far beyond what they could possibly have witnessed, shaped by their pre-existing expectations.

🐅 The Thomas Stevens example

• Richard Hakluyt's The Principal Navigations included a letter from sailor Thomas Stevens describing the Cape area.
• Stevens reported seeing land "full of Tigers, and people that are savage, and killers of all strangers" from "no more than five miles from the Cape."
• The fabrication: Stevens "never set foot on land at the Cape"—he imagined barbarous peoples and imported tigers (which are native to Asia, not Africa).
• Example: A traveler describes dangerous animals and peoples from a distance without ever landing, yet presents it as eyewitness observation.

🎭 Pattern of praise and dismissal

• English narratives throughout the seventeenth century tended to:
  • Praise themselves and the landscape of the Cape
  • Dismiss and denigrate the peoples

🔄 The transformation of blackness

🔄 From neutral description to racist judgment

The transformation of blackness: the shift from using blackness as a descriptive of skin color (generally without associating color with assumptions about morals and culture) to a racist judgment where blackness was tied to barbarity.

• Initially, descriptions of skin color were relatively neutral observations.
• Over the seventeenth century, these descriptions became loaded with moral and cultural judgments.
• The key change: blackness became a signal of immorality and barbarity, not just a physical description.

🌍 The climate theory challenge

• The peoples of the Cape provided a counter-example to one popular theory of skin color.
• The theory: Hot climates made people dark-skinned.
• The observation: John Pory (in Leo Africanus's The History and Description of Africa) noted that the Cape people were very dark-skinned, yet there were other even hotter climates where people were much lighter-skinned.
• The conclusion: Skin color must be hereditary, not caused by climate.
• Don't confuse: This conclusion about heredity was not neutral science—it became part of the framework for racist categorization.

🏛️ Classical and cultural reinforcement

🏛️ English perceptions of blackness

• Widespread English perceptions linked blackness to immorality.
• According to Matthieu A. Chapman, most scholars today believe that early modern English placed blacks at one of two extremes:
  • Objects to be feared and loathed, or
  • Objects of exoticism and wonder

📚 Renaissance veneration and imported prejudices

• These prejudices connected to A Summary of the Antiquities and Wonders of the World, a travelogue by Pliny the Elder (a first-century Roman).
• This work was published in English in 1566.
• The mechanism: Renaissance veneration of classical Greek and Roman literature and philosophy brought with it those cultures' prejudices as well.
• Example: An ancient Roman text's negative portrayals of African peoples were absorbed into English culture through the revival of classical learning.

⚠️ Key distinctions

⚠️ Neutral vs. racist description

Aspect	Early descriptions	Later racist judgments
Focus	Skin color as physical observation	Skin color tied to moral/cultural judgments
Associations	Generally without moral assumptions	Linked to barbarity and immorality
Timeline	Before/early seventeenth century	Throughout seventeenth century

• The transformation was gradual, not instantaneous.
• The same physical observation (blackness) acquired entirely different meanings over time.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Christian theology and the Crusades embedded racist attitudes into European—including British—religious thought from Christianity's earliest days through the Renaissance, shaping how race was constructed and justified through theological revision and religious conflict.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Early Christian "ethnic reasoning": theological texts framed conversion as transformation into a superior people, implying non-Christians were less human—a foundation for later racial hierarchies.
• Crusades as race-making: European encounters with Muslim peoples during the Crusades constructed enemies as "less than human" and "dirt," establishing enduring stereotypes (e.g., the Assassins legend) that persist into the twenty-first century.
• Biblical revisions inscribing racism: Renaissance mass production and translation of Bibles (e.g., King James Bible) wove political and cultural agendas—including justifications for racism and slavery—into scripture.
• Common confusion: Christian theology appears universalist and inclusive (e.g., Ethiopian baptism in Acts), yet it carried both "antiracist" and "racist potential" through its rhetoric of peoplehood and superiority.
• Why it matters: these theological and historical patterns embedded racist ideas into British Christianity, elevating and spreading them alongside the faith itself.

⛪ Early Christian theology and racist potential

⛪ Universalist claims vs. embedded racism

Early Christian theology: inclusive and universalist on the surface—all peoples are God's creations—but carried both "antiracist" and "racist potential."

• What the excerpt shows: Christian scriptures portray global reach (apostles speaking all diaspora languages in Acts 2:5–11; an Ethiopian court official among the first baptized in Acts 8:26–38).
• The contradiction: while theology was inclusive, it also connected to "older patterns of discrimination" and extended support for "contemporary racist thought and action."
• Why it matters: racist attitudes were "baked into" Christian theology, meaning they were elevated and reinforced as Christianity spread through Britain.

🧬 "Ethnic reasoning" as a rhetorical strategy

Ethnic reasoning: a rhetorical strategy using ideas of peoplehood to communicate what it means to become and be Christian.

• How it works: early Christian texts (late first through early third centuries) guided audiences to see conversion as transformation from one descent group/tribe/citizenship to a "new and better one."
• The racist potential: claiming Christian belonging is "the full expression of humanness" implies non-Christians are less human or exist on a lower plane.
• Example: a white English population could easily transfer religious superiority onto the physical and cultural characteristics of other peoples and races they encountered.
• Don't confuse: the theology of rebirth into a new Christian life is not inherently racist, but its framing of transformation into a superior people created openings for racial hierarchy.

⚔️ The Crusades and race-making

⚔️ Crusades as uncoordinated violence

• What happened: eight separate crusades (late eleventh through late thirteenth centuries) launched from Europe (including England) to take the "Holy Land" from Muslim control.
• The reality: not discrete, well-organized campaigns—disparate groups of Europeans (many not trained soldiers) made uncoordinated journeys over years, facing hostile terrain, starvation, disease, and death.
• Cultural impact: while no significant lands were permanently claimed, the Crusades shaped European attitudes toward race in lasting ways.

🧱 Constructing enemies as "less than human"

• The "process of race-making": Europeans perceived Middle Eastern enemies as not "fully human."
• Figurations of Muslims: viewed as living "dirt" (Bernard of Clairvaux: "pagan dirt had to be eliminated from the Holy Land").
• Why this matters: as often happens in wars between racially different peoples, the enemy is figured as "less than human," an evaluation articulated along lines of racial inferiority.

🗡️ The Assassins legend and enduring stereotypes

The Assassins of Alamut: a largely mythical secretive group of heretical Muslims, highly trained killers devoted to "The Old Man of the Mountain," operating from mountainous Persia, Iraq, and Syria.

• Historical truth: these legends were "largely without historical truth."
• How it spread: found "wide currency in Europe, where the knowledge of all things Islamic verged on complete ignorance"; romantic tales told by returning Crusaders achieved "ready popularity."
• Key vehicle: Mandeville's Travels (appeared in every major European language, hundreds of copies still exist) "compactly and economically summoned" Islamic civilization through "the fantasy of the Assassins."
• Persistence: figurations of Islamic peoples as violent, secretive murderers "should sound very familiar to twenty-first century ears"; scholars have drawn parallels between the Assassins and modern suicide bombers.
• Don't confuse: these were myths, not historical fact, yet they shaped European (including English) attitudes for centuries.

📖 Renaissance Biblical revisions

📖 Explosion of Bible production and translation

• What happened: during the Renaissance, the Bible underwent mass production, translation, and reinterpretation across Europe.
• Key developments:
  • Movable type printing → Gutenberg Bible (1450s)
  • Protestant Reformation (Martin Luther, early 1500s) → Bibles translated out of Latin into spoken languages
  • King James Bible (commissioned 1604, nearly fifty clergy worked a decade) → most widely published and distributed Bible in the world

🧩 Weaving racism into scripture

• The problem: across the "vast array of versions, translations, and reinterpretations," various political, social, and cultural commitments and agendas were woven in.
• Specific to racism: these Bibles included "expressions of and justifications for racism and slavery."
• Example mentioned: "The Curse of Ham" stands as "the most well-known example" of theological abuses—a story revised to serve "nefarious purposes" (the excerpt notes this will be explored later in the section).
• Why it matters: theological and Biblical writings were "twisted" to justify enslavement of Africans throughout the Atlantic slave trade and ongoing disenfranchisement after abolition.

🔗 Summary of theological racism's path into Britain

Stage	Mechanism	Result
Early Christianity	"Ethnic reasoning" framed conversion as transformation into superior people	Racist attitudes embedded in theology from the start
Roman conquest	Christianity (with embedded racism) arrived in the British Isles	Destructive ideas elevated and spread alongside the faith
Crusades	Europeans encountered and constructed Muslim peoples as "less than human"	Race-making process; enduring stereotypes (e.g., Assassins)
Renaissance	Mass production and translation of Bibles	Racism and slavery justifications woven into scripture

• The through-line: racist and denigrating attitudes were "baked into Christian theology and writings," meaning they were "elevated, spread, and reinforced along with Christianity itself throughout Britain's history."

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The label "Black" in Britain has historically been applied more broadly than in America—encompassing Irish, Italian, Asian, and other disparaged immigrant groups—and reflects how disempowered communities have been stereotyped and discriminated against based on class, ethnicity, and perceived difference rather than solely African ancestry.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• "Black" means different things in different contexts: In America it usually refers to African ancestry; in Britain it has historically included Irish, Italian, Asian, and other groups subjected to discrimination.
• Class and wealth matter: Immigrants who were poor or working class were disparaged and feared, while wealthy immigrants were welcomed and included.
• "Political blackness" as coalition: Multiple minority communities recognized their shared experience of discrimination and formed a collective identity to work against various racial and ethnic oppressions.
• Common confusion: Don't assume "Black" always means the same thing across time and place—the label has been used to mark many different groups as inferior, not just people of African descent.
• Historical depth: Afro-Diasporic peoples have been in Britain since at least the Roman occupation (43–410 AD), though substantial records become more available in the last five centuries.

🏷️ The shifting meaning of "Black"

🏷️ American vs British usage

"Black" in America usually refers to a person who appears to have African ancestry. In British contexts the label, historically, has been used more broadly.

• The Cambridge Dictionary defines "Black" as "relating or belonging to people with black or dark brown skin," but qualifies this as signifying "especially people who live in Africa or whose family originally came from Africa."
• The word "especially" signals that African ancestry is not the only meaning.
• Example: Irish, Italian, and Asian peoples have all been labeled "Black" in British history.

🌍 Who has been called "Black" in Britain

The excerpt shows that many immigrant groups have been stereotyped and treated as a collective "all those ____ from ____":

• Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, and Normans all immigrated (often as invading forces).
• Afro-Diasporic peoples have been in Britain since at least the Roman occupation, serving in the Roman military.
• Irish and Polish people, as well as Traveller communities, have been "approached by the majority as though [their identities] are innate and unchangeable."

Don't confuse: The label "Black" in British history is not synonymous with African ancestry; it has marked many groups subjected to discrimination.

💰 Class and wealth as filters for inclusion

💰 Who was welcomed vs disparaged

The excerpt notes a "general tendency to disparage or fear immigrants who were poor or working class but welcome and include immigrants who were wealthy."

• Wealth determined whether an immigrant group was accepted or stereotyped.
• This pattern held across different ethnic and racial groups.
• Example: The same ethnic background could lead to different treatment depending on economic status.

🗓️ When records become substantial

• Historic records of Afro-Diasporic peoples in Britain become "more substantial and available within the last five centuries."
• In the late 1700s, documentation of writings by Black Britons (letters, political publications) begins to be readily found.
• The excerpt emphasizes that presence does not equal documentation—people were there long before records became common.

🤝 "Political blackness" as coalition

🤝 What "political blackness" means

"Political blackness": a concept highlighting the commonalities shared among different non-white experiences of life in Britain.

• The idea emerged because "there was a tendency to offer racist denigration of many different peoples under the label 'Black.'"
• People subjected to this discrimination recognized the potential in working together.
• The excerpt describes it as an "as far as the racists are against us all, we are all kind of Black" attitude.
• It produced a coalition working against a range of racial and ethnic discriminations.

⚠️ Problems with "political blackness"

The excerpt acknowledges that this identity marker is "problematic" because "it was defined largely in terms of exclusion or oppression."

• The coalition was built on what people were against (discrimination) rather than what they were for (shared culture or heritage).
• It grouped together very different communities based solely on their experience of being marginalized.

🖼️ Visual and linguistic tactics of discrimination

🖼️ Caricature as a tool

The excerpt includes a detailed description of an 1846 political cartoon by John Leech titled "Young Ireland in Business for Himself":

Element	How it denigrates
Misspelling "illicit" as "ILICANT"	Mocks the Irish accent
Shop full of weapons	Identifies the Irish with violence
Both Irishmen "caricatured to resemble apes"	Suggests they are "somehow less than human"
Customer's "weapon" is a farmer's sickle	Implies even peaceful tools are turned to violence

• This tactic was "common" among editorial cartoonists "in both the US and the UK."
• The same visual strategy (drawing people to resemble apes) was used against "Africans and Afro-Diasporic peoples."

Don't confuse: The ape caricature was not unique to one group—it was applied to multiple disparaged communities to suggest they were less than human.

🗣️ The double bind of identity

The excerpt notes that disempowered groups face contradictory demands:

• They are "maligned as inherently inferior" (identity is treated as innate and unchangeable).
• They are also "condemned for failing to leave their racial, ethnic, or cultural distinctiveness" (identity is treated as a choice).
• This double standard serves "as a means of maintaining the power differential."

Example: Irish and Polish people, as well as Traveller communities, are "sometimes approached by the majority as though [their identities] are innate and unchangeable, and at other times as though [their identities] are simply a choice that people ought to be able to opt into or out of."

🕰️ Contemporary Britain and the Windrush Generation

🕰️ Who "Black" refers to today

"In Britain today, 'Black' tends to be most focused upon two groups: people with recent African ancestry and people with recent Caribbean ancestry."

• The meaning has narrowed compared to historical usage.
• Contemporary conversations about immigration often note the "Windrush Generation."

🚢 The Windrush Generation

The Windrush Generation: the people who came to Britain from the rest of the former British Empire—especially from the Caribbean—following the Second World War.

• After WWII, a shortage of workers led Britain to legislatively promote migration from former colonies.
• This migration was officially encouraged, not merely tolerated.
• The name refers to a specific historical moment and policy, not all Black people in Britain.

🧬 Roots of discrimination in language and history

🧬 How "dark" and "black" became marks of inferiority

The excerpt states that "the various ways that 'dark' and 'black' became marks of inferiority and linguistic and visual cues for the discrimination against and denigration of peoples of many different geographical origins and physical complexions is complex and situated in many different historical moments and contexts."

• The association is not natural or inevitable; it was constructed over time.
• It applies to "many different geographical origins and physical complexions," not just one group.
• "Signs and traces of characterizations of people who are less valued or less influential as 'black' or as related to Africa exist since before the island of Britain became home to England."

🔗 Connection to ongoing discrimination

The excerpt ties historical patterns to the present: "This kind of understanding of Blackness that is clearly manifest in recent centuries and has been tied to the trade in enslaved peoples as well as ongoing discrimination is rooted in history."

• The slave trade is one root, but not the only one.
• Discrimination continues and is connected to these historical constructions.
• Understanding the history helps explain why "Black" has meant different things at different times.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Understanding Black people's historical presence in Britain—from Roman times through the present—challenges narrow narratives that position Black history as limited to Caribbean slavery or post-World War Two immigration, revealing instead a complex, continuous presence that reshapes how we understand British history and contemporary racism.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Why study Black history in Britain: It enriches our understanding of the past and reveals that phenomena like globalization and environmental destruction have deep roots in colonialism, not just recent origins.
• Two major distortions to overcome: the false beliefs that Black people were enslaved only in the Caribbean and that Britain's Black population only began after World War Two.
• Common confusion—slavery's geography: Enslaved Black people were routinely brought to Britain in the eighteenth century to work in British houses, not just on Caribbean plantations; slavery was not "elsewhere."
• Class and race intersection: Middle-class West Indian migrants in the 1950s faced uniform racism in Britain regardless of their professional qualifications, dissolving prior class distinctions.
• Broad framing benefits: Organizing scholarship under "Black" (people of African descent) creates institutional strength and solidarity despite encompassing diverse histories across Africa, Britain, the Caribbean, the US, and South America.

📚 Correcting historical narratives

📚 The two persistent myths

The excerpt identifies two widespread misconceptions that historians continuously work to overcome:

1. Geographic myth: Black people were enslaved only in the Caribbean
2. Temporal myth: Britain has only had a Black population since the end of World War Two

Both are demonstrably wrong according to historical evidence.

🏛️ Evidence of continuous presence

• Roman times: Archaeological analysis shows Black people have been in Britain since the Roman period.
• Cheddar Man (2019): Scientists revealed that the oldest human skeleton found in Britain likely had dark skin.
• Eighteenth century: Enslaved Black people were routinely brought to Britain to work in British houses of West Indian plantation owners.

Don't confuse: The trans-Atlantic slave trade with the totality of Black history in Britain; overemphasizing the trade "potentially drowns out" findings about the much longer Black presence.

🏠 Local examples—Pero Jones and Fanny Coker

Example: In Bristol, two enslaved people, Pero Jones and Fanny Coker, were brought to live at John Pinney's house (he owned a Nevis plantation). Their stories, told by local historians and activists, challenge the narrative that "slavery somehow took place elsewhere."

• At one stage it was fashionable to have Black servants; many were treated like accessories.
• These individuals contribute to re-writing the idea that slavery was geographically distant from Britain.

🔍 Recovering unnamed histories

🔍 Beyond famous individuals

The excerpt emphasizes recovering "Black people whose names and identities we will never know; ordinary people who left no material traces other than their bodies."

🦴 Bioarchaeology and creative writing

The Literary Archaeology project combined bioarchaeology with creative writing:

What bioarchaeologists can learn from skeletons:

• Where a person was born
• Age at death
• Diet
• Type of work performed
• Health and wellbeing information

Ethical dimension: The project was "as much concerned with the ethics of bringing their lives into being through creative writing as it was with what their life experiences were."

• Examined individuals from burial grounds in Barbados and Gran Canaria
• Focused on people who "had neither told their own story nor had stories told by others about them"
• These unnamed individuals "can tell us new stories about Black history"

🎓 Pedagogical implications

🎓 Why read "alien" literature

For students who find pre-nineteenth-century British literature alien (another time, country, and race), the excerpt argues:

"If we only read literature that we think relates to us, speaks to us, is relevant to us and our time, country, and race, then we risk only reading about what is already familiar, known, or understood."

Benefits of reading outside one's immediate context:

• Sparks new ideas and trains of thought
• Reveals why certain voices were excluded
• Shows the role Black representation had in literary development
• Enhances understanding of "forms of thought and expression which still occur today, albeit in different form"

Don't confuse: Correcting white supremacy in curricula with reversing exclusion—the answer is not "to reverse this so that we only consider the literature written by one 'race' of people."

📖 Understanding roots of current worlds

Close reading of Renaissance and eighteenth-century literature may reveal "some of the roots of our current literary and social worlds," even if that literature was not concerned with Black lives.

🌍 Race, class, and identity formation

🌍 West Indian migration and class dissolution

1950s onwards migration pattern:

• Many West Indian migrants were middle class
• Many were qualified teachers or professionals
• Once in Britain, they could only access factory jobs or trades below their education level
• Others were recruited for London Transport (bus conductors, tube drivers) or NHS (nurses)

Key insight: "Whatever background they may have come from in the Caribbean, once in Britain they were all treated in the same way."

Before migration	After arrival in Britain
Class divisions existed	Divisions dissolved in face of British racism
Various professional backgrounds	Uniform racist treatment regardless of qualifications
Local Caribbean identities	Began to understand themselves as "West Indian" or "Caribbean"

Identity formation: West Indians "only began to understand themselves as West Indian or Caribbean when they came to Britain"—the identity was forged through shared experience of racism.

🌐 Contemporary parallels and institutional framing

🌐 UK-US comparisons

Similarities between Black experiences in Britain and America:

• Police brutality is a shared issue
• Tendency for American racism to dominate UK public attention (though this may be changing)

2020 global BLM movement: Placed renewed attention on Black deaths at the hands of British police.

Contemporary artistic responses:

• Steve McQueen's Small Axe (2020): Films about pervasive racism in 1960s-1970s Britain
• Lee Lawrence's The Louder I Will Sing: Account of his mother Cherry Groce's death after police shooting left her permanently disabled
• Roy McFarlane's The Healing Next Time (2018): Poetry addressing police killings after Mark Duggan's shooting (sparked 2011 London riots)

🏛️ Centre for Black Humanities framing

Deliberate breadth: "The artistic and intellectual work of people of African descent"

Historical complexity of "Black" in Britain:

• 1970s-80s: Used by coalitions of ethnic minority groups fighting racism (e.g., Southall Black Sisters)
• Today in Britain: Refers to people of Afro-Caribbean or African descent

Benefits that make the risk of blurring distinctions worthwhile:

Benefit type	Specific advantage
Institutional/structural	Space for scholars to support each other in eradicating university racism and addressing curriculum gaps
Solidarity	Strength in collective framing despite diverse specific projects
Intellectual	Congruences in work across different geographic focuses (Africa, Britain, Caribbean, US, South America)

Acknowledged risk: Could be seen as "essentialising Blackness and playing into the hands of those who would rather not have to consider it."

Counter-argument: The Centre has "found strength and solidarity in framing the Centre in this way," prioritizing collective action over concerns about overgeneralization.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The erasure of Black British history before the twentieth century—despite a continuous African presence in Britain from the sixteenth century onward—distorts both Britain's multicultural identity and the full complexity of African-European interactions, making it essential to integrate Black voices and experiences into canonical British literature courses rather than isolating them in separate curricula.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Continuous presence: Africans lived in Britain consistently from around the sixteenth century (after Roman-era contact), with roughly 20,000 Africans in eighteenth-century London alone, working across all social classes.
• Slavery vs. freedom: Slavery was not legally allowed in England itself (though Black servants risked being sold abroad), meaning most Black Britons were free citizens who married, worked, and were baptized alongside white counterparts—a key distinction from the American context.
• Distorted emphasis: Overemphasizing the trans-Atlantic slave trade minimizes Africa's own rich history and agency, obscures the complexity of African-British interactions (cultural, economic, social), and falsely mirrors the American slavery narrative.
• Common confusion—class and race: Black Britons spanned all class levels (from royal court to working class), not just enslavement or poverty; conflating race with lower class erases figures like Dido Elizabeth (wealthy elite) and John Blanke (royal trumpeter).
• Curricular integration: Black British authors and figures (e.g., Mary Seacole, Olaudah Equiano) should be included in general British literature surveys, not only in standalone "diversity" courses, to show their natural place in the canon and avoid further "othering."

📚 Why Black British history matters

📚 Evidence of continuous African presence

• Scholars Edward Scobie and Gretchen Gerzina document a consistent African presence in Britain from the sixteenth century (after initial Roman contact in the fourth and fifth centuries).
• Roughly 20,000 Africans lived in eighteenth-century London.
• This changes the perception of Britain's makeup and its relationship with Africa—it was not a monoculture.

🎺 Notable Black Britons across eras

Name	Period/Role	Significance
John Blanke	Tudor era	Black trumpeter for Henry VII and VIII
Olaudah Equiano	18th century	Author; "deserves place in any list of Great Britons"
Dido Elizabeth	18th century	Grandniece of Lord Mansfield (Chief Justice); wealthy elite
Mary Seacole	Victorian era	Jamaican-British businesswoman and nurse (Crimean War); wrote autobiography
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor	Victorian era	Composer
Sarah Forbes Bonetta	Victorian era	Queen Victoria's goddaughter; assisted Sierra Leone project

• Many Black Britons were "ordinary people who lived ordinary lives"—citizens who worked, married, were baptized, and died, showing integration into regular British society.
• Their stories are mostly lost because anthologies (the main teaching tool) do not include cutting-edge scholarship on Black British history.

🚫 The problem of anthology omissions

• Most students encounter Victorian (and earlier) literature only through survey anthologies.
• Anthologies are efficient and affordable but sacrifice narratives of Black Britons.
• This omission is especially troubling for future teachers in urban (diverse) environments, as it perpetuates incomplete narratives.
• Example: Students learn British literature as "by and for people of another time, country, and race," missing the multicultural reality.

⚠️ Distortions from overemphasizing the slave trade

⚠️ Minimizing Africa's agency and history

The distortion "greatly minimizes Africa's agency as a continent rich with its own history and culture outside of outside influence."

• Overemphasis on the trans-Atlantic slave trade paints Africa as "a mere pawn in the building of the greatness of Western Europe instead of a major site of greatness in its own right."
• It oversimplifies the history: Africa was already engaged in slavery before the British; Portugal brought enslaved Africans to Europe in 1444.
• Not all slaves were African—the word "slave" derives from "Slav," referring to Slavonic people enslaved by the Holy Roman Empire from the tenth century.

🔄 Obscuring the complexity of African-British interactions

• Britain's history with Africa spans from just before the fall of the Roman Empire—far more than "merely transactional and superficial."
• Interactions included labor (not only slavery but also cultural work: plays, music, literature, exhibitions).
• Black Britons contributed to the arts: Olaudah Equiano, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Mary Seacole.
• Britain was "very much enamored with all things African" (eighteenth- and nineteenth-century blackamoor art, African bizarres), though Africans themselves lived precariously.

🪞 False mirror with American history

• The distortion "creates a false mirror with that of America's history with the trans-Atlantic slave trade, also a minimized and distorted history."
• Key difference: Slavery was not allowed in England (though Black servants could be sold abroad, e.g., Jonathan Strong, a seventeen-year-old African in the late eighteenth century).
• Most Black Britons were free, not enslaved—this is a crucial distinction often lost.

🏴 Britain's identity struggle and racialization

• "The British only became white once Africa entered the picture" (Gerzina).
• Before the sixteenth century, Britain was a "fledgling kingdom" compared to Spain, Portugal, and France (who began the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the fifteenth century).
• Britain did not "successfully" join the slave trade until the 1640s (after John Hawkins's failed attempt in the 1560s).
• By the end of the nineteenth century, Britain was a world superpower, with slavery driving economic success—yet the Somerset case (1772) reasserted that there were to be no slaves in England.
• This contradiction (profiting from slavery abroad while banning it at home) is often ignored in popular narratives.

🎭 Race, class, and social integration

🎭 Black Britons across all social classes

• Despite precarious existence, Black Britons "basically covered all the class systems, from the royal court to enslavement."
• Royal court and elite:
  • John Blanke (trumpeter for Henry VII and VIII)
  • Sarah Forbes Bonetta (Queen Victoria's goddaughter)
  • Dido Elizabeth (grandniece of Chief Justice Lord Mansfield)
  • African kings sent sons to be educated in Britain.
• Working class:
  • Most Black Britons lived among the working classes, working alongside white counterparts as servants and in entertainment.
  • During King James I's reign, young Black boys were sometimes kept as "pets" by wealthy families, dressed exotically to show off the mistress's white skin.
• "Noble Savage" trope: "This English love of the 'Noble Savage,' the Black man of talent and accomplishment, has never failed to excite wonder"—Britain praised Black writers, poets, singers, musicians, cricketers, athletes, boxers, while maintaining social and constitutional barriers.

🔍 Don't confuse race with class

• The stereotypical image of "the enslaved African or the poor Black person in an urban area" is incomplete.
• Black Britons were integrated: intermarrying, attending church, receiving proper Christian burials.
• They were "not in the shadows or nameless, faceless denizens ignored by the greater British society."
• Social status (not skin color alone) determined treatment in Tudor times: "In many ways, [Black] lives were no worse than those of the vast majority of Tudors: 'nasty, brutish, and short,' but this was the result of having no social standing, not of having dark skin."

🧩 Intersection of race and class

• Understanding the complete intersection dispels misconceptions about Blackness.
• Black Britons were not entirely treated as second-class citizens "as might be supposed or expected."
• However, xenophobia was still an issue, and all outsiders were initially distrusted.
• Black Britons had few civil rights (similar to America), despite some level of integration.

👩🏾‍⚕️ Mary Seacole as a lost voice

👩🏾‍⚕️ Why Mary Seacole matters

• Jacobs highlights Mary Seacole as "part of the lost history of Black people in Britain" due to the gendered nature of canonical literature (male voices, regardless of race, get more attention than female voices).
• Seacole was a Jamaican-British businesswoman who served as a nurse during the Crimean War.
• She wrote her own autobiography detailing her experiences, yet received little attention compared to Florence Nightingale.

📖 What her narrative reveals

• Written in her own words during the Victorian Era, "where Black British voices seem to have been practically silenced."
• She "carefully crafted her narrative to appeal to a predominantly white British audience."
• As a mixed-race woman (Scottish father, Jamaican mother), her experiences show "the delicate nature of her social status: free, but with limited civil rights."
• Her story gives "a name and face to a Black British citizen during a time period where she, according to popular thought, was not thought to exist."
• Her tenacity provides "a snapshot of Black British Victorian life."

🎓 Curricular inclusion and pedagogy

🎓 The problem of separation

• Many institutions offer standalone courses on literature of people of color (e.g., African American Literature), which is "truly amazing work."
• However, these works "should not solely be separated from the general context from which they emerged."
• Risk of separation: Further marks these literatures as "Other" instead of part of the bigger picture of the canons themselves.

🔗 Integration, not isolation

"Much like works by women authors are not typically separated from their male counterparts, so should the works of people of color or minorities be integrated into the larger literary canon in which they exist."

• African experience is already integrated within Victorian literature, even if minute (e.g., Miss Swartz in Vanity Fair, Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre).
• Integrating these works provides "a fuller picture of Western Literature, illustrating the true complexity of the Western experience."
• Students should see these works as "not being extraordinary inclusions, but routine or pedestrian in their inclusion so that it does not seem special, but natural."

📚 Concrete examples for courses

• Eighteenth Century Literature: Include William Ansah Sessarakoo's The African Prince: Or, Memoir of the Young Prince of Annamaboe (1750), a true account of an African prince sold into slavery.
• Victorian Literature: Include The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857).
• Students should be "exposed to these works and others like them in order to become accustomed to seeing diversity in practice."

🎉 Celebration without "othering"

• Yes, these works should be celebrated (e.g., a standalone Black British Literature course).
• But celebrations "should not further 'other' these works of literature."
• Celebrations could simply be "their inclusion alongside their white counterparts, elevating their voices, even when serving as counters to the messages and issues white authors address."

👑 Queen Elizabeth I and erasure

👑 Elizabeth I's attempts at expulsion

• Queen Elizabeth I sought the expulsion of Africans, signaling "a desire towards insularity and herself 'as the pure and fair national body.'"
• In 1596, her Privy Council gave merchant Casper Van Senden a special license to remove Africans with their master's permission (which he didn't always obtain).
• She tried to expel Africans based on the idea that "they were taking jobs from low-wage white workers."
• She saw the growing African population as "un-Christian," despite reports of Black Britons having baptisms, marriages, and burials in parish records.

🎭 Contradiction in her actions

• Despite her edicts, Elizabeth I employed African entertainers (like her father before her).
• She bankrolled Sir John Hawkins's slave trading efforts, which actually increased Britain's African population (along with freed slaves from captured Spanish ships).
• "Whatever the reality of the lack of enforcement of African repatriation attempts, the fact remains that lines were drawn: Elizabeth I did not want Africans in England or any others who she saw as damaging to British national identity."

🎪 Relegation to entertainment

• Africans were "deemed merely as sources of entertainment, thus not real people."
• Jacobs's research "failed to turn up any evidence that Africans born on English soil were to be considered English in terms of their national identity."
• "In essence, Africans were reduced in public thought and representation, with various attempts made to remove them from Britain altogether."

🔄 Contrast with King James I

• King James I "seemed to welcome Africans into the country," in contrast to Elizabeth I's exclusionary stance.

🌍 Legacy and visibility

🌍 Erasure vs. visibility

• African American legacy: "At least our history and our voices exist and have been given meaning in the greater American history and American literature. Our experiences matter and are well-known. We are visible, which makes a huge difference in our legacy."
• Black British legacy: "Their history practically starts after 1945, with the docking of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in 1948."
• Pre-twentieth-century Black British history is either "relegated to African or Caribbean history instead of British history or completely reduced to the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade."
• This separation "further 'others' the Black British experience and gives the false impression that the Black British story is simply one of immigration instead of one of integration."

🗣️ Racialized language in British literature

• Kim F. Hall explores racial linguistic markers in British works.
• While most scholars see mentions of blackness as religious, Hall notes their "double meaning to include the material nature of blackness with that of African people."
• This racialized language started in the mid-sixteenth century and appears in Shakespeare's plays (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello).
• "This racialized language could only truly result due to the physical presence of African people at the time this language morphed to include racial, and not just religious, implications."

🎬 Contemporary implications

• Summer 2020 videos: John Boyega's impassioned speech condemning the current state of affairs for Black Britons; Steven R. McQueen's Small Axe film series exposing the history of Britain's Caribbean population.
• "Much like in the US, more work is needed for understanding the depths of institutionalized racism in Western nations."
• African Americans can point to slavery as the catalyst; Black Britons and Britons in general "are largely ignorant of just how far back their catalyst begins, which is important for their journey towards racial justice."

🔑 Key takeaways for students and teachers

🔑 For African American students

• Initial impression: British literature is "by and for people of another time, country, and race."
• This impression "could stand to be corrected" significantly.
• Discovering Black British history "shook my entire understanding of the Black British experience, opening up a whole new world of British history I feel I had previously been denied."
• African American students will relate to "the concept of being both insider and outsider and feeling like a racialized Other, a concept practically intrinsic to the experiences of Black Britons."

🔑 For instructors

• "There are many gaps in knowledge, but with projects like these, these gaps should be getting closer to narrowing."
• Standalone courses on Black British literature are valuable, but integration into general surveys is essential.
• Students should understand "the true diversity within British literature, culture, and history."
• Example question to intrigue students: "How could a former slave-holding nation not have slaves on their soil, as in the U.S.?"

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Black people in Tudor and early Stuart England (c.1500–1640) had diverse experiences beyond enslavement—including intermarriage, baptism, skilled trades, and civil liberties—and recovering these histories challenges racist narratives and restores overlooked lives to the historical record.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What the evidence shows: Africans in Tudor England were not enslaved; they intermarried with English people, were baptized, testified in court, and held skilled occupations.
• Why overemphasizing enslavement distorts history: reducing Black British history to the slave trade reinforces stereotypes ("Africans had no history," "Africans never achieved anything") and can harm Black children's self-worth.
• Common confusion—race vs. class and religion: in early modern England, race was not the primary determinant of treatment; class (wealth, lineage), and especially religion (Christian vs. non-Christian) mattered more.
• Reading against the grain: sources were written by the white male elite, so historians must ask what documents reveal about Black people's own experiences, not just the writer's viewpoint.
• Why these histories matter today: understanding when and how racism emerged equips us to take antiracist action; telling these stories is a form of restitution.

📚 Why recover Black Tudor histories

📚 Intrinsic value and restitution

• These histories are "intrinsically fascinating" and "too little known."
• Telling Black people's stories is restitution: putting Black lives back into narratives that excluded them.
• Example: John Blanke (court trumpeter), Jacques Francis (salvage diver on the Mary Rose), Reasonable Blackman (Southwark silkweaver) all had lucrative skills and lived full lives that have been erased.

🛡️ Understanding racism's origins

• To fight racism today, we need to understand when and how it emerged and manifested.
• Before, during, and after British involvement in enslavement, Africans had "diverse experiences" in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland—very different from the British colonies.
• Don't confuse: the absence of plantation slavery in the British Isles does not mean Britain was uninvolved; Britain had Caribbean and mainland American colonies with enslaved labor.

⚠️ Harms of overemphasizing enslavement

⚠️ Reinforcing racist stereotypes

Reducing Black British history to enslavement "can actually bolster racist views":

• "Africa had no history before the Europeans arrived."
• "Africans never achieved anything."
• "Africans had no personhood."
• "Africans were all the same."

🧒 Impact on children

• When the only images of Africans in textbooks or museums are "Black bodies half naked and in chains," it can:
  • Turn Black children off history.
  • Undermine their sense of self-worth.
  • Perpetuate negative stereotypes in all young people.

🔍 What gets lost

• The full range of African experiences: skilled workers, artisans, princes, rural residents, waged sailors.
• Example: Edward Swarthye whipped a white man (a future colonizer) in Gloucestershire in 1596—"confounds our assumptions about who wielded the whip in history."

👤 Specific individuals and their significance

👤 Examples of diverse Black lives in Tudor England

Person	Occupation/Status	Why significant
John Blanke	Court trumpeter	Lucrative skill, royal service
Jacques Francis	Salvage diver (Mary Rose wreck)	Technical expertise
Reasonable Blackman	Southwark silkweaver	Artisan/businessman
Edward Swarthye	(whipped a white man, 1596)	Reverses power assumptions
Dederi Jaquoah	Prince from modern-day Liberia (visited London 1610–12)	Higher status than expected
Cattelena of Almondsbury	(rural resident)	Not all Africans lived in port cities
John Anthony	Waged sailor bound for Virginia, 1619	Contrast to the 20+ enslaved Angolans arriving in Jamestown the same year

👤 Why individual stories matter

• They show Africans "had diverse experiences," not a monolithic story.
• They challenge the "great men" narrative: most people in history were "ordinary," and their stories are worth telling.
• Modern audiences are interested in social history—how the majority of people lived.

📖 Black presence in British literature before the 19th century

📖 Black characters in early modern drama and poetry

• Beyond Shakespeare's well-known characters (Othello, Aaron, Cleopatra, Caliban, Prince of Morocco):
  • Gormund, King of the Africans, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1137 History of the Kings of Britain (said to have settled in Ireland and helped Saxons invade Britain).
  • Black characters in works by Webster, Massinger, Dekker, Fletcher, and others.
  • Eldred Jones listed 43 masques, plays, or pageants with Black characters (1510–1637).
  • Elliot Tokson identified 44 Black characters in 29 plays (1588–1689).
• Poetry: Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" sonnets have been suggested to be renamed "Black woman sonnets"; 17th-century poems like Eldred Revett's "One Enamour'd on a Black-Moor" were addressed to African women.
• Don't confuse: these are mostly texts by white men (exception: Aphra Behn's 1688 novel Oroonoko), but they show Black people were present in the cultural imagination.

📖 Works by people of color published in Britain

Not all writing by people of color was about enslavement:

Author	Work	Year	Notes
Ukawsaw Gronniosaw	Autobiographical "slave narrative"	1772
Olaudah Equiano	Autobiographical narrative	1789
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano	Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic...	1787	Abolitionist text
Ignatius Sancho	Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African	1782	Covered arts, politics, family, street life; first Black Briton to vote; portrait by Gainsborough
Phyllis Wheatley	Poetry (published in London)	1773	From Boston, but published in Britain
Sake Dean Mohammed	The Travels of Dean Mahomet	1794	First Indian to publish a book in English; "shampooing surgeon, restaurateur, entrepreneur"
Boston King	Autobiographical narrative	1798
Mary Prince	Autobiographical narrative	1831	19th century, but relevant

📖 Why this matters for students

• Challenges the impression that British literature is "by and for people of another time, country, and race."
• Shows "human qualities that unite us all, regardless of race, class, gender or time period."
• Provides a richer, more accurate picture of the literary landscape.

⚖️ Race, class, and religion in Tudor society

⚖️ Class and wealth

Class in Britain is not only about wealth; "birth" (lineage) and cultural capital also matter.

• Many "upper class" people bought their way in (e.g., buying land, building a house, purchasing a baronetcy for £1000 under James I).
• Think of class in terms of gradations of wealth: from rich elite to poverty line.
• Don't confuse: American society is not as classless as it may seem; wealth hierarchies exist there too.

⚖️ Race was not the primary determinant

In early modern England, race does not appear to be the primary determinant of how a person is treated:

• Moroccan embassies to Elizabeth I's court were treated with diplomatic courtesy.
• Francis Drake's Panama Maroon allies in the 1570s were treated as military allies.
• West African princes like Dederi Jaquoah were treated with dignity and returned home.
• However, Africans captured by privateers "had to start from scratch."

⚖️ Religion mattered most

Religion "was perhaps the most important factor of all in Tudor society that governed how people were treated."

• Fierce divisions between Catholics and Protestants.
• Non-Christians were not tolerated: Jewish people practiced in secret and had to attend Church services (non-attendance = fines).
• Why many Africans converted: baptism and Christian conformity were "necessary to make one's way in Tudor society."
• Example: many Africans were baptized after arriving in England, likely to gain acceptance and legal standing.

⚖️ Intersections

• Race and class often overlap, but in Tudor England, class and religion were more decisive.
• Example: a wealthy African prince received respect; a captured African had to rebuild status from nothing.

🔬 Reading against the grain

🔬 What it means

"Reading against the grain": asking what a source reveals about the Black person's experience, not just the white writer's viewpoint.

• Concept from Daniel K. Richter's work on Native Americans.
• Ask: "What can this tell us about the experience of the Black person? What did it mean to them?"

🔬 Challenges

• Sources are filtered: parish registers, legal documents, household accounts, letters—all written by "the literate white male elite."
• Secondary sources too: most history books until recently were written by elite white men with their own prejudices.
  • Example: a 1990s biography of Francis Drake mentioned Maria, an African woman Drake captured, only in passing as a way sailors could "relieve the tedium" of the voyage.
• The historian's own bias: Kaufmann acknowledges she is "a privileged white woman, coming to the source material with my own preconceptions and prejudices."

🔬 Strategies

• Seek out scholarly work by people of color.
• Attend seminars, lectures, workshops with Black speakers.
• Discuss conclusions with diverse voices.
• Recognize: "Sometimes I'm going to get it wrong, or miss something."
• Constant effort: "It is a constant, but worthwhile, struggle."

🌍 Legacies in 21st-century Britain vs. America

🌍 Shared colonial and enslavement legacies

• Britain had Caribbean colonies with plantations and enslaved Africans (and mainland American colonies before 1776).
• People of Caribbean descent in Britain today are also descendants of enslaved people whose unpaid labor benefited Britain.
• Black people from former British colonies (e.g., Nigeria) carry "colonial baggage."

🌍 Differences in population and visibility

• Black population in Britain: ~3% (2011 census).
• Black population in the United States: ~13%.
• Smaller population in Britain may affect visibility and political power.

🌍 Manifestations of racism

• Legacies of enslavement and colonialism are "just as deeply felt" in Britain: policing, justice system, education.
• George Floyd's murder resonated in Britain: over 200,000 people (many white) attended Black Lives Matter protests.
• Backlash: many public commentators refuse to acknowledge racism in British society.
• Why denial is easier in Britain: "the most brutal enslavement happened overseas, making it easier to disavow than in the United States."

🎯 Audience and representation

🎯 Desire for "great" figures

• Some people want to hear about "Black Kings and Queens, powerful leaders"—the "great men and women who have traditionally peopled the history books."
• Black Tudors does not fulfill that: "none of the people I write about really wielded significant power in that way."
• Other scholars (Toby Green on West African kingdoms like Benin; Olivette Otele on Queen Nzinga of Angola) can satisfy that desire.

🎯 Value of "ordinary" people's stories

• History has moved beyond "great men" narratives.
• Social historians uncover "how, let's not forget, the majority of people lived their lives in the past."
• "Those stories are worth telling, and I've found plenty of people who want to listen!"
• Example: Mary Fillis (servant to a seamstress), the anonymous Black needlemaker of Cheapside (who "would not teach his art to any," creating a monopoly on Spanish steel needles).

🎯 Range of experiences in Black Tudors

• John Blanke (royal trumpeter): relatively privileged.
• Mary Fillis (servant): less privileged.
• Dederi Jaquoah: a prince.
• Reasonable Blackman: artisan/businessman.
• All show the diversity of Black lives, not a single narrative.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

African people have been integral to British history for over 2,000 years, and understanding British history requires centering their experiences as established social, cultural, and political actors rather than treating them as marginal "others" who must prove their significance.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core methodological claim: Africans in Britain exist as part of human history; their 2,000+ year presence proves their significance without needing validation from a Eurocentric "we."
• The Maafa vs. "slave trade" framing: The term "trans-Atlantic slave trade" is inadequate and masks a genocidal disaster; overemphasizing slavery skews African history and ignores the wider 19th–20th century colonial atrocities and the fact that African history does not begin with enslavement.
• Intersectionalism over exceptionalism: Avoid focusing on a few "great men" biographies; use intersectional analysis to reveal how individuals like John Edmonstone (who taught Darwin taxidermy) illuminate wider communities and challenge mono-ethnic narratives.
• Common confusion: Treating "British" or "American" as ethnically static labels—these terms describe diverse peoples in geographical spaces, not ring-fenced mono-ethnic groups.
• Why it matters: Correcting the erasure of Africans from British history challenges the perpetuation of "sacred white spaces" in literature and culture, and reveals that British literature (like American literature) is inherently multi-ethnic.

🔍 Challenging the "we" and centering African presence

🔍 The problem of positionality and the imaginary "we"

• The question "Why should we pay attention to what Black people have historically done in Britain?" embeds a power dynamic.
• The "we" assumes a Eurocentric-American hegemony that positions Africans as "the other" who must prove their worth.
• Nubia's corrective: Africans do not need to prove their existence or significance—they have existed in Britain for more than 2,000 years, which itself proves their importance.
• The real issue is not African absence but the reader's lack of exposure, which reflects exceptionalism and the teaching of "white-British hegemony" instead of actual British history.

🪞 Double-consciousness and thinking for oneself

Double-consciousness: a mental state where one constantly thinks like "the other fellow" and forgets to think for oneself (referencing Frantz Fanon).

• Nubia rejects the notion that he (as a person of African descent) must be "convinced" of his own significance in order to "pay attention" to himself.
• Such a framework would require harmful mental gymnastics and perpetuate the problem Fanon identified.
• Key principle: The work is to center African experiences as established, consistent actors—not as tangential or requiring external validation.

🌍 Reframing the "slave trade" narrative

🌍 Why "Maafa" is more accurate than "trans-Atlantic slave trade"

Maafa: a Swahili word meaning "disaster," used to describe the systemic desolation, colonialism, imperialism, and industrial exploitation that resulted in genocidal consequences for Africans.

• The colloquial phrase "trans-Atlantic slave trade" masks the apocalyptic scale of the tragedy.
• The Maafa includes not only the Atlantic trade but also 19th–20th century colonial atrocities (e.g., Cecil Rhodes' activities in southern Africa, which caused millions of deaths).
• Common omission: Historiography of the "British slave trade" often excludes the horrors of European-African interactions in the 1800s–early 1900s, such as Rhodes' economic ventures and the racist ideologies (e.g., "Manifest Destiny," biological determinism) that justified ethnic cleansing.

🧬 Racist ideologies and their roots

• British colonialists adopted methods similar to those used against Native Americans, inspired by theorists like Samuel George Morton, John O'Sullivan, and Jane Cazneau.
• The philosophy: continents populated by "darker people" would be ethnically cleansed, and the "Anglo-Saxon race" would replace them.
• Darwin's role: Charles Darwin endorsed biological determinism, writing in 1862 that "higher races" would replace and exterminate "lower races," and that in 500 years the "Anglo-Saxon race" would have spread and improved humanity "viewed as a unit."
• Don't confuse: discussions of the "slave trade" with the full scope of the Maafa—the latter encompasses a much wider range of systemic violence and ideological justification.

🚫 African history does not begin with slavery

• Starting African history with enslavement perpetuates the dangerous idea that "the negro has no history" (opposed by scholars like John Archer and Carter G. Woodson).
• This practice diminishes the African personality and is both malignant and historically inaccurate.
• Implication: Overemphasizing the slave trade skews the 2,000-year history of Africans in Britain and ignores their complex, multifaceted experiences.

🧩 Methodological principles: intersectionalism and avoiding exceptionalism

🧩 Avoid autobiographical exceptionalism

• What it means: focusing on one or a few exceptional individuals while ignoring wider social, political, and cultural narratives.
• Historically, this approach glorified mass murderers, colonialists, and imperialists (e.g., Cecil Rhodes) while erasing vast swathes of humanity.
• When biography is useful: investigating individuals can provide a window into communities and nations—but only if done authentically and carefully, never as a substitute for wider trajectories.

🔗 Intersectionalism as a corrective

Intersectionalism: a framework (coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw) that critiques positionality using complex metrics, enabling historians to produce inclusive methodology.

• Example: John Edmonstone and Charles Darwin
  • Edmonstone was a man of African-Caribbean heritage who taught taxidermy classes in Edinburgh, Scotland.
  • Darwin was his student; taxidermy was vital to Darwin's skills in deciphering the "Origin of Species."
  • Edmonstone was born in what is now British Guyana, adjacent to the Galápagos Islands—it is possible Darwin learned about these islands through him.
  • This example shows how intersectional analysis reveals African influence on figures traditionally seen as solely "white European."

🎭 The diversity of African experiences in Tudor England

• The people in Black Tudors (Miranda Kaufmann's work, referenced earlier) had a range of experiences:
  • John Blanke: royal trumpeter, relatively privileged.
  • Mary Fillis: servant in a lowly household (worked for a seamstress).
  • Dederi Jaquoah: a prince.
  • Reasonable Blackman: silkweaver, artisan/businessman.
  • Anonymous Black needlemaker of Cheapside: created a monopoly on Spanish steel needles (the English only made them from bone or wood) by refusing to teach his skill.
• Audience interest: While some desire narratives of "Black Kings and Queens," modern audiences are also interested in "ordinary" people—social history has moved beyond "great men" narratives.

📚 British literature and the myth of mono-ethnicity

📚 "British" is a geographic label, not an ethnic ring-fence

• Just as American literature includes Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Eugene O'Neill, and John Steinbeck, British literature includes Malorie Blackman, Ottobah Cugoano, Charles Dickens, Mary Prince, Dylan Thomas, and William Shakespeare.
• The terms "British" and "American" are generic labels for peoples inhabiting geographical spaces—they do not confine the multiplicity of lived experiences within those spaces.
• For African American students: the initial impression that British literature is "alien" (by and for people of another time, country, and race) stands to be corrected—British literature is not mono-ethnic or ethnically static.

🎬 The myth of "sacred white spaces"

• American mis-education (schools not teaching world history) leads people to assign totems and idioms to mask ignorance.
• Common stereotype of England: all "white gentlemen" like in Downton Abbey or The Crown, having tea with the queen in affected received-pronunciation.
• This is not England, just as Friends, Cheers, Seinfeld, and The Sopranos are not America.
• These representations engender "sacred white spaces" devoid of color.
• Corrective: understanding any nation requires rigorous, multidisciplinary historical research.

🎭 The casting debate and African actors in Britain vs. America

• Samuel L. Jackson criticized the casting of Black British actors in American films, yet African-American actors have been doing the reverse for decades.
• Historical examples:
  • Ira Aldridge and Paul Robeson in Othello.
  • Robeson in Song of Freedom, Big Fella, and The Proud Valley.
  • Sidney Poitier as Mark Thackeray in To Sir With Love (based on the life of E.R. Braithwaite, an African-Caribbean man in 1950s east London).
• The excerpt implies this is not a competition—the question itself frames it as one, which is problematic.

🌐 The fabrication of theological justifications and their global origins

🌐 Fabrications were not uniquely English

• Negative ideas about Africans during the early modern period were created in many parts of the world: Spain, Portugal, France, the Ottoman Empire, England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Morocco, the Holy Roman Empire, the Venetian state.
• There were also positive notions about Africans and Africa in all these countries.
• America's inheritance: the USA is a new country that inherited its racist prognosis from England; what was created was often rewritten in American-English and created legacies of inequalities.
• America's racism is ultimately the child of a wider European malaise.

📖 The importance of early modern history

• Early modern history is the cornerstone of modern history (hence its name), but this does not mean linear progress—history does not conform to notions of modernity where "everything is getting better."
• Example of non-linearity: in North America, Africans had fewer legislative limitations on their status at the beginning of the early modern period than at the beginning of the 20th century.
• To understand this complexity, one must commit to studying early modern history.

🔮 Looking forward: the future of the field

🔮 An exciting time for early modern history

• The field is rich and foundational, but requires recognizing that history is not a simple progression toward improvement.
• Nubia's invitation: students discovering this work for the first time should engage with the complexity and commit to rigorous study.
• The field of African presence in early modern England (in history, cultural, and literary studies) is poised for continued growth over the next 20 years.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The excerpt documents the presence and contributions of Black individuals in Britain from prehistoric times through the early nineteenth century, demonstrating continuous African presence and participation in British society across millennia.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Continuous presence: Black people lived in Britain from at least 8000 BCE (Cheddar Man) through the Roman period, medieval times, Tudor era, and into the modern period.
• Diverse roles and statuses: Individuals worked as soldiers, musicians, divers, servants, merchants, writers, and even managed estates—some were enslaved, others were free employees or wealthy.
• Documentation challenges: Many individuals are known only by nicknames (Ivory Bangle Lady, Ipswich Man) or partial records (baptismal entries, probate listings, court testimony), yet archaeological and archival evidence confirms their existence.
• Common confusion: The excerpt shows that "Black presence in Britain" is not a recent phenomenon beginning with twentieth-century migration; African-descended people participated in British life for thousands of years.
• Legal and social complexity: Status varied widely—some were enslaved (especially in the eighteenth century), others were free employees with legal rights to testify in court or own property.

🏛️ Ancient and Roman Britain (8000 BCE–400s CE)

🦴 Cheddar Man (ca. 8000 BCE)

• Skeleton found in Cheddar Gorge, South West England.
• Genetic analysis shows he had dark skin and blue eyes.
• Demonstrates that early inhabitants of Britain included people with dark skin, long before recorded history.

🏺 Ivory Bangle Lady (late 300s CE)

• Young adult woman buried in York in Roman Britain.
• Grave goods (ivory and jet bracelets) indicate she was wealthy.
• Osteoarchaeological studies show African ancestry and that she lived elsewhere (possibly northern Africa) before moving to York.
• Analysis of other Roman-era skeletons in York shows more than one in ten had African ancestry.
• Example: Roman Britain was part of a vast empire with extensive travel and trade, so diverse populations lived across the territory.

⚔️ Soldiers at Hadrian's Wall

• Hadrian's Wall separated Roman-occupied Britain from unconquered Scotland.
• Earliest documented Africans in Britain: soldiers likely from what is now Morocco.
• Don't confuse: These were not isolated individuals but part of the regular Roman military presence.

🏺 Archaeological artifacts

The excerpt includes images of Roman-era objects:

• A copper alloy bowl stamped "AFRICANUS" (first century CE), indicating the maker's name (though the name alone does not prove African origin).
• An oil flask decorated with African faces (second century CE), showing fascination with African peoples.
• A clay lamp (150–200 CE), made in Africa and acquired in Liverpool.

🏰 Medieval and early Tudor period (1200s–1500s)

👤 Ipswich Man (thirteenth century)

• Skeleton of a man of clear African descent buried in a Franciscan monastery cemetery in Suffolk.
• Born and raised in a Mediterranean climate (likely North Africa or Southern Spain).
• Spent much of his adult life in England (cold, wet climate).
• Shows that African individuals lived and died in medieval England, integrated into religious communities.

🎺 John Blanke (early 1500s)

• Court trumpeter under King Henry VII and Henry VIII.
• Depicted twice on the Westminster Tournament Roll, playing at a 1511 tournament celebrating the birth of Henry VIII's son.
• Married in 1512 in a Catholic ceremony, with the king paying for his wedding suit.
• Best documented Black person employed in an early modern European court, though far from the only one—records show Black musicians, kitchen workers, and stable-hands across Europe.

🌊 The Mary Rose crew (1545)

• The Mary Rose, Henry VIII's "favorite warship," sank in battle in 1545.
• At least two crew members were likely of African descent:
  • "Henry," a teenager found in the hold, had genetic similarities to Moroccan and near-eastern populations; likely lived most or all of his life in England.
  • The "archer royal," a well-to-do individual found with a sword, comb, and leather wrist-guard bearing royal arms.

🤿 Jacques Francis (1546)

• Professional diver salvaging ships and cargoes.
• Born in Africa, working in England by 1546.
• Testified in court on behalf of his employer—his testimony was accepted, confirming he was Christian and employed (not enslaved).
• Don't confuse: Courts would not accept testimony from enslaved persons or non-Christians, so his legal standing was clear.

⚓ Elizabethan and early Stuart period (1570s–1620s)

🏴‍☠️ Diego (1570s)

• Enslaved in Panama, escaped in 1572 by warning Sir Francis Drake of dangers.
• Assisted Drake in raids against the Spanish and in forging alliances with the Cimarrons (escaped Black communities).
• Sailed with Drake on his circumnavigation voyage (begun 1577) but died before completion.
• Context: At this time, England had not yet begun colonizing or significantly participating in the slave trade; it was said that setting foot in England would free a man.

🚪 Edward Swarthye (1580s–1596)

• Porter (doorkeeper) at Sir Edward Wynter's manor from the mid-1580s.
• His surname is "almost certainly a nod to the color of his skin."
• Porters were highly regarded servants, responsible for admitting guests and representing the household.
• In 1596, tasked with whipping another (white) servant for financial negligence; testified as a witness in the resulting trial.

👶 Elizabeth (baptized 1586)

• Baptized at St. Botolph Bishopsgate, London, on 25 September 1586.
• Record describes her as "a negro child, born white, the mother a negro."
• Shows that Black families lived in London and participated in Christian sacraments.

🐄 Cattelena of Almondsbury (d. 1625)

• Known only through probate records listing her property at death.
• Lived in a village near Bristol; likely rented a room.
• Owned a cow, her most valuable possession and source of income.
• Example: A working-class Black woman making a living independently in rural England.

🏴‍☠️ John Anthony (ca. 1614–1619)

• Likely captured by pirate Henry Mainwaring around 1614.
• By 1619, sailing as part of Mainwaring's crew, intending to trade in Virginia.
• Would have been the first African to arrive in an English colony in mainland North America had the voyage been completed as planned.
• Instead, the ship turned to piracy; Anthony had to go to court to receive his pay.

👑 Prince Dederi Jaquoah (born ca. 1591)

• Born in coastal Africa (now Liberia).
• Came to England as a passenger on a merchant ship.
• Returned home two years later, using his experiences in England to facilitate trade in his father's kingdom.
• Don't confuse: Not all Africans in England were enslaved or poor; some were royalty or merchants traveling for diplomatic or commercial purposes.

📜 Queen Elizabeth I's 1596 letter

📄 Context and content

• Dated 11 July 1596, addressed to mayors and sheriffs.
• States that England does not need more people than are being born there.
• Cites lack of available jobs for English-born people as the reason for commissioning Edwarde Banes to remove ten Black people recently brought into the country.
• Shows royal concern about population and employment, but also documents the presence of Black individuals in England at the time.

📚 Eighteenth-century figures: enslavement, freedom, and activism

✍️ Job ben Solomon / Ayyub Ben Suleiman Diallo (1701–1773)

• Born in Senegal, sold into slavery in Maryland.
• Wrote a letter asking his father to purchase his freedom; the letter reached James Oglethorpe instead.
• Brought to England; the Royal African Company purchased his freedom.
• After repaying the company, returned to Africa.
• His biography was written by Thomas Bluett.

📖 Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (1705–1775)

• Sold as a child and transported to Barbados.
• After being freed, moved to London, married, and dictated his autobiography.
• Published as A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, Written by Himself, regularly reprinted.

👸 Queen Charlotte von Meckklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818)

• Wife of King George III.
• Rumored to have African ancestry based on portraits and a family tree tracing back to King Alfonso III of Portugal (1210–1279) and a mistress from a Moorish town.
• Historian Mario De Valdez y Cocom traces her lineage through Margarita de Castro e Souza (born 1440).
• Few historians agree with the assumption that Alfonso III's mistress was necessarily Black; Moors were racially diverse.
• The excerpt notes it is "a stretch to call a woman with one Black ancestor five hundred years in her past 'Black.'"

📘 Olaudah Equiano (ca. 1745–1797)

• Author of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789).
• Achieved financial success as a merchant before writing his autobiography, which became extremely profitable.
• Worked both as a free man and under the person who allowed him to purchase his freedom.

🌉 Pero Jones (ca. 1753–1798)

• Transported from Nevis to Bristol in the 1780s by John Pinney, used as an enslaved personal servant.
• Purchased in Nevis in 1765 along with his sisters while still a child.
• After his death, his belongings were sent back to his family in Nevis.
• Bristol named a bridge for him in 1999 to commemorate people trafficked through the city.
• In 2020, Black Lives Matter protestors threw a statue of a slave trader into the harbor in sight of this bridge.

✊ Quobna Ottobah Cugoano (ca. 1757–?)

• Born free in what is now Ghana, enslaved first in Grenada, later in England.
• Emancipation may have been connected to the Somerset ruling, which made it unlawful to sell a person living in England into slavery abroad (but did not quite make owning an enslaved person in England unlawful).
• Learned to read and became a major figure in the abolition movement.
• Published Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (1787).
• Credited as the earliest English-language abolitionist publication by a person of African ancestry and the earliest Black-authored call for a complete end to slavery.

🛁 Sake Dean Mahomed (1759–1851)

• Born in India, served as a teen in the East India Company Army.
• Formed a close bond with Captain Godfrey Baker, returned to Ireland with him, was educated, and married an Irish woman (Jane Daly).
• Became a pioneer: author, restaurateur, medical practitioner, and bath house proprietor.
• In many cases, the first individual of Indian birth to do such things in Ireland or England.

⛪ Boston King (ca. 1760–1802)

• Enslaved from birth in South Carolina.
• Joined the British military during the American Revolution on the promise of freedom; known as a "Black Loyalist."
• Approximately 3,000 Black Loyalists were settled in Canada after the British defeat.
• Ordained minister, worked as a missionary in Sierra Leone.
• Studied in England (1794–1796) and wrote his autobiography, then returned to missions work in West Africa for the last four years of his life.

🎨 Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761–1804)

• Daughter of John Lindsey (British Navy officer) and Maria Bell (a woman of African descent enslaved in the West Indies).
• After her mother's death, relocated to the estate of Lindsey's uncle, Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice.
• Lord Mansfield later ruled on the Somersett Case, which held that a person enslaved in Britain could not be sold into enslavement elsewhere.
• Grew up with another great-niece, Elizabeth Murray; the two were painted together in a famous portrait.
• Educated, managed the estate's dairy and poultry yards, and helped Lord Mansfield with his correspondence—a task normally assigned to a male secretary or clerk.
• Married John Davinier and had three children.

🧵 Fanny Coker (1767–1820)

• Born into slavery on John Pinney's plantation in Nevis, freed as a child.
• Transported to Bristol in the 1780s to continue employment as a seamstress and nursemaid to the Pinneys' children.
• Records exist of her shipments of keepsakes, gifts, and financial support for her family in Nevis.

🔍 Key themes and distinctions

🔄 Status and legal complexity

Status	Examples	Key features
Free employees	John Blanke, Jacques Francis, Edward Swarthye	Paid wages, legal rights (e.g., court testimony), sometimes skilled roles
Enslaved servants	Pero Jones, Fanny Coker (before freedom)	Owned by others, but some were freed; some maintained family ties
Merchants and travelers	Prince Dederi Jaquoah, Sake Dean Mahomed	Came to England for trade, education, or opportunity; some returned home
Activists and authors	Olaudah Equiano, Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Ukawsaw Gronniosaw	Gained freedom, wrote autobiographies, campaigned for abolition

⚖️ The Somerset ruling and its limits

• The Somerset Case (ruled by Lord Mansfield) held that a person enslaved in Britain could not be sold into slavery abroad.
• It did not make it unlawful to continue to own an enslaved person living in England.
• It changed the economic considerations of owning a person in England, since the owner could not plan on profitably selling the person onwards.
• Example: Quobna Ottobah Cugoano's emancipation may have been connected to this ruling.

🧬 Archaeological and genetic evidence

• Cheddar Man (8000 BCE): genetic analysis shows dark skin and blue eyes.
• Ivory Bangle Lady (late 300s CE): osteoarchaeological studies show African ancestry; more than one in ten Roman-era skeletons in York show African ancestry.
• Ipswich Man (thirteenth century): skeleton shows clear African descent; isotope analysis reveals he lived in England as an adult.
• Mary Rose crew (1545): DNA and bone analysis show at least two crew members had African or near-eastern ancestry.
• Don't confuse: These are not speculative identifications but conclusions based on multiple scientific tests (genetics, isotopes, osteology).

📜 Documentary evidence

• Court records: Jacques Francis testified in 1546; John Anthony went to court for his pay in 1619.
• Baptismal and probate records: Elizabeth (1586), Cattelena of Almondsbury (1625).
• Royal and household records: John Blanke's employment and marriage; Edward Swarthye's role as porter.
• Published autobiographies: Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Olaudah Equiano, Boston King.
• Visual evidence: John Blanke depicted on the Westminster Tournament Roll; Dido Elizabeth Belle painted with Elizabeth Murray.

🌍 Geographic and temporal range

• Prehistoric: Cheddar Man (8000 BCE).
• Roman Britain: Ivory Bangle Lady, soldiers at Hadrian's Wall (first–fourth centuries CE).
• Medieval: Ipswich Man (thirteenth century).
• Tudor and Stuart: John Blanke, Jacques Francis, Diego, Edward Swarthye, Cattelena, John Anthony, Prince Dederi Jaquoah (1500s–1600s).
• Eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: Job ben Solomon, Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Olaudah Equiano, Pero Jones, Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Sake Dean Mahomed, Boston King, Dido Elizabeth Belle, Fanny Coker (1700s–1820).

🏛️ Institutional and royal involvement

🏢 The Royal African Company

• Purchased Job ben Solomon's freedom after James Oglethorpe arranged for him to be brought to England.
• The company's seal (1662) bore the motto "REGIO. FLORET. PATROCINIO. COMMERCIUM. COMMERCIOQUE. REGNUM" (royal patronage causes business to flourish, which causes the kingdom to flourish).
• Shows the company's role in both the slave trade and occasional acts of manumission.

👑 Royal and aristocratic households

• John Blanke: employed by Henry VII and Henry VIII; the king paid for his wedding suit.
• Dido Elizabeth Belle: raised in the household of Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice; managed the estate and assisted with correspondence.
• Edward Swarthye: porter in Sir Edward Wynter's manor, a position of responsibility and visibility.
• Don't confuse: Employment in elite households did not necessarily mean enslavement; some Black individuals held trusted, skilled positions.

📜 Queen Elizabeth I's 1596 letter

• Commissioned Edwarde Banes to remove ten Black people from England, citing lack of jobs for English-born people.
• Shows both the presence of Black individuals and royal concern about population and employment.
• Does not indicate a general expulsion or widespread policy, but a specific, limited action.