'Imtiaz Habib, Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500-1677: Imprints of the Invisible', Review, Black and Asian Studies Association Newsletter, 52 (September 2008), pp. 28-30.
Imtiaz Habib has done us a great service by providing this accessible database of references to Africans, Indians and Americas in early Modern England and Scotland, many never published before. Their traces are scattered in the documents of the time: their baptisms, marriages and burials were recorded in parish registers, the purchase of their clothes, shoes and other necessaries lie itemised in household accounts, their presence was noted in travel accounts, legal documents and diaries. Habib lists 448 such records of black people (including 32 describing Indian and Native American individuals) from the period 1500-1677. Thus we learn that on the 6th June 1588 ‘Isabell a blackamore’ was buried at St Olave, Hart Street in London; on 16th October 1616, ‘George a blackmore’ married Marie Smith at All Saints Church in Staplehurst, Kent and on 7th September 1665, Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that over dinner with banker Sir Robert Viner, he was shown ‘a black boy he had that died of a consumption; and being dead, he caused him to be dried in an Oven, and lies there entire in a box.’
However by my calculation, 122 of the 448 records presented are of what Habib describes as ‘fluctuating ethnic clarity’. This phrase is typical of the author’s tendency to use the high-flown register of the American academic literary theorist, which means that readers will require a dictionary to decipher some of his prose. What he means is that he has chosen to extend the benefit of the doubt to all persons with surnames such as ‘Blackmore’, ‘Moore’ and ‘Black’. By these standards, the origin of Sir Thomas More should also be interrogated. He was, after all, nicknamed ‘Niger’ by his friend Erasmus. There is a qualitative difference between a record that reads ‘Domingo being a ginny [Guinea] negar’ and one that reads ‘Henry Blackmer’: the former describes ethnic identity, the latter records a surname. Despite the vagaries of early modern orthography and the ambiguity of naming practices, a more convincing methodology of identification needs to be developed. The main danger of Habib’s all-embracing approach is that the sceptical critic could use the less convincing citations against him to call into question the validity of the entire data set. As Habib is based in America, he has had limited access to the archive he discusses, and has understandably spent most of his research time in London. This is reflected by the content of his book, which focuses primarily on the capital, with only one chapter devoted to the provinces, whose geography he does not always fully grasp: Plymouth is described as ‘rural’, Hampshire as ‘adjoining Devonshire’. By contrast, his work on London has resulted in a detailed and fascinating description of the different parishes and neighbourhoods, using to great effect John Stow’s contemporary survey and the c.1561-71 ‘Agas’ map of London (which you can explore for yourself at http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/).
BASA members should pick up the gauntlet that Habib has thrown down. The book ends with a stirring appeal for further work in this area. Please, take this book into your local record office and follow up the references. Be aware of the inaccuracies that riddle Habib’s footnotes, courtesy of his appallingly sloppy copy editor: men's names change from page to page, page numbers are not always accurate. Taking this into account, begin your own research. Where a baptism record mentions a master's name, investigate him. You may well find he was a merchant involved in the ‘Guinea trade’ or privateering, or both, such as Richard Dodderidge of Barnstable, whose ‘Neiger servante’, Grace, was baptised in 1596. Where one African is mentioned in a parish register, read through the rest of it – you may find he or she was buried soon after that baptism, or that there were other Africans resident in that parish. Where Habib lists references from the International Genealogical Index, find the original entry to see if it provides any more details of the individual. When excavating these hidden (but not invisible to the inquiring eye) lives, we must be creative and think laterally, so that Habib's list is just the beginning. I myself have many more references from the period, which I hope to publish in due course. Please send me anything you find!
Once further material has been gathered, we will be in a better position to answer the vital questions this book raises, but does not satisfactory answer: How many black people were present in Britain? How did they get here? Why did they come there? What was their status? Were they slaves? What were their occupations, their religious experiences, their quality of life?
Habib shows that there were blacks in England sixty years before John Hawkins’s first slaving voyage of 1562, and over a century before the British slave trade really got going in the 1640s. Thus, either slave trading began earlier or these people came here in a different capacity. Habib asserts the former, arguing that the black presence in England at this time is evidence of a hidden slave trade in the sixteenth century, the traces of which have been shamefully covered up, both at the time and by later historians. Yet John Hawkins in 1560s and the African trading companies in the 1660s openly declared their slaving interests. A more detailed investigation of English trade with Africa and the Caribbean in the intervening century is required before this question can be properly addressed.
The treatment of black people in England is equally contentious. Although slavery was not a status recognised by English law (the 1569 Cartwright case ruled that ‘the air of England is too pure an air for slaves to breathe in’), Habib believes that black people were slaves in all but name. Records of people that do not mention masters are interpreted as records of abandoned or destitute former slaves. Evidence which contests this interpretation such as the £10 (£1142 today) charitable donation made by a ‘Christian negro’ maidservant in 1627, individuals being paid wages, being baptised, marrying English people and testifying in court is disregarded as anomalous. Baptism is in fact characterised as a ‘protocolonial’ act of ‘cultural effacement’. The interpretation of this evidence is vital in answering the question of whether racism was endemic in English culture, or whether it developed as a consequence of the practice of colonial slavery. The case of Robert Viner shows a repellent disregard for black humanity by 1665, but by this time the English were regularly supplying slaves to their colonies: the black experience in the preceding 140 years was perhaps more
nuanced than Habib (who describes the ‘black subject’ as ‘protozoic debris in the corneal fluid of the English socius’ allows.
You can read my review of the same book for the TLS here.
However by my calculation, 122 of the 448 records presented are of what Habib describes as ‘fluctuating ethnic clarity’. This phrase is typical of the author’s tendency to use the high-flown register of the American academic literary theorist, which means that readers will require a dictionary to decipher some of his prose. What he means is that he has chosen to extend the benefit of the doubt to all persons with surnames such as ‘Blackmore’, ‘Moore’ and ‘Black’. By these standards, the origin of Sir Thomas More should also be interrogated. He was, after all, nicknamed ‘Niger’ by his friend Erasmus. There is a qualitative difference between a record that reads ‘Domingo being a ginny [Guinea] negar’ and one that reads ‘Henry Blackmer’: the former describes ethnic identity, the latter records a surname. Despite the vagaries of early modern orthography and the ambiguity of naming practices, a more convincing methodology of identification needs to be developed. The main danger of Habib’s all-embracing approach is that the sceptical critic could use the less convincing citations against him to call into question the validity of the entire data set. As Habib is based in America, he has had limited access to the archive he discusses, and has understandably spent most of his research time in London. This is reflected by the content of his book, which focuses primarily on the capital, with only one chapter devoted to the provinces, whose geography he does not always fully grasp: Plymouth is described as ‘rural’, Hampshire as ‘adjoining Devonshire’. By contrast, his work on London has resulted in a detailed and fascinating description of the different parishes and neighbourhoods, using to great effect John Stow’s contemporary survey and the c.1561-71 ‘Agas’ map of London (which you can explore for yourself at http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/).
BASA members should pick up the gauntlet that Habib has thrown down. The book ends with a stirring appeal for further work in this area. Please, take this book into your local record office and follow up the references. Be aware of the inaccuracies that riddle Habib’s footnotes, courtesy of his appallingly sloppy copy editor: men's names change from page to page, page numbers are not always accurate. Taking this into account, begin your own research. Where a baptism record mentions a master's name, investigate him. You may well find he was a merchant involved in the ‘Guinea trade’ or privateering, or both, such as Richard Dodderidge of Barnstable, whose ‘Neiger servante’, Grace, was baptised in 1596. Where one African is mentioned in a parish register, read through the rest of it – you may find he or she was buried soon after that baptism, or that there were other Africans resident in that parish. Where Habib lists references from the International Genealogical Index, find the original entry to see if it provides any more details of the individual. When excavating these hidden (but not invisible to the inquiring eye) lives, we must be creative and think laterally, so that Habib's list is just the beginning. I myself have many more references from the period, which I hope to publish in due course. Please send me anything you find!
Once further material has been gathered, we will be in a better position to answer the vital questions this book raises, but does not satisfactory answer: How many black people were present in Britain? How did they get here? Why did they come there? What was their status? Were they slaves? What were their occupations, their religious experiences, their quality of life?
Habib shows that there were blacks in England sixty years before John Hawkins’s first slaving voyage of 1562, and over a century before the British slave trade really got going in the 1640s. Thus, either slave trading began earlier or these people came here in a different capacity. Habib asserts the former, arguing that the black presence in England at this time is evidence of a hidden slave trade in the sixteenth century, the traces of which have been shamefully covered up, both at the time and by later historians. Yet John Hawkins in 1560s and the African trading companies in the 1660s openly declared their slaving interests. A more detailed investigation of English trade with Africa and the Caribbean in the intervening century is required before this question can be properly addressed.
The treatment of black people in England is equally contentious. Although slavery was not a status recognised by English law (the 1569 Cartwright case ruled that ‘the air of England is too pure an air for slaves to breathe in’), Habib believes that black people were slaves in all but name. Records of people that do not mention masters are interpreted as records of abandoned or destitute former slaves. Evidence which contests this interpretation such as the £10 (£1142 today) charitable donation made by a ‘Christian negro’ maidservant in 1627, individuals being paid wages, being baptised, marrying English people and testifying in court is disregarded as anomalous. Baptism is in fact characterised as a ‘protocolonial’ act of ‘cultural effacement’. The interpretation of this evidence is vital in answering the question of whether racism was endemic in English culture, or whether it developed as a consequence of the practice of colonial slavery. The case of Robert Viner shows a repellent disregard for black humanity by 1665, but by this time the English were regularly supplying slaves to their colonies: the black experience in the preceding 140 years was perhaps more
nuanced than Habib (who describes the ‘black subject’ as ‘protozoic debris in the corneal fluid of the English socius’ allows.
You can read my review of the same book for the TLS here.
