Talking about Africans in Tudor England on the Colourful Radio Lester Holloway Breakfast Show2/9/2014 Bright and early yesterday morning I headed to the Colourful Radio studio, which is tucked away inside the Oval Cricket Ground, to have a chat with Lester Holloway. He'd got in touch after reading my last blog, on Elizabeth I and the 'Blackamoors': the Deportation that never was, and wanted to hear more about Africans in Tudor England. You can listen to our conversation below. Do add a comment and join in with the debate!
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Today I am compelled to blog. There is a wrong I must right. The world simply cannot be allowed to continue to believe that Elizabeth I expelled Africans from her realm in 1596. This is perhaps the most oft-quoted (sometimes the only quoted) "fact" relating to the history of Africans in Tudor England. Recently, I have seen it repeated in the Guardian Black History timeline, the Medieval POC tumblr, and the New York Times. It has also been peddled by historians, including the wonderful Peter Fryer, who wrote in his magisterial Staying Power in 1984: “The queen was soon expressing strong disapproval of the presence of black people…in the realm and indeed, ordering that ‘those kinde of people’ should be deported forthwith.” While Ania Loomba went so far as to assert in 1992 that “Elizabeth I's communique deporting blacks... [indicates that] the 'preservation' of the white race is seen to be at stake.” It's a prime example of how anything can become "fact" through repetition. and it is a particularly dangerous story to peddle in our immigration- obsessed times. It is all too easy to elide the centuries and imagine that Elizabeth I had an immigration policy that would have been approved of by Enoch Powell. The "fact" has made its way into the classroom. In 2009 year 7 pupils at St John Plessington Catholic College in the Wirral were to be taught: “To understand the reasons for Elizabeth I’s policy of expulsion”, while the BlackHistory4Schools website has a lesson plan which explicitly compares the Tudor rhetoric with modern newspaper headlines. What makes this all worse, on a personal level, is that I wrote an article disproving this so-called "fact" some seven years ago. Clearly, academic articles are not as widely read as academics might like. And looking back, I can see it is a bit dense. Maybe "Caspar van Senden, Sir Thomas Sherley and the ‘Blackamoor’ Project" wasn't the most catchy title? Anyway, now I'm taking to my blog to explain the truth behind the myth once and for all, in plain terms (but still with some original quotes!). So, What really happened? Well, on 18 July 1596, the Privy Council issued an open letter addressed “to the Lord Mayor of London and to all vice-admirals, Mayors and other public officers whatsoever to whom it may appertain.” The letter authorised a merchant of Lubeck named Caspar Van Senden to “take up…Blackamoores here in this Realm and to transport them into Spain and Portugal.” Crucially this required the "consent of their masters.” It was this requirement that made this a dead letter, as I learnt from reading the various petitions from a disappointed Van Senden amongst Robert Cecil’s papers. In an undated petition to the Queen, Van Senden asks for a far more powerful authorisation to take Africans out of the country, without the "interruption of their masters or any other persons." He complains that the 1596 Council warrant was not effective as he: "together with a Pursivant [basically an enforcer] did travell at his great Charges into dyvers partes of your highness Realme for the said Blackamoores, But the masters of them, perceiving by the said warrant that your orator could not take the Blackamoores without the Master’s good will, would not suffer your Orator to have any one of them." Van Senden did not get what he wanted. Another document of 1601 has been quoted as a second Privy Council letter or proclamation, but in fact it was never promulgated, and only exists as a draft amongst Cecil’s papers. It might have been drafted by Van Senden himself, as it is more strongly worded that the 1596 letter. Ultimately Van Senden's schemes were unsuccessful. This was not a deportation, but rather a small-scale bargain with a persistent merchant, on an individual basis. Van Senden was supported by the bankrupt, probably Catholic, Sir Thom Elizabeth I did not expel Africans from England. In fact, Africans, who had been present in both England and Scotland from the earliest years of the sixteenth century, continued to live here for the rest of her reign, and beyond. I have found evidence of over 360 African individuals living in these isles between 1500 and 1640. We no longer need to rely on the 1596 document to make the point that there were Africans in Tudor England. Since writing this blog, an excellent new article has been published on the subject by Emily Weissbourd. Read it here. I'm not very good at keeping secrets, so you can imagine how hard it was to keep this one under my hat- but now it's been announced in The Bookseller, I feel I can finally share my good news: I've got a book deal! Joshua Farrington of The Bookseller reports: "In a separate deal, senior commissioning editor Sam Carter signed world English rights to Black Tudors, a debut history book from Dr Miranda Kaufmann. The deal was done with Charlie Viney at the Viney Agency. The book is Carter's first acquisition for Oneworld. Carter said: "Miranda has unearthed some extraordinary lost stories from a much-examined period of our history, and has woven a fascinating narrative around some remarkable characters who will confound our cosy assumptions about Tudor England. Miranda is an exciting new talent, and Black Tudors will be an adornment on Oneworld’s strong history list." The book will be released in autumn 2016." I still can't quite believe this is really happening, after working towards it for so long. Many many thanks to Sam Carter of Oneworld Publications for taking me on, and to Charlie Viney and Val Hudson of The Viney Agency for all their hard work in getting me to this stage. Now all I have to do is write the book! If you want to learn more about the Black Tudors before the book comes out, do have a look round my website or come to one of my talks. I'm really delighted to be co-organsing this series of workshops with Michael Ohajuru at the invitation of Philip Murphy, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. We hope the series will generate some important conversations, and forge new links between everyone interested in Black British History, from academics to teachers, museum curators and other public historians. I've posted the Call for Papers and Draft Programme below. You can register for the event here- book now for the early-bird discount! Hope to see you there! Call for Papers: Thirty years after the publication of Peter Fryer’s Staying Power, immigration is still a hotly contested topic, while slavery continues to dominate popular perceptions of Black British History. New research is revealing different stories, but how is this being presented in Britain’s classrooms and museums? We need a conversation between those actively involved in researching and communicating the history of peoples of African origin and descent in Britain about what it means to us today. We invite you to join us at the first in what will be a series of workshops held once a term by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. The aim is to foster a creative dialogue between researchers, educationalists (mainstream and supplementary), archivists and curators, and policy makers. It will seek to identify and promote innovative new research into the history of people of African origin or descent in the UK. Researchers and archivists will provide an introduction to the ever-growing body of resources available. We will also discuss the latest developments in the dissemination of Black British history in a wide variety of settings including the media, the classroom and lecture hall, and museums and galleries, thus providing an opportunity to share good practice. The workshops will consider a range of issues around Black British history including the way in which scholars have defined the field, debates around how and why it should be taught, especially in the light of the new national curriculum, and the tensions between celebrating the achievements of people of African descent in the UK and applying a critical perspective to the past. The first workshop will take place at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in Senate House, London, on Thursday 30 October 2014. The day will run from 11am to 6.30pm, followed by a Reception. The event will consist of a keynote address, followed by three consecutive panels and a round table discussion. There will be a registration fee of £20 (£5 for students/unwaged) to cover the costs of lunch and refreshments. For our first workshop, the panels will be organised around the following themes: new directions in research; archives and records; and new methods of communicating Black British History. Each panel will consist of three presentations lasting for 15-20 minutes. An outline programme is given below. We would be delighted to hear from researchers, educationalists, archivists and curators or others interested in offering a presentation. Please submit a title and a brief description of your presentation either in writing (in which case, of no more than 300 words) or in some other form (for example a clip or podcast) with an indication of which panel you envisage contributing to, to Dr. Miranda Kaufmann at mirandackaufmann@gmail.com by 31 July 2014. ... Draft Programme: The Senate Room, Senate House, London Thursday 30 October 2014 ... 10.45-11.00 Registration, tea/coffee 11.00-11.30 Keynote address (tbc) 11.30-1.00 Session One: New Directions in Black British History 1.00-2.00 Lunch 2.00-3.30 Session Two: People of African descent in the archives 3.30-4.00 Tea/coffee 4.00-5.30 Session Three: Spreading the word: New developments in the communication of Black British History 5.30-6.30 Round Table Discussion and Conclusions 6.30-7.30 Reception So I finally saw Belle! I'm delighted that the film has been made and hope it is the first of many such stories of Africans in Britain to get the Hollywood treatment. Watching it has prompted many thoughts, but I'll try to distill the best of them here. "Based on a True Story"? Like any historical film "Based on a True Story", Belle takes liberties with the historical record. Alex von Tunzelman has made a good start on sifting the fact from fiction in her Reel History column in the Guardian. You can find a brief biography of Dido in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Or read Paula Byrne's book for more background to the few details we have of Dido's life. You can read more about the legal history of slavery in England here. It's also worth paying a visit to Kenwood, especially if you take a look in the writing desk in the library, where you will find a brief pamphlet on " Lord Mansfield, Slavery and the Law", as well as reproductions of some of the original documents relating to Dido, including a letter she wrote on her great-uncle's behalf. Dido's status The film shows Dido as occupying a strange position in the hierarchy of the Kenwood household. She is part of the family, and yet may not dine with them. The historical source for this is an entry in the diary of one Thomas Hutchinson, the exiled Governor of Massachusetts, who visited Lord Mansfield one evening in August 1779. In fact, this entry provides us with much of the known details of Dido's life. Hutchinson was hardly an unbiased observer, and mostly refers to Dido as "a Black". Paula Byrne points out that perhaps Dido did not attend dinner that night in order to shelter her from this man, rather than the other way round. Either way, the fact that she did not attend dinner on 29th August 1779 does not necessarily mean that she never dined with the family. The fact that Dido helped manage the dairy is not an indicator of lower status. It was considered a genteel occupation for a lady, and even the Duke of Wellington took an interest in it, sharing his recipe for butter with Louisa, Lady Mansfield. However, Dido was not the wealthy heiress that the film portrays. Her father left his money to two of his other illegitimate children. However, by giving her financial independence, the film asks interesting questions of the interplay of class, race, and cash in determining status in 18th century society. Although Dido was not an heiress, it was not inconceivable for a woman of her colour to be so. Many men who fathered children with enslaved women made attempts to provide for them, as Daniel Livesay's research has shown. Perhaps the best-known example of this was Nathaniel Wells, the son of William Wells and his house-slave, Juggy, who was educated in England, inherited his father's St. Kitts estate in 1794, and bought Piercefield estate near Chepstow, Monmouthshire in 1802, going on to become a Justice of the Peace in 1806 and Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1818. Portraits of Africans One of the fascinating threads of the film for me was the interaction between Belle, and the images of Africans she saw around her, both growing up at Kenwood, and around her in the streets of London. The film shows her as fearful of having her own portrait painted, lest she be portrayed in the subservient pose she assumes is the only way for people of her complexion to appear in art. While we have no idea what she felt about portraiture, the film dramatises a deeper truth. There are large numbers of the sort of pictures Belle despised hanging on the walls of country houses across Britain, including this one of Henrietta of Lorraine and her page by Van Dyck, now at Kenwood, and this portrait of Anne of Denmark and her groom, which I blogged about last year. However, there are also some fascinating portraits, besides Dido's, that give their black subjects dignity and character, such as Thomas Gainsborough's 1768 portrait of Ignatius Sancho. They key point about the portrait of Dido and her cousin, perhaps, is that it shows a black woman alongside a white woman in a position of relative equality. The Legal Drama
I was pleased with the way the film brought to life the drama of the Zong case of 1783, but was amazed that it failed to make any mention of Lord Mansfield's earlier judgments regarding slavery, most pertinently, that in the Somerset case of 1772. I suppose the film-makers thought the audience could only deal with one monumental court case at a time! The script however, lifted the words Mansfield uttered in the Somerset case, on how slavery was odious, and placed them into his final judgment on the Zong. African Extras I was intrigued to see a large number of African men shown in the film as attending the final judgement in the Zong case. According to the IMDB, one of these is meant to be Olaudah Equiano, played by Lamin Tamba. Equiano actually played a pivotal role in the Zong drama, as it was he who alerted abolitionist Granville Sharp to the case's existence. Unfortunately, Dido does not speak to him, or the other well-dressed Africans she passes in the gallery, and so their stories remain untold. Her interaction with Mabel, the African maid is a little more detailed- and gives her the chance to ask Mansfield over breakfast: "Is Mabel a slave?" -This would have been an ideal opportunity for the Lord Chief Justice to explain the legal status of Africans in Britain, and his judgement in the Somerset case. Unfortunately, although we learn that Mabel is free, and paid wages, the subject is soon dismissed as not suitable for the breakfast table. Other Stories to Tell... As I told the Observer newspaper in January, I really hope that in the wake of 12 Years A Slave, and Belle, " film directors will turn their attention to telling Britain's slavery stories such as Equiano's which would help a new generation understand their nation's role in a trade referred to as 'the great circuit' and remind them that "Africans have been living in Britain for centuries before the Windrush". There are so many great stories still to tell. Maybe I should write a list of suggestions for up and coming filmmakers who want Oscar-winning material? But that's a blog for another day... Just popped into Kenwood, where the costumes from the film Belle (out next week) are on display. I'm really excited to see the film, and how it tackles the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the daughter of an enslaved African woman and a British naval officer, who was brought up by the Lord Chief Justice who ruled in the Somerset case. So I thought I'd share a few snaps- which don't really do the gorgeous costumes justice! It's really good to see the story highlighted in Dido's former home. Her story is already present in the house, since last year's refurbishment- you can see the pictures I took when it re-opened in November here. The portrait that inspired the filmmakers is in Scone Palace in Scotland (the home of the current Earl of Mansfield, which is hosting a special exhibition on Dido this summer), but there is now a large photographic reproduction on display at Kenwood. I've posted the trailer below too, and there is also a new book out by Paul Byrne to accompany the film, which fills in a lot of the background history. For a brief summary of Dido's life, see the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry. There's an in-depth interview with director Amma Asante here. If you're a real groupie, then you might spot some of the cast if you turn up at Kenwood tomorrow morning, or at the UK premiere at BFI Southbank tomorrow night. Once I've had a chance to see the film myself, I'll be posting a review here, so watch this space! I've been broadcasting a bit lately, so if you fancy a listen, check out the links below- listed in order of length! BBC History Magazine History Extra Podcast: African History Special
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I went to St. Olave Hart Street, where many Africans appear in the parish registers, to talk to N.Quentin Woolf about Africans in Tudor London. We checked out the monument to Paul Bayning, a privateering magnate who had five Africans in his household, and talked about other men and women of the parish, including the Portuguese Jewish Dr. Hector Nunes and his African maidservants Grace and Mary. Listen here (55 mins) |
Sky News: should Slavery be made essential reading?
I was only on air for 3 minutes, and there were a lot of other things I would have liked to say! The main points are:
1. In Britain, we need to think about the history of slavery from a British, not American perspective. Consider that Solomon Northrup was born a year after Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807. And that his British equivalents- men such as Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho and Ottobah Cuguano, who suffered slavery but found freedom and went on to campaign for abolition, published their books in the 1780s, some seventy years before the book 12 Years a Slave.
2. As I have argued before in the Guardian , in The Times, and on this blog, it is vital that slavery should not be allowed to dominate our impression of African history. We need to know that we have always been a nation of immigrants (Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Huguenots...) and that Africans have been coming here since at least Roman times.
3. Education shouldn't stop at the school gates. Public institutions such as English Heritage and The National Trust in the heritage sector, museums and galleries such as the British Library, British Museum, National Gallery, and many other smaller organisations across the country all need to incorporate this history too. Not just for school visits (of which we need more), but for the general public too. Because, as George Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."
The Observer: Britain's links to slavery- News and In Focus
The story made page 3 of the Observer on Sunday- you can read Jamie Doward's full article here: British version of 12 Years a Slave to shed new light on the painful road to abolition- he led with the news that Amma Asante's film Belle will come to UK cinemas later this year -see trailer below.
I was quoted in the piece as saying: '[Belle's] story is interesting in lots of ways," said historian Dr Miranda Kaufmann. "Hopefully her film will have as big a splash in Britain as 12 years A Slave." Briefly, in 2007, Belle was the subject of a temporary exhibition at Kenwood House in 2007. Now she has been awarded a prominent and permanent presence.'
I also made the point that it's important to put the African individuals centre stage in these stories. As I told Doward, "Making Freedom, an exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society, has sought to counter the conventional slavery narrative." The point powerfully presented in the Making Freedom exhibition is that Africans were not passive victims, but constantly resisted their enslavement and fought for their freedom," Kaufmann said. "They actively resisted, through uprisings on land and sea, by running away and establishing Maroon settlements, or even by committing suicide." Kaufmann said she hoped that, inspired by McQueen, other directors would now turn their attention to Britain's role in the slave economy.
"Telling the stories of individuals is a better way into this subject," Kaufmann said. "If you just use lots of numbers and statistics, people put up the shutters."
Jamie Doward wrote a more in-depth piece for the In Focus section of the paper (p.36), which you can read here: How gracious mansions hide a dark history of Britain's links to slavery. The eagle-eyed among you will notice (as did various angry commenters) that the online version inserts "Bristol" into the headline, which draws focus from the role of Liverpool, London, Glasgow and many other British ports.
It was also a pleasure to be quoted alongside the wonderful historian
Dr. Madge Dresser, who I first met through my research for English Heritage back in 2007, and the brilliant Dr. Kate Donington, research associate at UCL's Legacies of British Slave-Ownership Project.
I was quoted as saying:
'The historian Miranda Kaufmann hopes that film directors will turn their attention to telling Britain's slavery stories such as Equiano's which would help a new generation understand their nation's role in a trade referred to as "the great circuit" and remind them that "Africans have been living in Britain for centuries before the Windrush".
"They are the sort of stories that make great films," Kaufmann said. "There are lots of pirates and bad guys. I could give Steve McQueen a list of British stories he could make after he has won his Oscar."
Film-makers may already be hearing this plea. Belle, which premiered last year at the Toronto film festival, is due for release in Britain this spring. It tells the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the mixed-race daughter of a British naval officer and an African woman who is taken to England by her father to be raised by his uncle, Lord Mansfield, the lord chief justice, who lived at Kenwood House in north London.
Born to a mother who had been a slave, Belle rose up the ranks of society to achieve a sort of freedom and social status. Her story offers an alternative to the conventional narrative that portrays slaves, in Kaufmann's words, simply as "herded cattle".'
My comments chimed with those of Kate Donington, whose words were so apposite that I think we can end on them:
' "I would be fascinated to know why as a black British director he didn't pick a black British experience." Donington believes a film examining Britain's role would be a healthy corrective to the "tendency to see slavery as something that happened in America".
"Often the only time Afro-Caribbean students encounter their history is through the prism of slavery, one that looks at enslaved people as victims," Donington said. "You can also tell the positive stories of the enslaved, of people of colour, who fought to emancipate themselves."'
What next?
It was a very short discussion (for a longer one, see this interview with Vox Africa TV; for more detail on the status of Africans in Tudor England, see my articles on "Slavery and English Common Law"; on "Why Slavery shouldn't distort the History of Black People in Britain" and the case of Caspar van Senden and his failed attempts to transport Africans from Britain in 1596-1601).
However I was puzzled by Onyeka's reference to an African in Tudor Blackburn, so I looked it up in his book and found (on p.361) a reference to the baptism of "Leticia" whose father is described as "Willm Voclentine Egiptian", on 3rd December 1602 in the record of St. Mary's, Blackburn, now held at the Lancashire Record Office.
Other similar examples I found in my research include ‘Anthoine an Egyptian’, buried in Gravesend on 26 May 1553, and ‘Batholomew the sonne of an Egiptian’ baptized in Barnstaple on 23 August 1568.
However, I didn't include these references in my thesis because I didn't feel that they could be taken as straightforward evidence of individuals who came from Egypt.
The people referred to as "Egyptians" at this time were ‘gypsies’, or Roma/Romany people, of Hindu origin. Both linguistic and genetic studies have confirmed their origin in the Indian subcontinent. A Parliamentary Act of 1530 concerning Egyptians (illustrated above, and transcribed here) explained that:
"before this tyme divers and many owtlandisshe people calling themselfes Egiptsions using no craft nor faict of merchandise, have comen in to thys realme and goon from Shyre to Shyre and place to place in grete companye and used grete subtile and craftye meanys to deceyve the people bearing them in hande that they by palmestrye could tell menne and Womens Fortunes and soo many Tymes by craft and subtiltie hath deceyved the people of theyr Money & alsoo have comitted many haynous Felonyes and Robberyes to the grete hurt and Disceipt of the people that they have comyn among."
Further Acts concerning ‘Egyptians’ were passed in 1552, 1554, and 1562. They were to be banished, their goods forfeited. By 1562, this was somewhat modified by the ruling that those born in England were to be placed in service.
The fact that these people did not come from Egypt was recognised by at least one contemporary writer. Thomas Dekker wrote in Lantern and Candlelight (1608):
"If they be Egyptians, sure I am they never descended from the tribes of any of those people that came out of Egypt. Ptolemy, King of the Egyptians, I warrant never called them his subjects; no nor Pharoah before him."
For more on Egyptians in Early Modern England, have a look at Chapter 3 of D. Mayall, Gypsy Identities, 1500-2000: From Egipcyans and Moon-men to the Ethnic Romany (2004).
When an individual really is of African origin, the records are not slow to report or comment on it. It is only when an individual is described as ‘a/the blackamore’, ‘a/the negro’, or we are told where they come from or were born that we can be completely sure of their identities.
There is enough certain evidence of Africans in Tudor England (for example, this list of references found in London parishes, one of which is pictured below; my own research gathered evidence of over 360 Africans in Britain, 1500-1640, some 200 of which date from the Tudor period) to work with, without having to include these misleadingly-named "Egyptians".
I've tried to keep the entries brief, but sometimes there was a lot to say. Let me know which ones you'd like me to discuss further in later posts!
Still on till the end of November, the exhibition opened with a Family Fun Day on the last Sunday of September, with activities and an appearance by John Blanke himself!
I was delighted to see the letters I'd written to 9 Londoners in situ, with great artwork by Jane Porter.
The featured individuals were: John Blanke, fl.1507-1512; Lascars, 17th-20th century; Ignatius Sancho, c.1729-1780; Francis Barber, c.1735-1801; Olaudah Equiano, c.1745-1797; Dido Elizabeth Belle, c.1761-1804; George Bridgetower, 1780-1860; Mary Seacole, 1805-1881; Samuel Coleridge- Taylor, 1875-1912.
Sutton House in Hackney was a great venue to tell the story of Black Londoners as it was built in the Tudor period by Ralph Sadleir, who might have encountered our earliest Black Londoner, John Blanke, at the court of Henry VIII.
You can read more about the project here. And see more photos here.
What better play to watch on the eve of Black History Month? I've studied the "Moor of Venice" in the context of my research into Africans in Shakespeare's England but the experience of watching Adrian Lester, Rory Kinnear and Olivia Vinall play out the tragedy of jealousy was something else. My viewing was in part informed by having seen Toni Morrison's excellent Desdemona last year at the Barbican. I felt the modern setting was a distraction, but was most disturbed by the speed at which Othello is transformed from a hero to a violent, irrational murderer in the central scene. Food for thought as I write an article for Literature Compass on '"Making the beast with two backs": interracial relationships in early modern England'- due out next year.
Back to Sutton House for the official launch event for the exhibition, with some honoured guests- including some of those Influential Black Londoners of the 1980s and 1990s nominated to be included in the exhibition next year. (The eventual winner was Doreen Lawrence).
This was also my first glimpse of some of the local school children's fantastic artistic responses to the letters. See this photo album for more.
Dan is Head of History at Henry Compton School, Fulham and the creator of www.blackhistory4schools.com. He gave us a useful summary of the complicated political wranglings over the curriculum over the last year and then proceeded to demonstrate how he manages to incorporate Black History into his own teaching. Much of his approach is summarised in this article he wrote for History Workshop.
There was some strong feelings in the room- some wanted to get rid of Black History Month, others told of the troubles they'd had trying to convince their children's schools to teach Black History.
Nonetheless, Dan's pioneering approach is a model that others should emulate.
On a rainy Wednesday, I travelled to Leicester to speak to some 6th formers who were "doing" the Stuarts, 1603-1642 for A-Level. This was remarkably close to a paper I had sat back in 2000- and of course had no reference to the black presence in Britain at that time.
Using plenty of images, I told the story of Africans in Stuart Britain, what they were doing, how they got here and how they were viewed in the eyes of the law. I enjoyed showing them pictures of both Oliver Cromwell and Prince Rupert depicted with black pages, and showing them a different side to history. Hopefully this will be reflected on their Black History Month display board next year- the teacher who invited me later tweeted: "my students want to start a hist soc to talk about things we don't normally do. Think your talk helped :-)."
Having read about the latest move by Caricom to seek reparations for slavery, and that they were being advised by London law firm, Leigh Day, who won the Mau Mau case earlier this year, I was very curious to hear Daniel Leader of that firm talk. Also speaking were Sir Ronald Sanders, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and a former Caribbean diplomat (who has blogged about reparations here) and Professor Philip Murphy, Director of the Institute.
It was agreed that there had always been a strong moral case for reparations, but the question was whether it was possible to bring a legal case.
Daniel Leader spent a long time explaining the details of the Mau Mau case, which was fascinating, but didn't give us much idea how he would go about bringing a case for slavery reparations. Professor Murphy made the point that it would be a bad idea to have politicians feeling morally cleansed, having paid reparations- can a residue of guilt serve as an inoculation against future mistakes? Sir Ronald brought up the worry that pursuing reparations might have a negative impact on the tourism industry on which Caribbean countries are dependent.
There were some strong feeling in the room that it was wrong that the case for reparations was being judged in a European court by European legal standards. From a historical perspective, I found it interesting that the case was being brought against Britain, France and the Netherlands by their former colonies, but that there is no sign of a similar move by the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies- when the Spanish and Portuguese were the originators of the transatlantic slave trade, with over 13,000 voyages marked with their flags on the
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Voyages database.
Ultimately the issues involved are too varied to go into here but I will watch the progress of this with interest. There's already been some interesting comment in The Telegraph, The Economist and the New York Times.
A fascinating collection of essays based on the 2009 conference of the same name, making a big step towards breaking the silence on this subject that has been deafening for too long.
You can read my review here, and find out more about my own research into links between English Heritage properties and Slavery & Abolition here. The book was launched in September at the Little Britain's Memory of Slavery Conference, and has been made available to download for free on the English Heritage website.
Miraculously managed to arrive to give this talk on time, having attended my godfather's funeral in Vienna that morning!
I presented on John Blanke, and the reality of the lives of Africans in England, in contrast to Michael's work on the Black Magi. You can read more about our double act on the IRBARE2013 website.
Really enjoyed Michael's tour of the V&A which he wrote up on his blog. It's a wonderful place, and the tour showed a different side to the art presented there. Michael's approach showed up some shortcomings in the museum's interpretation of some of the works on show- see his blog on this. I've heard they've already taken steps to rectify the mis-identification of Simon of Cyrene in the Marnhull Orphery (see this page for more accurate info, which has not yet been interpolated into the main listing), but it's even more vital to provide some context to the Tilman Reimenschneider statue to show that St. Maurice was usually depicted as of African origin. Michael has written a persuasive document to this effect here, but really all you need to see is the statue (below, left) alongside other images of the saint (below) and more on Pinterest:
Having written about Mary Seacole earlier this year in The Times, it was fantastic to see the unveiling of this 1/4 size maquette of the statue, which is to be placed outside St. Thomas's hospital, striding towards the river and the Houses of Parliament. This will be the first statue erected to commemorate a black woman in Britain. More info on the Memorial Appeal website.
As a historian, I was particularly fascinated by artist Martin Jennings's account of his trip to the Crimea to find the site of Seacole's British Hotel. Using old maps and with the help of the local authorities, he was able to pinpoint the exact place, and found remnants of bottles and pots still lying on the ground. The 15 ft high disc behind Mary in the statue will bear the imprint of stone from a quarry near the site, which has a detonation mark from a WW2 tank. I'll be watching out for the documentary, due to air on ITV in 2015.
A second performance of the IRBARE double act, this time at SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies. Michael explained the appearance of a Black Magus in 1520s Devon while I talked about the realities of life for Africans in Renaissance England, through the experience of John Blanke, the Tudor court trumpeter (who I've now been asked to write an entry on for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). Read more on the IRBARE2013 website.
The next night, I rushed to QMUL after a day spent proof-reading the Sunday Times Food List, to talk about Africans in early modern London. I had kindly been recommended to my hosts, the QMUL History Journal, by Professor Kate Lowe, who is doing some fascinating research into sub-Saharan Africans and African objects in Southern Europe between 1440 and 1650, and was involved in the great Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe exhibition I reviewed for History Today earlier this year. The QMUL History Journal had a Black History theme this term (read it online here), with an essay entitled To what extent was ‘race’ used to categorise people as ‘other’ in early modern England? by Joanna Hill, one of Kate Lowe's students, which I look forward to reading.
in 2003, as a response to the BBC's 100 Greatest Britons poll, in which the most diverse individual was Freddie Mercury (born in Zanzibar), Patrick Vernon launched 100 Great Black Britons, with Mary Seacole eventually topping the list. Ten years later, the campaign is being re-launched.
The debate at the NPG posed the questions: What are the issues, challenges and impact of black achievement in Britain today? And who should we be calling Great?
Patrice Lawrence of Every Generation Media chaired the debate on black achievement and British identity. The speakers were: Rev Rose Hudson–Wilkin, The House of Commons Speaker's Chaplain; Elizabeth Pears, News Editor, The Voice newspaper; Dean Atta, writer and poet and Patrick Vernon OBE, Founder of 100 Great Black Britons.
Luckily, not everyone arrived on time, so we were treated to an impromptu performance by Dean Atta. I liked the line: "Silence is not golden/Silence is the truth stolen"- seemed to chime with the Mansfield Park Complex of not speaking about slavery I wrote about here. Dean pointed out when he spoke later that all the terms "Great", "Black" and "Briton" are problematic and require definition. We discussed whether the list should expand in size, or include categories, such as Science, Law, Business, Medicine, Young achievers, Parenting, and Regional lists.
The Rev Hudson-Wilkin pointed out how important it is that white people see images of successful black people. In the same way as some people see BHM as a segregation, this Black-only list has the same problem. But, as long as the mainstream doesn't include these stories, we need BHM and 100GBB as campaigning tools. Elizabeth Pears made the point that perhaps the BBC should re-run their poll, to see whether attitudes have changed. I pointed out in the discussion that, although there's still a long way to go, there are some signs of progress in mainstream media- such as the increasing inclusion of people of African and Asian origin or descent in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the National Trust's Influential Black Londoners exhibition at Sutton House, Hackney and recent discussion on the BBC Radio 4 Media Show on how to reach black audiences.
This event, organised by Everyvoice, brought together some key decision-makers from Islington Council with a great panel of speakers to debate the future of BHM.
The conference sought to address the question: how do we reach a place where people’s histories are not marginalised, so there will be no need for Black History Month? How do we ensure that diversity is integrated in mainstream education and celebrations all year round?
I had in mind the thought-provoking article I'd read by Andrea Stuart in the Guardian the day before on the same subject. I blogged my response to the article here.
The speakers were so engaging that no one seemed to mind that the event overrun its timetable. One of the most impressive images I saw was the map above that Patricia Lamour showed us that the African continent is larger than the United States, China and India put together. Dr. Robin Whitburn and Abdullahi Mohamud spoke about their Doing Justice to History project, which is designed to explode two false premises: 1) Black people did not play a significant role in British life before 1948; 2) Multiculturalism doesn't work. They used some fascinating case studies to prove their point, such as the story of Somali sailor Mahmood Hussein Mattan, who was unjustly hung in 1952. Tony Warner, Director of Black History Walks showed us how Black History is everywhere when you know how to look, and reminded us that the BFI has a regular African Odysseys film programme, as well as showing us a very disturbing video of the black doll/white doll experiment. Kandace Chimbiri talked about her Black History books for children, including one to accompany the recent Origins of the Afro Comb exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. History teacher Martin Spafford summarised the latest curriculum wrangling and explained how Black History could still be taught within the new framework, sharing stories such as the North African "Ivory Bangle Lady" who lived in Roman York and the Indian Hockey team that beat Germany in the 1936 Olympics, which can easily be incorporated into study of "The Romans" or "Nazi Germany".
The ensuing discussion was passionate and varied. It was mostly agreed that BHM needs to continue for now, as a campaigning tool, a stepping stone to where we'd like to be, with a "Full-colour" history.
Was lucky enough to be invited to a private view, where Graeme spoke about the piece. You can see it at Kensington Palace until 6th January.
The work is a contemporary response to John van Nost’s Bust of the Moor – a marble sculpture commissioned by King William III in 1688/1689.
Evelyn places the bust within a gilded cage, but with its doors flung open to capture the view over Kensington Gardens, creating for the Moor a dream of self-determination and freedom. The inside of the cage is circled with a series of tiles telling an imagined story of the Moor's life, using the premise that this man had read Homer's Odyssey and seen parallels.
Evelyn's earlier work, Reconciliation Reredos, an altarpiece in Bristol confronts the fact that the church, St Stephen’s, blessed every ship that left the port, including every slaver that left the city harbour for Africa to trade for enslaved people during the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Evelyn's work is part of a wider trend in which heritage institutions seeks to commission the work of black artists. Other temporary installations, e.g. Yinka Shonibare's Mrs Oswald and Colonel Tarleton Shooting (2007) for Scratch the Surface at the National Gallery and his current exhibition in Greenwich. This was discussed by
Lubaina Himid, Joy Gregory and Sokari Douglas Camp on the artists in conversation panel at the Little Britain's Memory of Slavery conference at UCL in September.
Call and Responses: Odyssey of the Moor poses many unanswered questions about Africans in late 17th Century England and Holland. Evelyn has thrown down the gauntlet to historians to answer some of these questions. For example, at it's base, the installation incorporates a contemporary report of William of Orange marching into Exeter in 1688 with: "200 Blacks brought from the plantations of the Netherlands in America, Imbroyder'd Caps lin'd with white Fur, and Plumes of white Feathers, to attend the Horfe." Evelyn hopes the piece will inspire historians to research the context of this, and what impact the advent of a Dutch monarch had on the history of Africans living in England and the history of English involvement in the slave trade.
The work has already inspired a response by Delia Jarrett-Macauley, who won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing for her debut novel, 'Moses, Citizen and Me' and is currently a Fellow in English at the University of Warwick.
You can listen to the music Graeme Evelyn listened to while creating the work here: ODYSSEY of the MOOR art 2013
On until Sat 21st December, this important exhibition marks the 175th anniversary of the emancipation of nearly 1 million Africans in the Caribbean. This is taking the date of freedom as 1838, when indentured labour ended, as opposed to 1834, when slavery was officially abolished.
In front of a large map of the Caribbean created specially, to show all the islands and their capitals, Burt Caesar quoted Claude McKay's If We Must Die (1919), which sets the tone for this exhibition's tale of constant resistance, "Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!".
Sir Keithlyn Smith, author of To Shoot Hard Labour told the story of his grandfather's great grandmother, Mother Rachel's quest to be reunited with her daughter Minty in 1838. You can listen to the story here. Benjamin Zephaniah performed his powerful poem White Comedy and shared some of his own experiences of racism. He pointed out how important this exhibition is, to dispel the myth that "slaves were given freedom by the white man". In fact, their constant resistance and rebellion made the slave system increasingly hard to sustain. Toussaint L'Ouverture's uprsing in Haiti in 1791, leading to the declaration of independence in 1804 was the most successful, but not an isolated occurrence. The exhibition tells the stories of other attempts to make freedom- in Barbados in 1816, Guyana in 1823 and in Jamaica in 1832.
This exhibition put the agency back in African hands and tells the other side of the story we heard in 2007. A must -see! And there's now talk of putting it on at the House of Commons next year!
There was an impressive crowd gathered in Committee Room 11 of the House of Commons to hear Onyeka talk about his new book, Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, their presence, status and origins, published by Narrative Eye and discuss how to get a more inclusive history curriculum with Stella Creasy MP, Chi Onwurah MP, Cllr Lester Holloway, and Tony Warner of Black History Walks.
Onyeka gave a passionate and gripping speech about his research- he has been working on the subject since 1991. When he first set out to look into the history of Tudor Africans, people told him he was wasting his time, that he would find nothing. I heard similar opinions when I started my research on the subject in 2004. I was very pleased to get my hands on a copy of his book, for although I've known Onyeka for years, this was the first time I'd been able to read his work at greater length.
It was fantastic to see the political support for the subject from Stella Creasy, Chi Onwurah and Lester Holloway. I'm looking forward to reading the book and engaging further on the challenge it poses to politicians and educators.
Went up to Leicester again, this time to talk about Africans in Urban Britain, 1500-1640 at the University's Centre for Urban History. I told some stories about the lives of Africans in 16th and 17th century England and Scotland's ports and cities, explaining how they arrived in Britain, what occupations and relationships they found in the city and how they were treated by the church, the law courts and the other inhabitants of urban Britain. This provoked a lively debate and I also learned about my host Dr Kidambi 's fascinating research into the All India Cricket Team's 1911 tour of England.
I rushed back from Leicester to catch expert Vincent Carretta talking about Ignatius Sancho, one of the Influential Black Londoners I had written to at Sutton House.
The British Library has recently acquired 13 of Sancho’s signed letters to his friend and patron William Stevenson, plus two to his father the Rev. Seth Ellis Stevenson. These are the only letters by Sancho that are known to survive.
The British Library's Untold Lives has an interesting blog post on this, but, as Carretta himself remarked, it's a great pity Sancho does not feature in the Georgians Revealed exhibition.
Carretta provided us with a handout with quotes from them and Sancho's other correspondence and proceeded to explain the significance of the new acquisition in context. One thing that makes these letters really significant is that they can now be studied alongside the printed text of 1782, revealing identities obscured and also proving beyond any doubt that Sancho wrote the letters himself. For this was questioned by none other than Thomas Jefferson who, in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1781) grudgingly admitted him "to the first place among those of his own colour who have presented themselves to the public judgment", but went on to say "This criticism supposes the letters published under his name to be genuine, and to have received amendment from no other hand; points which would not be of easy investigation." The acquisition of the Stephenson archive has made this investigation much easier and will allow scholars to defend Sancho from this underhand attack.
A third outing for IRBARE, this time in Greenwich, the location of the old royal palace, built by Henry VII on the site of today’s Old Royal Naval College, where John Blanke would have worked. You can read more about the presentation on the IRBARE2013 website. In the light of discussion of Black History Month's future, it's interesting to note that this talk took place in the second half of November, as part of the Greenwich Student Union's Black History Week (see poster). Could we be making a transition to a Black History Season?
For me, this is really an artificial end, because I seek out events like these all year round! Check my Talks page for details of my upcoming talks, and if there isn't one near you, invite me to your local school, university, library or history society!
Author
Dr. Miranda Kaufmann is a historian of Black British History living in North Wales. You can read a fuller bio here, and contact her here.
Related Blogs/Sites
Temi Odumosu's The Image of Black website
The UCL Legacies of British Slave-ownership project Database and blog
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
The Black Presence in Britain
Jeffrey Green's website, on Africans in 19th and early 20th Century Britain
Untold Theatre
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