Miranda Kaufmann
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"Our Island Story"? What history should we teach our children?

12/11/2012

9 Comments

 
PictureThe Drake Jewel (V&A)
As Black History Month drew to a close, I found myself addressing the Department for Education. My 'lunchtime seminar' talk  was called " Africans in Tudor and Stuart Britain: before the slave trade." (I hastened to add that I meant before the English really got going at the slave trade, not before the Portuguese and Spanish slave trade, and pointed out that John Hawkins' voyages in the 1560s were something of an aberration, which were not to be repeated for some 70 years). 

A few days before my talk, the poet Benjamin Zephaniah had been quoted  by the BBC as saying that black and Asian pupils are turned off history because they are told only "half the story" in British schools.

The same BBC article reported that Education Secretary Michael Gove "has said schools should focus on a traditional narrative of British history in response to concerns it had become too politically correct [and]... that the current approach to history denies 'children the opportunity to hear our island story', and... this has to change."

Continue reading the main story... the current approach to history denies "children the opportunity to hear our island story", and this has to change."The phrase "our island story"  jumped out at me because it reminded me of an old book I'd grown up with.  Our Island Story is a nostalgic, patriotic storybook written in Australia in 1905  by Henrietta E. Marshall. This Edwardian tome was reprinted in 2005 by the think-tank Civitas, with the aim to send a free copy to each of the UK's primary schools. David Cameron told the RSC it was his favourite childhood book in 2010, and that it "really captured [his] imagination and ... nurtured [his] interest in the history of our great nation.”  But what stories does this book tell? And are they really only "half the story"?

Take Sir Francis Drake, for example. A classic Elizabethan hero, he appears of course in Our Island Story, where Marshall describes him as "very bold and daring", and tells the story of the singeing of the King of Spain's beard, and him refusing to face the Armada before he'd finished his game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. But my research has shown me another side of Drake, that is writ large upon the Drake Jewel (above, a present from the Queen in 1588, which Drake wore  hanging from his belt in this 1591 portrait) but that is not included in Marshall's version of events. 

The bust of an African man on the Drake jewel has been interpreted as a symbol of Drake's alliance with the Cimaroons.  These were the Africans who had runaway from the Spanish who had enslaved them and set up their own communities. Their local knowledge was invaluable to Drake when he allied with them to capture the Spanish silver train in Panama in 1573.  One of these Cimaroons, a man named Diego, returned to Plymouth with Drake and accompanied him on his circumnavigation voyage of 1577-80. Unfortunately he died near the Moluccas, from wounds received from the hostile inhabitants of Mocha Isle, off the coast of Chile. 

Diego was not the only African onboard. We know of at least three more, one of which, a woman named either Francesca or Maria, who was abandoned, heavily pregnant, on Crab Island, Indonesia. William Camden, the first historian of Elizabeth I's reign, reported in his Annales that Drake "purchased much blame…for having most inhumanely exposed in an island that negro or blackamore maid who had been gotten with child in his ship.” However this, and other stories of Africans who encountered Drake, seem to have disappeared from popular record. 

Drake's cousin, John Hawkins doesn't appear in Our Island Story at all. Drake may well have accompanied him on some of his slaving voyages in the 1560s. And later voyages that Drake made to the Caribbean, for example his raid of 1585-6, also resulted in Africans coming to England. 

The idea of "Our Island Story" needs to be re-imagined. To be 'insular' can mean to be cut off from the rest of the world. But the histories of most islands, from Crab and Mocha isles, mentioned here, to the Island of Britain, are stories of comings and goings, of invaders and immigrants.  The story of our island is one of these. And we need to tell our children the whole story, and to do so we need to re-tell it for our time and not rely on the imaginings of an Edwardian patriot, however picturesque. 


Picture
1905 edition
Picture
2005 edition
9 Comments
Katherine Edwards link
20/6/2013 04:51:26 am

I agree wholeheartedly with this. By marginalising non white ethnic groups, the draft history curriculum implicitly and dangerously harks back to a fictitious age when the population of 'these islands' was exclusively white. People of African origin are excluded completely from the primary curriculum, and appear in the secondary only as slaves, or - apart from the odd token individual - only with the Windrush generation. It certainly does not tell the whole story and its omissions will alienate a large section of society. What is even more depressing is that Tristram Hunt claimed recently in the Guardian to give out copies of Our Island Story to school leavers in his constituency. As a Labour MP, historian and Shadow Minister for Young People, he is someone to whom many have looked to stand up for the academic integrity of history against its conversion into rote learning of nationalist propaganda at the hands of Gove. Yet of all the history books he could choose, he sees fit to distribute this work of patriotic myth which begins “Once upon a time there was a giant called Neptune”! Children need to be taught to interrogate evidence and challenge myth. Current history teaching does a good job of this. But the future of history as a serious academic subject and one capable of breaking down barriers and challenging stereotypes is seriously in jeopardy in the hands of these politicians.

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Besök Oss link
14/1/2014 10:17:07 pm

Thanks for a valuable comment Katherine

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visit link
26/6/2013 04:27:08 pm

In my opinion, the real problem is the different versions of the same history. Every country has its own versions of history. They modify the real history so that their side is safe. They are actually cheating the new generation by hiding the truth.

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Jada Cook link
7/9/2013 07:11:32 am

Was browsing Google and found your site, enjoyed the reading, thanks

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Uchenna Ani-Okoye link
15/10/2013 02:54:17 am

From the British context, I think the truth should be told, although I don't think there should be a complete emphasis on the slave trade, more information on the dark ages would be good, as we have this slavery story rammed through our heads far too much.

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Erin Battles
22/8/2020 09:03:51 pm

Black slaves sang kum by yah my lord? Yet american history omitted my truth as a indigenous citizen of the world. History that is taught in united states pretends that slaves singing hebrew wasn't evidence of who they were. Omitted history pretends there was no Khalifa queen of California even though there are cave paintings if her.

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Miranda Kaufmann
15/10/2013 03:38:48 am

Agreed! There is much more to Black History than slavery- even in the period of the slave trade- as I argued I this piece for the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/17/slavery-black-history-month

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Julie McNeill link
21/1/2014 10:37:00 am

This is great work - you are an inspiration for an amateur herstorian..who grew up not learning what a University was or she could go there one day. More recently I discovered there is still so much more historical fiction that only Lords and Lady's et al are worthy of being centre-stage.mmm. With the democracy of internet knowledge I have discovered my DNA in a broadside;
A working-class girl Roundhead drummer, but now you've got me thinking, was there any blacks serving for Parliament - not just on his knees at Cromwell's side?
My sister sent me over 'Small Island' to read in Australia which was a great read and enlightening of the experience of the Black experience of being in the British Commonwealth. Of course we are also endlessly having argy bargy over indigenous history in the national curriculum and only this year recognition there was Aboriginals fighting in WW1! Have a productive year, Look forward to reading you in 2014.

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Samantha link
21/10/2014 05:49:40 pm

You made tremendous great ideas here. I done a research on the subject and learnt most peoples will agree with your blog.

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    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

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    The Black Presence in Britain

    Jeffrey Green's website, on Africans in 19th and early 20th Century Britain
     
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