Whenever Jane Austen’s links to enslavement are mentioned, it causes a furore, or if you will, a storm in a teacup sweetened by Caribbean sugar. But one story, with a lot more depth and drama has hitherto been largely overlooked: that of her aunt, Barbados heiress Jane Leigh Perrot, the wife of Mrs. Austen’s brother James Leigh Perrot. 

When Jane (who I refer to by her nickname Jenny to distinguish her from her famous niece) makes a cameo appearance amongst the ever-increasing plethora of Austen scholarship, it is as Jane’s wealthy yet stingy aunt, who was put on trial for alleging stealing lace from a shop in Bath: facing possibly transportation to Australia, or even the death penalty. 

Yet even when Jane Austen’s other and much more indirect links to colonialism and enslavement are placed under a magnifying glass, few delve into Jenny’s origins in Barbados. I’ve now laid these bare, featuring Jenny as one of nine women who inherited wealth founded on the exploitation of enslaved men, women and children, in my new book, Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery, out this week. ​

Betsy Newton was enslaved by Lady Sarah Holte (the first heiress I write about in the book) and her sister Elizabeth Newton from 1784 to 1794. By the time she reached London, they were both dead, so she went to see the man who had inherited her and her family, to demand the paperwork confirming freedom for herself and the four young children she had left behind. Thomas Lane admitted she was free by arriving in England,* but refused to help with her children. Betsy remained in London, marrying twice, corresponding with her family in Barbados, and continuing her campaign for her children’s freedom, but to no avail.

Betsy’s chutzpah and determination is quite breathtaking, and just one example of the amazing resilience shown by people fighting to assert their humanity in the most impossible of circumstances that I encountered throughout my research. The callous disregard of the women who inherited her led to her losing five children: the one who died as a newborn, and the four that she was forced to leave behind in Barbados. This is the human cost of enslavement; the damage that still needs repairing today.

If you’d like to hear more about Betsy, her grandmother Mary Hylas, and the rest of their family, please do pre-order my book, Heiresses, Marriage, Inheritance, and Caribbean Slavery,  out 4 September.

​*For more about the legal status of Africans in England, see this article. 

 In the Spring of 1796, Lady Elizabeth Webster was pregnant by her lover, Henry, Lord Holland. Her husband Sir Godfrey had returned to England a year ago, leaving her abroad in Italy. With this obvious evidence of adultery, divorce was inevitable. 

While it would be a relief to be parted from her despised, and much older, husband, ‘the certainty of losing all my children was agonising’. Until 1839, the law dictated that fathers gained sole custody of children after a divorce. 

In desperation, Elizabeth developed a ‘visionary scheme’ to keep her favourite child. In the village of Paullo on the way to Modena from Bologna, she daubed red spots on her daughter Harriet’s arms with her watercolours to convince everyone she had measles. Then she dismissed the servants, sent Harriet to England via Hamburg, dressed as a boy, and put together a ‘rude coffin’, filling her oblong guitar case with stones, a pillow dressed in children’s clothes and a wax mask. She sent this strange item to the British Consul in Livorno for burial, then travelled on to Modena to break the news of her daughter’s death.

Sir Godfrey, who also ‘doted’ on Harriet, was ‘wretched’ on hearing the news and ‘wept his lost child for some time’. 

Three years later, Elizabeth, now Lady Holland, had to come clean. Her new husband’s political career was taking off, and no politician can afford to have embarrassing skeletons in their closet.  In June 1799, she revealed the truth, sending Harriet back to Sir Godfrey, who ‘immediately recollected and acknowledged her’. 

​Elizabeth lamented:

    I have renounced a darling child, and my heart aches afresh when I
    think of the separation. She is so captivating… with my others I feel
    gratified to see them healthy and intelligent, but her winning manners
    convert the duty of maternal attention into a positive enjoyment. I delight
    in being with her… Would to God I were allowed to bring her up! 

I’m delighted to announce that my new book, Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery, is being published on 4th September by Oneworld in the UK and 7th October by Pegasus in the US.

It’s been seven years since I started this project and I can hardly believe it’s finally going to be out there!

Heiresses exposes how, for almost two centuries, generations of women became enslavers and plantation owners in their own right, and brought huge fortunes back to Britain. I tell the dramatic - sometimes scandalous - stories of nine women who inherited enslaved people and plantations in the Caribbean and used their tainted wealth to marry into British society and fund lavish lifestyles. Money didn’t buy happiness: one heiress was arrested for shoplifting, another faked her own daughter’s death. Tracing their lives led me to some unexpected places - from Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution to Aston Villa Football Club – and people - from Jane Austen to Napoleon.

I also found out more about the people the heiresses enslaved than I had imagined possible, pushing beyond lists of names and ‘values’ to find individual stories. A Jamaican carpenter who collected caricatures of his enslavers; Dinah, an Antiguan heiress’s former nurse, who wrote to her former charge in India to demand her freedom; and Betsy Newton who travelled all the way from Barbados to London to confront her enslavers face-to-face.

I can’t wait to tell you more - watch this space for news of my  book tour starting in the autumn - but in the meantime feel free to pre-order your copy - hope I can sign it for you in person soon!

Hello!

It’s been a long time since I posted here! This is because I’ve been devoting all my energies to finishing my next book, Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery, which I’m delighted to tell you will be published in September by Oneworld in the UK and Pegasus in the US. In it, I tell the stories of nine women who became enslavers, married in Britain and whose lives connect to key historical people and places we thought we knew. More on that later this year…

Meanwhile, I wanted to tell you about my next public talk, Unlocking the potential of Britain’s country houses to tell imperial stories at the Historical Association Annual Conference in the extremely apt location of Liverpool on Saturday 10th May. This will draw on my years of experience working with country houses, from the survey I did of English Heritage properties’ connections to enslavement and abolition back in 2007, to my role as Lead Historian on the Colonial Countryside Project working with Professor Corinne Fowler and the National Trust. You can see the full talk description below.

For the early-bird discount, you need to book by this Thursday 20th May. So check it out here: https://www.haconference.com/


Hope to see some of you there!


Unlocking the potential of Britain’s country houses to tell imperial stories, Historical Association Annual Conference, Liverpool, Saturday 10th May.

Hundreds of historic houses across the country, be they English Heritage, National Trust or in private hands, have connections to Britain’s colonial past. Some were built or bought by enslavers, East India Company merchants or heiresses to imperial fortunes. Others were bought by men who traded in colonial commodities like sugar, tobacco and coffee, or who profited from administering the Empire or fighting colonial wars. Sometimes enslaved Africans worked in these households. Most collections have imperial objects, from Chinese wallpaper and porcelain to furniture made from Jamaican mahogany.These facts are hardly surprising, but they have become hugely controversial in recent years. How, then, do we use these houses and their collections to explore uncomfortable histories, educate an increasingly ethnically diverse next generation and heal a country divided in its attitudes to its imperial past? Using case studies, Kaufmann seeks to explore these questions and draw on the audience’s expertise, with an extended discussion in the Q&A to think about positive ways forward.

​Applications are now open for the new Miranda Kaufmann Black British History Scholarship at Gladstone’s Library for 2023, and you can apply from now until 31st October. 
​
The scholarship – two weeks’ all-inclusive accommodation at Gladstone’s Library, complete with a travel allowance – is to support research into the histories of people of African and/or Caribbean origin or descent in the United Kingdom, making connections between the local and global aspects of British History.

Having researched and promoted #BlackBritishHistory for almost 20 years I know that we can’t understand British History without it, and that it is more important now than ever in the fight against racism. Co-convening the "What's Happening in Black British History?" workshops at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies since 2014 with Michael Ohajuru and Philip Murphy has highlighted to me that a lot of the best research in the field has been taking place outside the academy and that this research – which has real world ramifications – is not receiving enough support.

The 2018 Royal Historical Society Race Report demonstrated the need for greater diversity in what is being researched and taught in UK universities, and in the staff and student bodies. Although the situation is improving a little, it’s not happening fast enough. I want to do something, even if it’s a drop in the ocean, to combat these problems. I particularly want to support researchers of colour who often face additional barriers to pursuing a career in History. That is why the Miranda Kaufmann Black British History Scholarship will be exclusively reserved for members of the global majority, and includes an £150 travel grant to aid access.

Through the Gladstone family, the library has its own connections to Black British history and the history of enslavement, making it a peculiarly relevant place to study these subjects. Further research into the Gladstone papers, which include the correspondence and business records of Liverpool merchant Sir John Gladstone, including with his son, Prime Minister William Gladstone, should also yield new insights into the histories of Liverpool’s leading role in the trafficking of enslaved Africans, broader colonial trade, and management of estates in colonial Guyana. The papers include several lists of the names of people enslaved by John Gladstone which will be of interest to researchers trying to trace their lives. 

In recognition of this, it's also great to see the library also offering the new Eileen Stamper Scholarship for the study of historical or contemporary slavery, and that in 2023, their General scholarship will be reserved for the study of Guyana, to mark the 200th anniversary of the Demerara uprising that began on one of the Gladstone’s plantations in August 1823.

Gladstone’s Library, in the pretty village of Hawarden, just over the Welsh border from Chester, is the UK’s only residential library, founded with the collection of Prime Minister William Gladstone, but now with a collection of over 150,000 items. I’ve been a regular visitor since I moved to North Wales and can vouch for it as a lovely place to read and think. It’s also only an hour’s train ride or drive to Liverpool or Manchester, should researchers wish to visit those cities’ archives, libraries and museums during their stay. 

I’m so glad to be able to partner with the library and its amazing staff to support research into Black British History in this way, & look forward to learning from many scholars over the years!

To apply, all you have to do is submit a covering letter, brief CV (no more than 2 pages) and the name and contact details of a referee, by 31st October.

The letter must explain: ​

• Which scholarship you are applying for
• Your specific area of research
• What you hope to achieve during your residency
• Why you are undertaking this residency i.e. PhD, Masters, publication, sabbatical project, private study etc.
• Your preferred dates of study (please include two or three options)

For more information about the full range of scholarships and how to apply, click here.  Good luck!

sI am happy to announce that a new Miranda Kaufmann Black British History Scholarship will be available at Gladstone’s Library from 2023.
​
The scholarship will be for research into the histories of people of African and/or Caribbean origin or descent in the United Kingdom, making connections between the local and global aspects of British History.

The award is for two weeks’ all-inclusive accommodation at Gladstone’s Library, complete with a travel allowance.

Gladstone’s Library, in the pretty village of Hawarden, just over the Welsh border from Chester, is the UK’s only residential library, founded with the collection of Prime Minister William Gladstone, but now with a collection of over 150,000 items. I’ve been a regular visitor since I moved to North Wales and can vouch for it as a lovely place to read and think.

Through the Gladstone family, the library has its own connections to Black British History and the history of enslavement, making it a peculiarly appropriate place to study these subjects. In recognition of this, the library also offers the Eileen Stamper Scholarship for the study of historical or contemporary slavery, and in 2023, the General scholarship will be reserved for the study of Guyana, to mark the 200th anniversary of the Demerara uprising that began on one of the Gladstone’s plantations in August 1823.

I’m so glad to be able to support research into Black British History in this way, & look forward to learning from many scholars over the years!

For more information about the scholarships and how to apply, click here.

As I live in North Wales, I'm particularly excited that following the success of our previous events in London, Liverpool, Bristol, Preston, Huddersfield and Leicester, we will be holding the fourteenth of the What's Happening in Black British History? Workshops (WHBBHXIV), at Bangor University in North Wales on Saturday 14 May.

The event will be focused on Welsh Black History, with a  keynote from Professor Charlotte Williams, OBE, followed by sessions exploring the latest developments in Wales, histories from the Victorian Age through to the interwar years, and artistic and poetic responses. The day will end with a Drinks Reception with music.

It will be great to discover more about Black History in Wales, which is ahead of England in many ways, with the Government making studying Black History in schools compulsory and commissioning an audit that found that over 200 statues, street names and buildings in the country had connections to enslavement. We'll be hearing about these new developments from our keynote speaker, Charlotte Williams, who led the working group to look at how Black history was taught in Welsh schools, Gaynor Legall who led the built environment audit, as well as Peter Alexander on how the Welsh Government's Race Equality Action Plan (REAP) is being implemented in museums. 

We'll also be learning some Welsh Black histories including about the Congo House school for Africans in Victorian Colwyn Bay, Attitudes of the Welsh in America to African Americans during Reconstruction, 1865-77, and Black sailors boarding in Cardiff between 1890 and 1839. And its's going to be great to explore artistic and poetic responses to these histories. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing about what's been going on at the National Trust's Penrhyn Castle, which you should definitely try and visit while you're here as it's only ten minutes from the university. I got to know it through the Colonial Countryside project, as the family were enslavers in Jamaica.

On that note, I would highly recommend you make a weekend of your trip to Wales as there's so many beautiful landscapes, such as Snowdonia National Park, and historic buildings -especially castles (including the one where they film I'm a Celebrity) - to explore!  There's also surfing and zipwires galore for the adrenaline junkies amongst you! I know that many southerners think North Wales is remote but in fact you can get to Bangor by train in 3 hours from London or Birmingham, 2 hours from Manchester, or 1.5 hours from Liverpool. When you see the full Agenda, I'm sure you'll agree that it'll be worth the trip - and think of all the reading - maybe some of those titles that have been on your list since our Books event last year - you could get done on the train! Or if you prefer driving with an audiobook, there are some gorgeous places you could break the journey at, check out Visit Wales for accommodation options.

Check out the full agenda- in English and Cymraeg below, and then head to the Registration page to book your ticket! 

If you can't make it, we'll be live-tweeting @BlackBritHist #WHBBHXIV throughout the day, and the recordings will be made available after the event. 

​Hope to see many of you there!

I am incredibly disappointed that the MA in Black British History at Goldsmiths, University of London, the only taught course of its kind in the country, which only launched  in 2019, is at risk of closure, as Goldsmiths has put its lecturers Christienna Fryar & Hannah Elias at risk of redundancy. Their actions are in direct opposition to Goldsmiths’ publicly stated goals on diversity and racial justice.

Yesterday I and the other convenors of What’s Happening in Black British History? sent the letter below to Warden Frances Corner, Dinah Caine, Chair of Goldsmiths Council; Elisabeth Hill, Pro-Warden Academic; David Oswell, Pro-Warden Research and Matthew Cragoe, Acting Head of the School of Culture and Society, urging them to save this important new MA course and the jobs of the two excellent scholars who teach it.
​
Please circulate and add your voices, for example by adding a comment to the post on our website here: https://blackbritishhistory.co.uk/2022/save-the-black-british-history-ma/


OPEN LETTER TO GOLDSMITHS TO SAVE ITS BLACK BRITISH HISTORY MA

Dear Warden Frances Corner, Council and Senior Management Team at Goldsmiths,

Save the Black British History MA at Goldsmiths

We, the convenors of What’s Happening in Black British History? at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, are writing to urge you to reconsider your plans that have placed at risk the Black British History MA and the jobs of its lecturers Dr. Christienna Fryar and Dr. Hannah Elias.
Like many people across the sector were delighted when the Black British History MA, the only taught course of its kind in the country, was launched at Goldsmiths in 2019, and saw it as an important contribution to addressing some of the problems outlined in the Royal Historical Society’s 2018 Race, Ethnicity and Equality Report.
Offering the Black British History MA is clearly vital for:

• Contributing to a proper understanding of British History
• Enabling the next generation of university and school teachers to teach a subject they themselves were not taught at school or university
• Improving the diversity of the student body
• Forwarding the fight for racial justice

Indeed, the urgency and significance of this initiative have been powerfully set out in your own public statements over the last few years.

The removal of the Black British History MA is in direct opposition to Goldsmiths’ publicly stated goals on diversity and inclusion and aim to recruit a more diverse student body. You claim to be ‘passionate about advancing equality and celebrating diversity at Goldsmiths’ and that ‘these values are enshrined throughout our rich history, entrenched in the subject matter of our research and teaching, and embraced by members of our community.’ In 2019 you made commitments on racial justice, which included support for decolonising the curriculum and pledging to ring fence £20,000 a year for Black History events for Goldsmiths Students’ Union. In 2020, Warden Frances Corner made ‘a personal pledge to ‘work tirelessly to bring about change.’
When the MA was launched in 2019, Goldsmiths itself, and the former Head of History Dr. John Price made it clear they understood its value. In the press release Dr. John Price said: “The Department of History is absolutely committed to the exciting new MA in Black British History and to widening the fields of history that we teach at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels.

It is a quite extraordinary act of reputational harm that less than three years after you proudly announced that you had recruited Dr Christienna Fryar, a ‘leading academic on the history of emancipation, the British Empire, and the Caribbean’ to convene the course, with a permanent contract, her job is now at risk and she has been forced to reapply for it.

You have ignored protests over the last six months including a letter denouncing the move now signed by almost 5,000 academics, researchers and artists including Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo, former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, and leading historians of Black British History Professor David Olusoga, Professor Olivette Otele. Leading History organizations such as the Royal Historical Society and History UK have also spoken out against this move.

What’s Happening in Black British History? convened by Dr. Miranda Kaufmann, Michael Ohajuru and Professor Philip Murphy at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies has been promoting the study, discussion and dissemination of this vital subject since 2014, organising two major events a year. We have held events in London, Liverpool, Bristol, Huddersfield, Preston, Leicester, and hosted over 150 scholars, artists, writers and heritage professionals as speakers to over 600 attendees. The substantial national audience for our events and social media output shows the interest in and importance of the subject. We were commended for our work in the Royal Historical Society’s 2018 Race, Ethnicity and Equality Report.
​
We add our own voices to the growing chorus of individuals and organisations across the sector urging you to reconsider your approach. We fear that unless you are prepared to make a pledge to protect the Black British History MA, and to lift the threat of redundancy from Dr. Christienna Fryar and Dr. Hannah Elias the reputation of Goldsmiths will suffer immense damage, besides depriving young people of a currently unique opportunity to study this vital subject.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Miranda Kaufmann, Michael Ohajuru and Professor Philip Murphy
Convenors of What’s Happening in Black British History? at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

It's that time of year when we like to look back and forward at once (like Janus!), and as I haven't blogged much for a while I thought I'd round up some of what I've been up to, and exciting things planned for the coming year.

The biggest achievement of 2021 was working hard to create my FutureLearn Black Tudors course, which over 4,800 people have now signed up to. If you want to learn more about Africans in Tudor and early Stuart England, explore the original documents recording their lives, hear from a range of experts, and join the debate yourself, why not enrol for FREE now? Read all about it in this blog from July.  There are some other great FutureLearn Black History courses too- I would recommend the Black Curriculum's Teaching Black British History course and the new Country Houses and the British Empire course designed by my director on the Colonial Countryside Project, Professor Corinne Fowler. FutureLearn is looking to expand its coverage in this area, so do let me/them know what courses you'd like to see/who should write them!

The ‘What’s Happening in Black British History?’ series I co-organise with Michael Ohajuru and Philip Murphy at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies went virtual for WHBBH Books in April 2021. You can read more about the event here, or catch up on the recordings here. We are now reviewing proposals for #WHBBHXIV, which will be the 14th workshop since we began the series back in 2014. As I live in North Wales, I’m excited that the event will be held at Bangor University on Saturday 14th May 2022 – save the date!

I've continued to work on my Teaching Black Tudors project to get the history of Africans in Early Modern England into the classroom. In October OUP published a new 'How Can We Find Out about the lives of Black Tudors?' enquiry, which you can download via Kerboodle. I gave a History Masterclass on Africans in Tudor and Stuart Westminster for Westminster Abbey, sadly this was virtual, but the silver lining is that you can watch the lecture and the Q&A online. It was exciting to see BBC Bitesize add a learner guide to Africans and their lives in Tudor England in November. In 2022, Hodder will be publishing a more comprehensive set of Black Tudors teaching resources, so watch this space!

My interest in getting Black British History into the classroom more generally, which I blogged about at length, with a list of practical suggestions, back in late 2020, led to several invitations in 2021. Highlights, which were recorded, so you can still watch online, were discussing "Should we decolonise education?" with Professor Kehinde Andrews for the CogX festival in June, and joining a panel organised by OUP on "Diversifying Your History Curriculum" with Janice Mansel-Chan, Emily Folorunsho and Aaron Wilkes  in November.   
 
I was delighted to be one of the judges for the 100 Great Black Britons Schools Competition, and am looking forward to assessing the entries for the Gallery of Living History Schools Competition this week. The winner will be announced at the end of January, and their design for ‘an artwork/statue that celebrates and commemorates an unsung person or people, living or dead, whose heroic story has never been properly told’ will be unveiled as part of the Coventry City of Culture celebrations in May.

I’ve been trying to avoid writing articles in order to focus on my Heiresses: The Caribbean Marriage Trade book, but I did take advantage of the hullabaloo around the casting of Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn in the Channel 5 drama in June to draw attention to the real history of Africans in Tudor England. I was interviewed by several radio stations, as well as writing a piece in The Telegraph: Yes, there were black Tudors – and they lived fascinating lives. My only other publication in 2021 was this brief article on Africans in Britain, 1500-1800 for the Oxford African American Studies Center –which I hope provides a useful summary and further reading recommendations signposting the classics plus exciting new scholarship in the field.

 I was interviewed for EPOCH magazine by Sophie Merrix, who excitingly is researching Black Stuarts for her PhD at Lancaster University, and as part of An Introduction to African and Afro-Diasporic Peoples and Influences in British Literature and Culture before the Industrial Revolution, an online open textbook published by Affordable Learning Georgia, with support from Savannah State University, which also features an interview with Dr. Onyeka Nubia. 
​ 
After my experiences working with the National Trust as Lead Historian on the Colonial Countryside Project since 2018, I’ve been dismayed to see the ongoing biased and negative coverage of the National Trust’s Colonialism and Slavery Report which was published in September 2020. I was happy to speak to journalist Sam Knight about it all, and he published a refreshingly accurate piece in the New Yorker in August which is the best account I’ve read of the story – recommended reading!

I’ve done a few podcast interviews you might want to listen to: I spoke to Dr. Sam Willis for the Mariner's Mirror podcast about Africans in Tudor and Stuart Port Towns, and to Ryan Latto about Peter the Moor and other Africans at the Scottish Court on his Unearthed podcast, and to Moya Lothian MacClean about Elizabethan slaver John Hawkins on her Human Resources podcast series. I also spoke with Michael Ohajuru and Gretchen Gerzina about John Blanke’s portrait in the Westminster Tournament Roll for the Black Presence in British Portraiture podcast; the network also has a Facebook page for anyone interested in portraits of Africans in British Art.

​It’s only while sitting down to write this that I’ve realised how much I actually did in 2021! I’ll end with a plea not to ask me to take on any new projects in 2022- I need to put all my energies into finishing writing my Heiresses: The Caribbean Marriage Trade book, which I hope will be published in 2023.
 
I hope you all have a happy and fulfilling year ahead, here's some things to to look forward to in 2022:

• ‘What’s Happening in Black British History? XIV’- Saturday 14th May at Bangor University
• Unveiling of the Gallery of Living History winning artwork in Coventry – May 2022
• Launch of Hodder Black Tudors teaching resources – 2022 date tbc
• and remember, the FREE online 6-week FutureLearn Black Tudors course is available to start anytime!