Heiresses Book Tour 2026
Thursday 5th March: In conversation with Nasra Elliot (National Museums Liverpool) at The Athenaeum, Liverpool, hosted by the Centre for the Study of International Slavery.
Thursday 19th March: In conversation with Tony Warner (Black History Walks), Senate House, hosted by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.
more dates coming soon...
Black Tudors: Three Untold Stories talk 2019
Almost 500,000 people have viewed my Black Tudors: Three Untold Stories talk since it was filmed by Gresham College in 2019. You can watch it on YouTube below.
Dr Kaufmann tells the intriguing tales of three Africans living in Tudor England – Jacques Francis, a diver employed by Henry VIII to recover guns from the wreck of the Mary Rose; Mary Fillis, a Moroccan woman baptized in Elizabethan London; and Edward Swarthye, a porter who whipped a fellow servant at their master's Gloucestershire manor house. Their stories illuminate key issues: – how did they come to England? What were their lives like? How were they treated by the church and the law? Most importantly: were they free?
Dr Kaufmann tells the intriguing tales of three Africans living in Tudor England – Jacques Francis, a diver employed by Henry VIII to recover guns from the wreck of the Mary Rose; Mary Fillis, a Moroccan woman baptized in Elizabethan London; and Edward Swarthye, a porter who whipped a fellow servant at their master's Gloucestershire manor house. Their stories illuminate key issues: – how did they come to England? What were their lives like? How were they treated by the church and the law? Most importantly: were they free?
