An open le[tt]re to the L[ord] Maiour of London and th'alermen his brethren, And to all other Maiours, Sheryfes, &c. Her Ma[jes]tie understanding that there are of late divers Blackmoores brought into the Realme, of which kinde of people there are all ready here to manie, consideringe howe God hath blessed this land w[i]th great increase of people of our owne Nation as anie Countrie in the world, wherof manie for want of Service and meanes to sett them on worck fall to Idlenesse and to great extremytie; Her Ma[jesty']s pleasure therefore ys, that those kinde of people should be sent forthe of the lande. And for that purpose there ys direction given to this bearer Edwarde Banes to take of those Blackmoores that in this last voyage under Sir Thomas Baskervile, were brought into this Realme to the nomber of Tenn, to be Transported by him out of the Realme. Wherein wee Req[uire] you to be aydinge & Assysting unto him as he shall have occacion, and thereof not to faile.

Letter from Queen Elizabeth, 11th July 1596

An Open Letter about 'Negroes' Brought Home

An open warrant tot he L[ord] Maiour of London and to all ...Maiours and other publicke officers whatsoever to whom yt may appertaine. Whereas Casper van Senden a merchant of Lubeck did by his labor and travell procure 89 of her Ma[jest's] subiectes that were detayned prisoners in Spaine and Portugall to be released, and brought them hither into this Realme at his owne cost and charges, for the w[hi]ch his expences and declaration of his honest minde towardes those prizoners, he only desireth to have lycense to take up so many Blackamoores here in this Realme and to transport them into Spaine and Portugall. Her Ma[jes]ty ... doth thincke yt a very good exchange and that those kinde of people may be well spared in this Realme being so populous and nombers of hable persons the subiects of the land and xpian [Christian] people that perishe for want of service, whereby through their labor they might be mayntained

'Those kinde of people may be well spared'

Letter from Queen Elizabeth, 18th July 1596

WHEREAS the Queen's majesty, tendering the good and welfare of her own natural subjects, greatly distressed in these hard times of dearth, is highly discontented to understand the great number of Negroes and blackamoors which (as she is informed) are carried into this realm since the troubles between her highness and the King of Spain; who are fostered and powered here, to the great annoyance of her own liege people that which co[vet?] the relief which these people consume, as also for that the most of them are infidels having no understanding of Christ or his Gospel: hath given a special commandment that the said kind of people shall be with all speed avoided and discharged out of this her majesty's realms ... These shall therefore be to will and require you and every of you to aid and assist the said Casper van Senden or his assignees to taking such Negroes and blackamoors to be transported as aforesaid as he shall find within the realm of England; and if there shall be any person or persons which be possessed of any such blackamoors that refuse to deliver them in sort aforesaid, then we require you to call them before you and to advise and persuade them by all good means to satisfy her majesty's pleasure therein; which if they shall eftsoons willfully and obstinately refuse, we pray you to certify their names to us, to the end her majesty may take such further course therein as it shall seem best in her princely wisdom.

Proclamation by Queen Elizabeth, January 1601

Licence to Deport Black People

Why this sudden, urgent desire to expel members of England's Black population? It was more than a commercial transaction pursued by the queen. In the 16th century, the ruling classes became increasingly concerned about poverty and vagrancy, as the feudal system - which, in theory, had kept everyone in their place - finally broke down. They feared disorder and social breakdown and, blaming the poor, brought in poor laws to try to deal with the problem.

In the 1590s the harvests repeatedly failed, bringing hunger, disease and a rapid increase in poverty and vagrancy. Elizabeth's orders against Black people were an attempt to blame them for wider social problems. Her proclamation of 1601 claimed that Black people were 'fostered and relieved here to the great annoyance of [the queen's] own liege people, that want the relief, which those people consume'. The proclamation also stated that 'most of them are infidels, having no understanding of Christ or his Gospel'.

It may be the case that many (although by no means all) Black people were Muslims (of North African origin). If so, it seems that the queen was playing on their difference from Protestant England to assert that they were not welcome. Whether they were actually more likely to be in poverty than Whites is much more doubtful. What is clear is that they were being used as a convenient scapegoat at a time of crisis.Nor is it probable that Elizabeth's efforts to deport them had much success. The historian James Walvin concludes that 'Blacks had become too securely lodged at various social levels of English society to be displaced and repatriated.http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/elizabeth.htm

[in left hand margin] J: Moore

24 Ordered. that John Moore the Blackmoore be Admitted to the Freedom of this Citty - paying twenty Nobles to the Common Chamber of this Citty And it is left to my Lord Mayors discretion to retorne him back what he pleases

A Black Freeman in York Freemen's Roll of the City of York 1st October 1687

John Moore Pays for the Freedom of the City 1687

October the 1st 1687.John Moore was Admitted to his freedome of this City and payd£ s d4 0 0

The Tichborne Dole (1671) by Gillis van Tilborgh

Short Notes from the Papers.The practice of importing Negroe servants into these kingdoms is said to be already a grievance that requires a remedy, and yet it is every day encouraged, insomuch that the number in this metropolis only, is supposed to be near 20,000; the main objections to their importation is, that they cease to consider themselves as slaves in this free country, nor will they put up with an inequality of treatment, nor more willingly perform the laborious offices of servitude than our own people, and if put to do it, are generally sullen spiteful, treacherous, and revengeful. It is therefore highly impolitic to introduce them as servants here, where that rigour and severity is impracticable which is absolutely necessary to make them useful.

'Importing Negroe Servants'Gentleman's Magazine, Oct 1764

Mingo - from Servant to Lighthouse Keeper 1667

In the name of God AmenI Sir William Batten of London Knight being in good health of body & of sound and perfect mynd memory and understanding (praised be Almighty God) doe make ordaine publish and declare thro my last will and Testament [.....] I give and bequeath to my servante Mingoe a Negroe That now dwelleth with mee the somme of Tenne pounds to be paid within Twelve monethes next after my decease And I doe alsoe give unto him the said Mingoe the Custody and keeping of my Light houses Att Harwich, and the somme of Twenty pounds a yeare of lawfull money of England during the Terme of his naturall life for his paines therein Item I give and bequeath to my two maid servants Rachell Underhill and Martha Peake the somme of Tenne poundes a piece of like lawfull money be paid within the said space of Twelve monethes next after my decease Item I give and bequeath unto the poor of the parish of Walthamstow aforesaid The somme of Twenty shillings a yeare for and during the Terme of seaven yeares next after my decease to be distributed amongst them by the Churchwardens and overseers of the poore of the said parish

Local records reveal that people referred to as 'Black' were employed in a variety of different jobs. While this was not common, opportunities did exist. There was a Black publican in Doncaster and a Black coal merchant in Kingston. Thomas Jenkins was an African farmhand who later spent a brief period studying at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. There, he met with objections to his presence, so he travelled to London where he trained and worked as a teacher at the British and Foreign School Society. A servant named Mingo was made keeper of the Harwich lighthouse in the will left by his master, Royal Navy surveyor Sir William Batten.

By the mid-eighteenth century African and Asian people had become part of the fabric of British society. The history of White employers cannot be separated from the history of the men and women who worked for them. African, Caribbean and Asian people lived and laboured beside English washerwomen, domestic maids, cooks, sailors and soldiers. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/servants.htm

This is a passenger list of the Belisarius, one of the ships that set sail from Britain in 1787, taking Black emigrants to found the colony of Sierra Leone.

Mixed Marriages in the Eighteenth Century

Noon

By William Hogarth

1738

Ordination of the First Black British Preacher? Gentleman's Magazine, March 1765, p. 145

HISTORICAL CHRONICLE.At an ordination of priests and deacons at the chapel royal at St James's by the Hon. and Rev. Dr Keppel,Bishop of Exeter, a black was ordained, whose devout behaviour attracted the notice of the whole congregation.

'Blacks Only' Party London Chronicle, 16-18 February 1764

Black people were an integral part of 18th-century British society. They worked in a wide variety of occupations, reacted to atrocities, campaigned to end slavery, became political activists, and had a lively social life.A strong support network existed among the Black population. For example, in June 1772 the Public Advertiser reported that 'a great number of Negroes, in and about the Metropolis', had raised a subscription to thank Lord Mansfield, believing that slaves in Britain had been emancipated by his ruling in the Somerset case. This legal victory was celebrated by a ball held at a Westminster pub, which attracted nearly 200 Black revellers.

Black and White people were also getting married. A report in 1578 declared 'I myself have seene an Ethiopian as black as cole...taking a faire English woman as wife [they] begat a sonne in all respects as blacke as the father.' James Albert Gronniosaw (an African prince, enslaved at 15, who served in the British army and later wrote his memoirs) married an English weaver and settled in Colchester. Equiano himself married a Cambridgeshire woman, Susanna Cullen, from Soham, in 1792; and we know that in 1731 Englishman Warren Hull married Maria Sambo in Earls Colne.However, 'mixed' marriages were not accepted by all. In 1773, one outraged correspondent wrote to the London Chronicle begging the public to 'save the natural beauty of Britons' from contamination. But parish registers do not always reflect the true picture. Indian people were commonly referred to as 'black'. Also, many Asians had strong ties to the Hindu and Muslim faiths, as did some Africans. As a result, they appear less frequently in the records, although they may well have been present in large numbers in Britain.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/relationships.htm

Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Gazette after the Battle of Waterloo, by Scottish artist Sir David Wilkie. In his notes composed when the painting was first shown at the Royal Academy, in 1822, Wilkie describes the Black soldier as: '...one of the band of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards, who was in France during the Revolution; was present at the death of Louis XVI, and was afterwards servant to General Moreau, in his campaigns in Germany...'

'United Service‘ by Andrew Morton, early to mid-19th centuryTowards the right of the painting is John Deman, a Black sailor who served with Nelson in the West Indies.

Lascars (Indian Sailors)Through trading with the East, British mercantile ships frequently employed Lascars. According to the Navigation Acts of 1660, 75% of a registered ship's crew had to be British, but this soon changed as demand for labour grew. In 1730 the East India Company, with its sizeable commercial fleet, began signing agreements with Lascar crewmen. They received a monthly wage of 15 rupees for the voyage from Calcutta to London, and a weekly retainer pending their return journey to India. Some of these men, however, were left stranded in Britain and became part of the unemployed Black population. Historian Rozina Visram records destitute Lascars begging in Westminster. In the mid-19th century, the Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders, based in Limehouse in East London, gave shelter to unemployed Lascars.British ships needed Asian seamen for the same reasons they needed Black soldiers - the death rate among sailors was high. An estimated 2,500 Lascars visited England every year. Myers' study of Black people in Britain, shows that between 1821 and 1823 Lascars represented 84.8% of the crews on board seven ships sailing from the East. It is not difficult to see how, over time, Black and Asian sailors serving on board British military and merchant vessels and calling at British ports gradually became part of British society. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/high_seas.htm

Minutes of the Black Poor Committee 26 July 1786

OrderedThat a distinct List be made of the Asiatic Blacks on the Printed Paper, specifying their Age and Employment when they were brought into this country and by whom, with a view to communicate the same to the Directors of the East India Company, also a List of such as were brought over in the King's Ships, and that a Duplicate of each be respectively supplied to the Court of Directors of the East India Company and also the Navy Board.

Brighton, c 1826Dean Mohamed was born in Patna in 1759 to an elite Muslim family. His ancestors had served the Mughal rulers. He joined the British army in 1769 and later accompanied his employer, Captain Baker, to Cork in Ireland. By 1810, he had started a new life in London, establishing the Hindoostanee Coffee House in Portman Square. His customers were Anglo-Indians, and he offered them Indian tobacco and Indian dishes. Later, Mohamed was able to expand his business to George Street, near Marble Arch. This early Indian entrepreneur met with difficult times and eventually took a job as a 'shampooing surgeon' in fashionable Brighton. But soon he was back in business, opening his own Medicated Vapour Baths, where he used special herbs and oils brought from his homeland.

This engraving, made in 1781, the year after the Gordon Riots, claims to be an ‘exact representation’ of the attack by the rioters on Newgate gaol. The building was set on fire and prisoners released - they can be seen in the crowd wearing leg irons. We know from the records that two Black men - Benjamin Bowsey and John Glover - were among the rioters outside the prison. Perhaps they are the two Black figures shown in the middle foreground of this picture.

John Glover and Benjamin Bowsey had been among those charged with ‘riotous and tumultuous assembly’ during the Gordon Riots of 1780. Convicted and sentenced to death in less than a month, they were held in Newgate prison (which had been attacked during the riots) awaiting execution.

This page shows that both were granted a stay of execution in July 1780. For some reason, Glover’s reprieve was indefinite - whereas Bowsey had to endure a series of temporary reprieves, until both men were conditionally pardoned in April the following year

A Stay of Execution for the Rioters

William Cuffey

Cuffey was a prominent ‘physical force Chartist’ and leader of the militant London Chartists - a group described by The Times as ‘the Black man and his party’.

Cuffey’s speech to the court, 25th September 1848

“That is all I need say at present, except that this is no more than what I have expected for some time. As I certainly have been an important character in the Chartist movement, I laid myself out for something of this sort from the first. I know that a great many men of good moral character are now suffering in prison only for advocating the cause of the Charter; but, however, I do not despair of its being carried out yet. There may be many victims. I am not anxious for martyrdom, but I feel that, after what I have gone through this week, I have the fortitude to endure any punishment your lordship can inflict upon me. I know my cause is good, and I have a self-approving conscience that will bear me up against anything. and that would bear me up even to the scaffold; therefore I think I can endure any punishment proudly. I feel no disgrace at being called a felon. “

…I was a journeyman,A taylor black and free;And my wife went out and chaired about,And my name's the bold Cuffee.‘

WM Thackeray 1848

Joseph Emidy had been second violin in the orchestra of the Lisbon opera house before being impressed into the Royal Navy in 1795. Once discharged in 1799, he resumed his career as a professional musician both in Falmouth and Truro, to where he later moved with his family. Emidy also privately taught a variety of instruments, including the violin. Over the years, he became a highly regarded and popular performer both at local balls and parties and among the local ‘harmonic societies’ (or amateur orchestras) and concert groups. For some time, he was leader of the Harmonic Society of Falmouth. This untitled anonymous drawing almost certainly shows Emidy performing with a harmonic society in Truro, in 1808. Emidy wrote a number of musical compositions, many of which were performed at local concerts and benefits with great success. Fears, however, that his colour would render him ‘unacceptable’ to London musical circles meant that none of his compositions gained a wider audience and, unfortunately, no copies of his work appear to have survived. After his death, one of his former pupils, the anti-slavery politician James Silk Buckingham, described Emidy’s work as an ‘achievement of extraordinary perfection’.

Illustrated London News, 1 April 1848, p. 218

Ira Aldridge as Zanga

Ignatius Sancho

Ignatius Sancho was a composer, actor and writer. He was a neighbour and friend of Ottobah Cugoano. Sancho was born in 1729 on a slave ship and spent the first two years of his life enslaved in Grenada. His mother died when he was very young and his father killed himself, rather than become enslaved. When he was two, his owner brought him to England. He worked as a servant in Greenwich and then for the Duke of Montagu. Sancho taught himself to read and spoke out against the slave trade. He went on to compose music and write poetry and plays. In 1773, Sancho and his wife set up a grocer's shop in Westminster. Sancho was very well known and his shop became a meeting place for some of the most famous writers, artists, actors and politicians of the day. As a financially-independent householder, he became the first black person of African origin to vote in parliamentary elections in Britain (1774 & 1780).After his death in 1780, Sancho's letters were published in a book, which became an immediate best seller. Five editions of the book were published and his writing was used as evidence to support the movement to end slavery. Sancho had mentioned slavery in many of the letters he had written to friends. In 1778, for example, he commented that the main aim of all English navigators was ‘money-money-money'. Sancho also made people aware of how the lives of Africans were made miserable by the Slave Trade. The following extract his from one of the letters published in 1782 shows the power of his arguments"... the Christians' abominable traffic for slaves and the horrid cruelty and treachery of the African Kings - encouraged by their Christian customers who carry them guns to furnish them with the hellish means of killing and kidnapping." .