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Black and British: A Forgotten History
In Black and British, award-winning historian and broadcaster David Olusoga offers readers a rich and revealing exploration of the extraordinarily long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Drawing on new genetic and genealogical research, original records, expert testimony and contemporary interviews, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination and Shakespeare's Othello.
It reveals that behind the South Sea Bubble was Britain's global slave-trading empire and that much of the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery. It shows that Black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of the First World War. Black British history can be read in stately homes, street names, statues and memorials across Britain and is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation.
It reveals that behind the South Sea Bubble was Britain's global slave-trading empire and that much of the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery. It shows that Black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of the First World War. Black British history can be read in stately homes, street names, statues and memorials across Britain and is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation.
624 pages, Hardcover
First published November 3, 2016
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November 28, 2016
Growing up in Britain in the 1970s, I was subjected to the same type of racism as this book's author, David Olusoga. The refrain David heard was the same that I heard: "Go back to where you came from." "Black and British" is a detailed rebuttal of the racist lie that black people do not belong in Britain.
The book accompanies a superb BBC Two documentary, which is much more crowd-pleasing in tone. In the book, Olusoga pulls no punches. The thesis running throughout the book is that black Britons have been systematically excluded from British history. He argues that "the denial and avowal of black British history, even in the face of mounting documentary and archeological evidence, is not just a consequence of racism but a feature of racism."
Starting from Roman times, the book is a compelling chronicle of the lives of black Tudors, Georgians, Victorians, and soldiers in the first and second world wars. The book ends in the present day. Large chronological gaps exist, frustratingly for the reader, because black voices have simply not been systematically recorded throughout history.
The book's strengths are in its jaw-dropping true stories. My favourite chapters are on John Blanke who was Henry VIII's trumpet-player; the massacre of black civilians by the British army in Jamaica 1865 (black lives did not matter to the police even then); derring-do on the high seas between British anti-slavery ships and slavers; and the short but eventful history of Windrush which was the ship that brought West Indians to England in 1948. The hardback edition of this book has high-quality colour plates. The Westminster Tournament Scroll of 1511 and the medieval Mappa Mundi look particularly beautiful in colour. The weakness of the book is in the overload of detail and occasional anachronisms e.g. "reached out" instead of "wrote to".
Anyone interested in British history, African history and civil rights must read this book. With a wealth of previously unheard stories, a brisk writing style, and comprehensive research, Olusoga has produced what deserves to become a modern classic. It is also a joy to read. Thank you Andrew for your original review (below) and for recommending the book to me.
The book accompanies a superb BBC Two documentary, which is much more crowd-pleasing in tone. In the book, Olusoga pulls no punches. The thesis running throughout the book is that black Britons have been systematically excluded from British history. He argues that "the denial and avowal of black British history, even in the face of mounting documentary and archeological evidence, is not just a consequence of racism but a feature of racism."
Starting from Roman times, the book is a compelling chronicle of the lives of black Tudors, Georgians, Victorians, and soldiers in the first and second world wars. The book ends in the present day. Large chronological gaps exist, frustratingly for the reader, because black voices have simply not been systematically recorded throughout history.
The book's strengths are in its jaw-dropping true stories. My favourite chapters are on John Blanke who was Henry VIII's trumpet-player; the massacre of black civilians by the British army in Jamaica 1865 (black lives did not matter to the police even then); derring-do on the high seas between British anti-slavery ships and slavers; and the short but eventful history of Windrush which was the ship that brought West Indians to England in 1948. The hardback edition of this book has high-quality colour plates. The Westminster Tournament Scroll of 1511 and the medieval Mappa Mundi look particularly beautiful in colour. The weakness of the book is in the overload of detail and occasional anachronisms e.g. "reached out" instead of "wrote to".
Anyone interested in British history, African history and civil rights must read this book. With a wealth of previously unheard stories, a brisk writing style, and comprehensive research, Olusoga has produced what deserves to become a modern classic. It is also a joy to read. Thank you Andrew for your original review (below) and for recommending the book to me.
February 7, 2021
A forgotten history indeed.
Having a keen interest in Black and Indian regiments and men who have fought for Britain in the Second World War - those Black regiments include The King's African Rifles (who Barack Obama's Grandfather served with in Burma), The Nigeria Regiment, The Gambia Regiment, The Gold Coast Regiment and The Caribbean Regiment - and knowing the story of The Scramble for Africa and Rhodes' & South Africa, SS Empire Windrush, Slavery and Abolishment, including US aspects and key personalities, and cotton & trade during the Civil War; The Boer War, Enoch Powell and his infamous "Rivers of Blood speech"; UK "race riots" in the 1980s; been to Rock Against Racism gigs, and heavily into Punk, Two-Tone music and black disco & stuff like Run DMC and The Sugarhill Gang and so on, I thought for a white bloke I was above fair on my knowledge of Black British history.
David Olusoga's quite superb books shows me I'm not and has filled in many gaps and unknowns.
This is the second book of his I have read (The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire), and once again his ability to cover wide ranging yet complex areas with a clarity and inclusiveness shines through and lifts this book from being interesting to quite brilliant.
The history is long and Mr Olusoga covers Blacks in Britain in Roman times and onwards with good chapters and detail on early trade, piracy and slavery that brings to life Tudor and Georgian times. Much of the book unexpectedly but quite correctly covers slavery. I say unexpectedly as I had assumed the book would be simply about Blacks within Britain.
In considerable detail is Britain's move to slave trading and its muscling in on other European nations trade and then to the emancipation and abolition movements that culminated with Britain's acts of Parliament (Slave Trade Act 1807 and Slavery Abolition Act 1833) that turned the Royal Navy into the instrument of slave trading suppression.
In these chapters I learnt huge amounts on how the trade evolved (not why it was needed for the sugar and tobacco plantations in the West Indies and America) but the methods, transportation, and logistics alongside the people, including African tribes who participated in capturing other tribes to sell and he building of the slaving stations near to what is today's Freetown, Sierra Leone. The founding and development of Freetown is also well covered and fascinating.
The move to abolition both at home in Britain and in Africa and the high-seas was richer and a more complex story that I had known. International complaints and international committees; American and British plantation owners' and British shipping, port and mill owners' complaints; Other nations slave trading including the long-established Arabian/Ottoman/east Asian routes and the Istanbul slavery market are provided context as is a Royal Navy (RN) fighting Napoleon, and trying to man anti-slavery shipping patrols with less than fighting fit ships that were outrun and performed by Slavers' top-line and specifically built ships. Steam power makes some difference and allows the RN to navigate and patrol the shallower inner reaches of the West African rivers to disrupt and arrest slavers.
The links to West Indies and America continued to cast a shadow, as after Britain's move from slaver to abolisher, we see the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, one of the last nations to stop slavery from their slave fortresses along the Gold Coast (Ghana) to Northern Brazil, and America continue their trading. Manpower for these ships and ports is readily available as the European nations troops are demobilised after the end of the Napoleonic wars 1815.
The diplomatic and moral arguments reign, alongside the latest "science" of the day, including the nonsensical ideas that Blacks are lazy and primitive and could not stand the cold so could not play useful parts in a modern north European/American society, to the frankly even more laughable suggestion that Blacks stopped mental development in late teens and could only therefore remain primitive. We read of tours of Britain by African chiefs, Black touring parties and "shows" at exhibitions such as the Great Exhibition in 1851, and the impact Uncle Tom's Cabin had on Britain and onwards into the mid-2oth century. Frederick Douglass, the great American abolitionist tours Britain to great acclaim twice. Alongside this however, as we enter the later stages of the Victorian era: there are the foundations and progression of eugenics and racial purity theory. This continues as we know through to the 1930s Europe and into WWII and indeed beyond into 1950s and 60s United States of America with racial attacks, torture and murders.
We see the British Black population grow to a few tens of thousands and by the end of WWI many have worked on ships, in factories and served in the British Empire's military. Sadly, with the war war's end and Lloyd George's homes fit for heroes failing to materialise, alongside mass unemployment, we see politicians from all sides and notably the unions seek to colour bar workers. There are, and this I was not aware of, mobs raging through Liverpool and murdering blacks; many end up being holed up in police cells and Bridewells (these latter were cells used for petty crimes).
Mr Olusoga then covers the Second World War and the interesting area of how white American GIs created huge difficulties in a British nation that was unused to, un-wanting and unaccepting of their racist segregation and violence to Black troops. The British authorities' struggle to not fall out with a key ally whilst not wanting to assist or amplify the USA's segregation policies is well described. There are some nice aspects here of British families having Black troops to tea, as well as the Black GIs seeing no favouritism and racism to them in shops, clubs, pubs; only until white GIs turned up or saw Black GIs with white girls and then there were stupid arguments and hideous violence: one family invited two GIs to tea; one happened to be Black; the white GI took to violence in his host's house when he arrived and found the other guest was black.
On then to the Empire Windrush and the discussions on race and the passing of race relations law. The recruitment of West Indians into manufacturing, the National Health Service, London Transport, The Post Office and many others, including areas that required training, skills and later educational certificates. Britain's universities and military academy's such as Woolwich and Sandhurst had for decades allowed entry to and taught Black students.
The story closes with brief mention of the later 1970s and beyond. This Mr Olusoga advises is because it passes into recent history and he becomes a part of that story, including his family being attacked in their own house in the Midlands by the National Front (yesterday's knuckle dragging version of the British National Party and the far scarier US KKK).
In closing, I had my knowledge expanded through this brilliant, scholarly and easy to read book. Mr Olusoga is a fine companion; challenging a reader's understanding, building new knowledge and amongst the dreadful treatment and history he remains fair, just and passionate.
My copy was a 2017 Pan paperback of 602 pages. There are 64 excellent illustrations and photos in colour and black & white over four sets of plates.
NB: edited to remove a couple of spelling/sentence construction errors.
Having a keen interest in Black and Indian regiments and men who have fought for Britain in the Second World War - those Black regiments include The King's African Rifles (who Barack Obama's Grandfather served with in Burma), The Nigeria Regiment, The Gambia Regiment, The Gold Coast Regiment and The Caribbean Regiment - and knowing the story of The Scramble for Africa and Rhodes' & South Africa, SS Empire Windrush, Slavery and Abolishment, including US aspects and key personalities, and cotton & trade during the Civil War; The Boer War, Enoch Powell and his infamous "Rivers of Blood speech"; UK "race riots" in the 1980s; been to Rock Against Racism gigs, and heavily into Punk, Two-Tone music and black disco & stuff like Run DMC and The Sugarhill Gang and so on, I thought for a white bloke I was above fair on my knowledge of Black British history.
David Olusoga's quite superb books shows me I'm not and has filled in many gaps and unknowns.
This is the second book of his I have read (The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire), and once again his ability to cover wide ranging yet complex areas with a clarity and inclusiveness shines through and lifts this book from being interesting to quite brilliant.
The history is long and Mr Olusoga covers Blacks in Britain in Roman times and onwards with good chapters and detail on early trade, piracy and slavery that brings to life Tudor and Georgian times. Much of the book unexpectedly but quite correctly covers slavery. I say unexpectedly as I had assumed the book would be simply about Blacks within Britain.
In considerable detail is Britain's move to slave trading and its muscling in on other European nations trade and then to the emancipation and abolition movements that culminated with Britain's acts of Parliament (Slave Trade Act 1807 and Slavery Abolition Act 1833) that turned the Royal Navy into the instrument of slave trading suppression.
In these chapters I learnt huge amounts on how the trade evolved (not why it was needed for the sugar and tobacco plantations in the West Indies and America) but the methods, transportation, and logistics alongside the people, including African tribes who participated in capturing other tribes to sell and he building of the slaving stations near to what is today's Freetown, Sierra Leone. The founding and development of Freetown is also well covered and fascinating.
The move to abolition both at home in Britain and in Africa and the high-seas was richer and a more complex story that I had known. International complaints and international committees; American and British plantation owners' and British shipping, port and mill owners' complaints; Other nations slave trading including the long-established Arabian/Ottoman/east Asian routes and the Istanbul slavery market are provided context as is a Royal Navy (RN) fighting Napoleon, and trying to man anti-slavery shipping patrols with less than fighting fit ships that were outrun and performed by Slavers' top-line and specifically built ships. Steam power makes some difference and allows the RN to navigate and patrol the shallower inner reaches of the West African rivers to disrupt and arrest slavers.
The links to West Indies and America continued to cast a shadow, as after Britain's move from slaver to abolisher, we see the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, one of the last nations to stop slavery from their slave fortresses along the Gold Coast (Ghana) to Northern Brazil, and America continue their trading. Manpower for these ships and ports is readily available as the European nations troops are demobilised after the end of the Napoleonic wars 1815.
The diplomatic and moral arguments reign, alongside the latest "science" of the day, including the nonsensical ideas that Blacks are lazy and primitive and could not stand the cold so could not play useful parts in a modern north European/American society, to the frankly even more laughable suggestion that Blacks stopped mental development in late teens and could only therefore remain primitive. We read of tours of Britain by African chiefs, Black touring parties and "shows" at exhibitions such as the Great Exhibition in 1851, and the impact Uncle Tom's Cabin had on Britain and onwards into the mid-2oth century. Frederick Douglass, the great American abolitionist tours Britain to great acclaim twice. Alongside this however, as we enter the later stages of the Victorian era: there are the foundations and progression of eugenics and racial purity theory. This continues as we know through to the 1930s Europe and into WWII and indeed beyond into 1950s and 60s United States of America with racial attacks, torture and murders.
We see the British Black population grow to a few tens of thousands and by the end of WWI many have worked on ships, in factories and served in the British Empire's military. Sadly, with the war war's end and Lloyd George's homes fit for heroes failing to materialise, alongside mass unemployment, we see politicians from all sides and notably the unions seek to colour bar workers. There are, and this I was not aware of, mobs raging through Liverpool and murdering blacks; many end up being holed up in police cells and Bridewells (these latter were cells used for petty crimes).
Mr Olusoga then covers the Second World War and the interesting area of how white American GIs created huge difficulties in a British nation that was unused to, un-wanting and unaccepting of their racist segregation and violence to Black troops. The British authorities' struggle to not fall out with a key ally whilst not wanting to assist or amplify the USA's segregation policies is well described. There are some nice aspects here of British families having Black troops to tea, as well as the Black GIs seeing no favouritism and racism to them in shops, clubs, pubs; only until white GIs turned up or saw Black GIs with white girls and then there were stupid arguments and hideous violence: one family invited two GIs to tea; one happened to be Black; the white GI took to violence in his host's house when he arrived and found the other guest was black.
On then to the Empire Windrush and the discussions on race and the passing of race relations law. The recruitment of West Indians into manufacturing, the National Health Service, London Transport, The Post Office and many others, including areas that required training, skills and later educational certificates. Britain's universities and military academy's such as Woolwich and Sandhurst had for decades allowed entry to and taught Black students.
The story closes with brief mention of the later 1970s and beyond. This Mr Olusoga advises is because it passes into recent history and he becomes a part of that story, including his family being attacked in their own house in the Midlands by the National Front (yesterday's knuckle dragging version of the British National Party and the far scarier US KKK).
In closing, I had my knowledge expanded through this brilliant, scholarly and easy to read book. Mr Olusoga is a fine companion; challenging a reader's understanding, building new knowledge and amongst the dreadful treatment and history he remains fair, just and passionate.
My copy was a 2017 Pan paperback of 602 pages. There are 64 excellent illustrations and photos in colour and black & white over four sets of plates.
NB: edited to remove a couple of spelling/sentence construction errors.
December 31, 2017
Thoroughly researched and far ranging, David Olusoga's book is topical and necessary, providing an overview of a neglected element of British history, as well as being essential reading for the contemporary debate about the role (or even existence) of black people in Britain throughout the ages.
It might seem strange to begin a review for one historian with a story about another, but bear with me... For those that are not clued to all the best history themed Twitter fights, eminent Classicist Mary Beard recently provoked uproar when she said that Roman Britain was ethnically diverse after a BBC cartoon dared to include a black Roman soldier and his family. It was not supposed to represent the 'typical' but the 'possible' (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...). Some of the vitriol she received was unfathomable and all because, it seems to me, that there seems to be a whole lot of people who want to see this country as the whitest of white places. Most importantly, the potential for reasoned debate based on evidence was shut down by denial, personal attack, and modern ideological ideas about race. It was a vivid demonstration of the intellectual space into which Olusoga was stepping.
Indeed, this is the period with which he begins his chronological history, noting the role of imperialism that brought different peoples to these lands and how much later it would take Britons to Africa [loc 760]. From Roman soldiers to black slaves to WW2 GIs, Olusoga traces the changing role of black men and women in British society, as well as the attitudes towards them. The specific focus is on the international slave trade, with a much smaller section on post 1900, but there are significant holes in the story due to the nature of the evidence. He notes the difficulties in researching a subject with limited primary/autobiographical sources, especially when looking at black women, which is why there is inevitable repetition of the big names such as Olaudah Equiano. This is no surprise as the underlying theme of the book is the deliberate exclusion of black men and women from the historical record, an interpretation which might have seemed extreme had it not been so clearly illustrated in contemporary debates. That the subject has only recently come to the forefront indicates we have a long way to go.
With all of the horror contained within, it would be impossible to point to a worst time or greatest act of immorality, yet for me, the story that stopped me in my tracks was that of the slaver ship, the Zong. On a journey in 1781, fears arose that there was not enough water to last the trip, so over a period of days, 133 slaves were thrown overboard and left to drown. Even worse, once in port, the slavers tried to cash in the insurance policy on the slaves they had killed, for the loss of their property. The cruelty and sheer disregard for human life that this evinces sickened me, yet it is one of many stories of inhuman action towards people simply because of the colour of their skin.
And the best part of it? The stories that run in the background of the book, often without detail, because they represent the lives of ordinary people, every shade of colour, who lived and loved and married each other despite social conventions, laws, or any other issue that might have stopped them. Real people living as families, producing children, being friends. In a society where race can still affect your opportunities in life, these are the things to hold on to then and now.
Highly recommended.
It might seem strange to begin a review for one historian with a story about another, but bear with me... For those that are not clued to all the best history themed Twitter fights, eminent Classicist Mary Beard recently provoked uproar when she said that Roman Britain was ethnically diverse after a BBC cartoon dared to include a black Roman soldier and his family. It was not supposed to represent the 'typical' but the 'possible' (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...). Some of the vitriol she received was unfathomable and all because, it seems to me, that there seems to be a whole lot of people who want to see this country as the whitest of white places. Most importantly, the potential for reasoned debate based on evidence was shut down by denial, personal attack, and modern ideological ideas about race. It was a vivid demonstration of the intellectual space into which Olusoga was stepping.
Indeed, this is the period with which he begins his chronological history, noting the role of imperialism that brought different peoples to these lands and how much later it would take Britons to Africa [loc 760]. From Roman soldiers to black slaves to WW2 GIs, Olusoga traces the changing role of black men and women in British society, as well as the attitudes towards them. The specific focus is on the international slave trade, with a much smaller section on post 1900, but there are significant holes in the story due to the nature of the evidence. He notes the difficulties in researching a subject with limited primary/autobiographical sources, especially when looking at black women, which is why there is inevitable repetition of the big names such as Olaudah Equiano. This is no surprise as the underlying theme of the book is the deliberate exclusion of black men and women from the historical record, an interpretation which might have seemed extreme had it not been so clearly illustrated in contemporary debates. That the subject has only recently come to the forefront indicates we have a long way to go.
With all of the horror contained within, it would be impossible to point to a worst time or greatest act of immorality, yet for me, the story that stopped me in my tracks was that of the slaver ship, the Zong. On a journey in 1781, fears arose that there was not enough water to last the trip, so over a period of days, 133 slaves were thrown overboard and left to drown. Even worse, once in port, the slavers tried to cash in the insurance policy on the slaves they had killed, for the loss of their property. The cruelty and sheer disregard for human life that this evinces sickened me, yet it is one of many stories of inhuman action towards people simply because of the colour of their skin.
And the best part of it? The stories that run in the background of the book, often without detail, because they represent the lives of ordinary people, every shade of colour, who lived and loved and married each other despite social conventions, laws, or any other issue that might have stopped them. Real people living as families, producing children, being friends. In a society where race can still affect your opportunities in life, these are the things to hold on to then and now.
Highly recommended.
January 24, 2018
This book is so detailed and interesting. Much of the history is harrowing, heartbreaking and difficult to read. Still, I learned so much about the UK and the British Empire.
'Black' Britons have existed since Roman times. Longer than the descendants of Danes who are not questioned as belonging in Britain.
'Black' Britons have existed since Roman times. Longer than the descendants of Danes who are not questioned as belonging in Britain.
August 7, 2021
The contents of this book should really be on the school curriculum. It really is essential reading and only starts to fill a gaping gap in British historiography. It also accompanied a TV series, which I remember being pretty good. The book is on a different scale to the TV series, being over five hundred pages, meticulously researched and much more detailed.
It starts in Roman Britain, up near Hadrian’s Wall where a regiment of black Romans were stationed. It also uses new evidence provided by DNA and advances in archaeology to identify black Britons from burials in York and on the South coast. Their numbers are entirely unknown and inevitably some must have settled in Britain and their descendants probably still live here.
The book moves on to the Tudor period where there are a number of well documented cases of black residents of Britain. There is a large gap between Roman Britain and Tudor Britain where, at present, we simply have no evidence either way as to whether there were any black Britons resident in between. Olusoga takes the reader through the era of the slave trade and its abolition: well-worn territory, but he sheds new light on it and the detail is impressive. There is always something to learn and the eighteenth century legal battles relating to whether black residents of Britain could be slaves was new to me. Those legal decisions gave impetus to the abolition movement. Olusoga also tells the parallel story of the slave ports in Africa and the plantations of the West Indies.
Moving into the nineteenth century there is an account of the effects of the Civil War in the US and the links between the anti-slavery movements in both countries, and indeed the links between American pro slavery elements and industry in Britain. Olusoga identifies a distinct change in attitudes to race in the second half of the nineteenth century with the development of Social Darwinism and racial theories. There is an account of the virulent racism espoused by Thomas Carlyle, which many of his fans these days neglect to remember. Other writers are also quoted. Trollope wrote:
“The negro’s idea of emancipation was and is emancipation not from slavery but from work. To lie in the sun and eat breadfruit and yams is his idea of being free.”
Dickens wrote passionately against slavery, but still used the racial caricatures common at the time. The racial theorists, whose ideas became popular, even went as far as to discuss philanthropic massacres.
Olusoga covers both world wars and the role of Empire and brings the story forward to the present. There are inevitably gaps, even in a five hundred page history. This is a start in a missing historiography, which I am sure will be gradually built up. It is essential reading.
In an interview with the Guardian Olusoga says hostility to his work has been growing:
"to the point where some of the statements being made are so easily refutable, so verifiably and unquestionably false, that you have to presume that the people writing them know that. And that must lead you to another assumption, which is that they know that this is not true, but they have decided that these national myths are so important to them and their political projects, or their sense of who they are, that they don’t really care about the historical truths behind them... They have been able to convince people that their own history, being explored by their own historians and being investigated by their own children and grandchildren, is a threat to them."
There is still a great deal to do.
It starts in Roman Britain, up near Hadrian’s Wall where a regiment of black Romans were stationed. It also uses new evidence provided by DNA and advances in archaeology to identify black Britons from burials in York and on the South coast. Their numbers are entirely unknown and inevitably some must have settled in Britain and their descendants probably still live here.
The book moves on to the Tudor period where there are a number of well documented cases of black residents of Britain. There is a large gap between Roman Britain and Tudor Britain where, at present, we simply have no evidence either way as to whether there were any black Britons resident in between. Olusoga takes the reader through the era of the slave trade and its abolition: well-worn territory, but he sheds new light on it and the detail is impressive. There is always something to learn and the eighteenth century legal battles relating to whether black residents of Britain could be slaves was new to me. Those legal decisions gave impetus to the abolition movement. Olusoga also tells the parallel story of the slave ports in Africa and the plantations of the West Indies.
Moving into the nineteenth century there is an account of the effects of the Civil War in the US and the links between the anti-slavery movements in both countries, and indeed the links between American pro slavery elements and industry in Britain. Olusoga identifies a distinct change in attitudes to race in the second half of the nineteenth century with the development of Social Darwinism and racial theories. There is an account of the virulent racism espoused by Thomas Carlyle, which many of his fans these days neglect to remember. Other writers are also quoted. Trollope wrote:
“The negro’s idea of emancipation was and is emancipation not from slavery but from work. To lie in the sun and eat breadfruit and yams is his idea of being free.”
Dickens wrote passionately against slavery, but still used the racial caricatures common at the time. The racial theorists, whose ideas became popular, even went as far as to discuss philanthropic massacres.
Olusoga covers both world wars and the role of Empire and brings the story forward to the present. There are inevitably gaps, even in a five hundred page history. This is a start in a missing historiography, which I am sure will be gradually built up. It is essential reading.
In an interview with the Guardian Olusoga says hostility to his work has been growing:
"to the point where some of the statements being made are so easily refutable, so verifiably and unquestionably false, that you have to presume that the people writing them know that. And that must lead you to another assumption, which is that they know that this is not true, but they have decided that these national myths are so important to them and their political projects, or their sense of who they are, that they don’t really care about the historical truths behind them... They have been able to convince people that their own history, being explored by their own historians and being investigated by their own children and grandchildren, is a threat to them."
There is still a great deal to do.
October 25, 2020
A truly superb history that traces the 'global story of Britain's interaction with Africans on three continents' from Afro-Romans through to our present. This is detailed and attentive to the complexities of race through history, evidenced thoroughly (the narrative ends at p.564 so there are almost 200 pages of notes, references, sources and bibliography), but never dry and with an eye for story.
The concept of 'forgotten' or 'hidden' history is an overused one by publishers but, for once, it's completely pertinent here (some of that history being deliberately de-memorialized such as the way the British Government only allowed white soldiers to take part in WW1 victory parades) and I can't stress how much I learned from reading this.
The audio book is wonderfully read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith with great clarity and expression. I can't recommend book and audio highly enough - especially to those of us who thought we had a reasonable grasp on history.
Illuminating, shocking, shameful in places, harrowing at times, often enraging but also intermittently comforting not least in the excavation of mixed-race marriages that quietly took place throughout British history, this isn't just about understanding our past, but also our present.
The concept of 'forgotten' or 'hidden' history is an overused one by publishers but, for once, it's completely pertinent here (some of that history being deliberately de-memorialized such as the way the British Government only allowed white soldiers to take part in WW1 victory parades) and I can't stress how much I learned from reading this.
The audio book is wonderfully read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith with great clarity and expression. I can't recommend book and audio highly enough - especially to those of us who thought we had a reasonable grasp on history.
Illuminating, shocking, shameful in places, harrowing at times, often enraging but also intermittently comforting not least in the excavation of mixed-race marriages that quietly took place throughout British history, this isn't just about understanding our past, but also our present.
November 27, 2020
This is a fantastic history book. Illuminating, fascinating and engaging. Highly, highly recommend!
Read
December 29, 2016Outstanding. Utterly fascinating, bringing together so much research, and quite extraordinarily enlightening. Really well written, too, a history that reads like a novel. It's a whacking great overview of centuries of history and I glommed it in three days.
One really amazing thing is how the author brings out the voices that go so often unheard or ignored. My entire education on abolition was basically "William Wilberforce". The section here covers the absolute hero Granville Sharp, who ought to be on bloody banknotes; the band of black speakers, many ex enslavement, called the Sons of Africa who toured Britain to whip up support for abolition, the massive involvement of women--and also the perspectives of the people who argued strongly and passionately in favour of slavery, and who we're now meant to brush under the carpet because they're a national embarrassment. It's a far richer and more meaningful story than the one white male Tory politician we're supposed to believe did abolition single-handedly.
This book is rich, humane, thoughtful, fascinating, and full of glimpses of individual lives. My ereader is awash with notes. I can't recommend it enough for anyone with an interest in British history (and of course American or colonial history too, because Sierra Leone and the American Civil War etc etc are all huge parts of this story). Absolutely cracking.
One really amazing thing is how the author brings out the voices that go so often unheard or ignored. My entire education on abolition was basically "William Wilberforce". The section here covers the absolute hero Granville Sharp, who ought to be on bloody banknotes; the band of black speakers, many ex enslavement, called the Sons of Africa who toured Britain to whip up support for abolition, the massive involvement of women--and also the perspectives of the people who argued strongly and passionately in favour of slavery, and who we're now meant to brush under the carpet because they're a national embarrassment. It's a far richer and more meaningful story than the one white male Tory politician we're supposed to believe did abolition single-handedly.
This book is rich, humane, thoughtful, fascinating, and full of glimpses of individual lives. My ereader is awash with notes. I can't recommend it enough for anyone with an interest in British history (and of course American or colonial history too, because Sierra Leone and the American Civil War etc etc are all huge parts of this story). Absolutely cracking.
Read
July 5, 2020Just as a heads up - I've decided not to rate books I'm reading as part of my own educational development in racial history and social policy etc.
This was an incredibly well thought out and researched book into an area of British history that has been largely overlooked, forgotten or erased. It follows to lives of Black British individuals chronologically through time from the Roman era, to the Georgian and Victorian, World War and beyond. I found it fascinating to see how the intricacies of slavery abolition and emancipation lead to wider repurcussions in the British empire. For example, I had no idea that the cotton industry (built on the back of slaves) was a strong driving factor in the industrial revolution. At school all I learnt about was Spinning Jennie's, not where the cotton came from. It's also important to note that while Britain was arguably the largest player in the slave trade, it wasn't the only European power exploiting the trafficking of Black individuals. Spain. Portugal. The Dutch. All of them helped expand and abuse the Black populations throughout the world.
So much of this history is hidden in plain sight, from the paintings of aristocratic Georgians with their black page boys in pearl earrings in the background to the black sailor depicted on Nelson's column. It's just not discussed, and this book really helps open the eyes to the lack of black history discussed in schools and beyond. It's woefully inadequate. To hear the story of Granville Sharp and his life long work fighting slavery, and to hear the lost voices of those subjected to it would have really opened up a lot of discussion into the concept of white superiority and where it originates from and why it seems to still persist in different forms in today's society.
At times, like a lot of non fiction history texts, the writing does get a bit dry in places with a lot of information to take in. It wasn't a fast read, but one I'm extremely happy to have read.
This was an incredibly well thought out and researched book into an area of British history that has been largely overlooked, forgotten or erased. It follows to lives of Black British individuals chronologically through time from the Roman era, to the Georgian and Victorian, World War and beyond. I found it fascinating to see how the intricacies of slavery abolition and emancipation lead to wider repurcussions in the British empire. For example, I had no idea that the cotton industry (built on the back of slaves) was a strong driving factor in the industrial revolution. At school all I learnt about was Spinning Jennie's, not where the cotton came from. It's also important to note that while Britain was arguably the largest player in the slave trade, it wasn't the only European power exploiting the trafficking of Black individuals. Spain. Portugal. The Dutch. All of them helped expand and abuse the Black populations throughout the world.
So much of this history is hidden in plain sight, from the paintings of aristocratic Georgians with their black page boys in pearl earrings in the background to the black sailor depicted on Nelson's column. It's just not discussed, and this book really helps open the eyes to the lack of black history discussed in schools and beyond. It's woefully inadequate. To hear the story of Granville Sharp and his life long work fighting slavery, and to hear the lost voices of those subjected to it would have really opened up a lot of discussion into the concept of white superiority and where it originates from and why it seems to still persist in different forms in today's society.
At times, like a lot of non fiction history texts, the writing does get a bit dry in places with a lot of information to take in. It wasn't a fast read, but one I'm extremely happy to have read.
October 6, 2021
The black history of Britain is by its nature a global history. Yet too often it is seen as being only the history of migration, settlement, and community formation in Britain itself. Black British history is as global as the empire. Like Britain’s triangular slave trade it is a triangular history, firmly planted in Britain, Africa, and the Americas. On all three continents stand its ruins and relics, Black British History can be read in the crumbling stones of the forty slave fortresses that are peppered along the coast of West Africa and in the old plantations and former slave markets of the lost British empire of North America. Its imprint can be read in stately homes, street names, statues and memorials across Britain and is intertwined with the cultural and economic histories of the nation.
This book is an experiment. It is an attempt to see what stories and approaches emerge if black British history is envisaged as a global history and – perhaps more controversially – as a history of more than just the black experience itself.
I received this book as a birthday gift from my wife in March and saved it to read in October as it seemed appropriate for the UK’s Black History Month.
I have to say up front – with reference to the opening quote of my review – that the book is, in my view, a hugely successful experiment and in fact one of the very best of the 180+ books I have read in 2021.
Despite its length (500+ pages before around 70 pages of bibliography, notes and index) it was at no time less than fully engaging.
I also found it balanced and in fact often most interested in exploring ambiguity and shifts in view (for example how did a nation which largely invented the African slave trade become suddenly so fervent in not just supporting its ban from British ships but actually in attempting to suppress slavery worldwide; how did the same nation only a few decades later find itself largely siding with the Southern States in the American Civil War) and apparent contradiction (a nation which over decades and centuries both prided itself – and was remarked on by others – as being far less racist than America – but still had deeply racist views and actions both among politicians and the populace).
It is a book which starts in Roman times (and the impact of a previous empire) and traces almost to the present day – but the vast majority of the book is appropriately set in around a three hundred year period from 1680 (really gaining weight in the Georgian period) as the interaction between Britain the US and Africa, and later the relationship between Britain and its Empire played out.
For some I think the most fascinating aspects of the book will be around the slave trade, the abolition movement, the interaction with the West Indian plantations and this part of the book is excellent (although perhaps more familiar ground for me from previous reading).
What I found new angles in this book included: the cultural chapters on areas like the influence of Uncle Tom and of Minstrel shows and then later Victorian world exhibitions; the coverage of the influence of the cotton trade and industrial revolution on Britain’s reaction to the American Civil War; the way in which Britain’s anti-slavery patrols and actions on and inland from the African coast actually metamorphosized into a head start in the Race for Africa; the constant ambiguity to mixed race relations even those who fiercely opposed other forms of racism; the highly dubious but persistently reproduced pseudo-science used to justify both racism and colonialism – and the way in which World War II discredited-by-association (but far from eliminated) such views; the balancing act that the British authorities dealt with (and largely mishandled) in terms of deciding whether and where to allow black troops to serve in the two World Wars (including the complications of the stationing of Black GIs in Britain).
Overall outstanding.
September 8, 2021
Popsugar Challenge 2021 - A book on a Black Lives Matter reading list
I'm so glad I've chosen now to read this one, having just recently read Roots which is in effect the history of Black people in America, it was really great to build on that with this book which is entirely focused on Black British history.
This takes us from the 15th century empire to present day Britain and if I didn't think we was complicated messed up individuals beforehand, I certainly do now.
To get this straight - the English were the biggest exporters of slaves (read messed up individuals that thought it was totally fine to steal humans from their homes and sell them), yet they didn't want slaves on their home turf, they exported them all to the Caribbean and the US because ... the British were 'civilised humans ' and slavery didn't belong on English soil. If a master brought his slave from the US to the UK, the master would chain his slave in the boat because if the slave stepped a foot on English soil he would be considered a free man.
What actual planet were these English people on!!!!! We really are a disaster aren't we.
I really did learn so much reading this. Reading about Bunce Island sent me down a Internet rabbit hole. The effect of Uncle Toms Cabin on the British public makes me want to pick this book up soon, plus learning about Sarah Forbes Bonetta really was enlightening of the time period.
This is a pretty dense non fiction text and at times I felt I was wading through treacle but it really was worth the effort. There's so much here I was totally unaware of.
I'm so glad I've chosen now to read this one, having just recently read Roots which is in effect the history of Black people in America, it was really great to build on that with this book which is entirely focused on Black British history.
This takes us from the 15th century empire to present day Britain and if I didn't think we was complicated messed up individuals beforehand, I certainly do now.
To get this straight - the English were the biggest exporters of slaves (read messed up individuals that thought it was totally fine to steal humans from their homes and sell them), yet they didn't want slaves on their home turf, they exported them all to the Caribbean and the US because ... the British were 'civilised humans ' and slavery didn't belong on English soil. If a master brought his slave from the US to the UK, the master would chain his slave in the boat because if the slave stepped a foot on English soil he would be considered a free man.
What actual planet were these English people on!!!!! We really are a disaster aren't we.
I really did learn so much reading this. Reading about Bunce Island sent me down a Internet rabbit hole. The effect of Uncle Toms Cabin on the British public makes me want to pick this book up soon, plus learning about Sarah Forbes Bonetta really was enlightening of the time period.
This is a pretty dense non fiction text and at times I felt I was wading through treacle but it really was worth the effort. There's so much here I was totally unaware of.
August 24, 2022
This is obviously not a cheerful read but, oh, so enlightening. It’s another piece of the puzzle that’s my knowledge of the British history, although I doubt this will be on the citizenship test.
I’m not going to rehash the contents of this book in this review, as many people have already done this, and this would be mammoth of a task, given the scope of this book.
The issue I found very interesting and which Olusoga devoted a lot of time to was the legal conundrum that the English hypocrisy locked them into. See, the English didn’t want the sin of slavery in their country, but they were happy with it in their faraway colonies. This, of course, presented a serious legal problem, when slave owners came to visit the home country and brought their slaves with them to a place where owning people was not a thing. It will be no spoiler to say the English never successfully resolved this issue, until they finally did away with slavery completely (something they curiously feel very proud of, considering the only reason they had to abolish it was because they really got the thing going in the first place).
I also learnt a lot about the rise and fall of ports in West Africa where the tragic process used to begin and how the changing societal attitudes towards slavery affected them. Olusoga also spends a lot of time tracking chicken and egg question of racism and slavery. Was it racism that allowed slavery to happen, or was racism invented later to justify the immorality of slavery? A little bit of both, I suppose, but insane racist theories were definitely invented and spread by people whom it served.
Speaking of vicious racists, I was surprised to see Thomas Carlyle Wikipedia page make no mention of it. Or at least that was the case back in March 2022, when I was reading this book. I’m happy to report that thanks to user Sinopecynic (if I understand the wiki edit history correctly) you can read all about Carlyle's disgusting views.
Olusoga did an amazing job recovering this history for us, filling the gaps wherever he could – a very hard task when trying to catalogue history of people purposedly excluded from it.
Other interesting topics covered that I would like to explore more were the treatment of black GI in Britain (and how white GI had a hard time accepting that outside of their country black people weren’t treated as subhuman), the strong link between the cotton industry built on slavery and the industrial revolution, and the first big wave of black immigrants from the Caribbean to the UK post World War II. Here I remember feeling particularly infuriated reading about some man (whose name I forgot and whose name is best forgotten) explaining on some TV talk show in the 60s (I think?) about what a danger to the society mixed race babies are, and how they are sure to have many genetic problems etc (rich coming from a country with a completely inbred royal family). Being pregnant with such a baby at the time of reading this I got so angry I dreamt of going back in time and punching that man in the face, maybe repeatedly.
I’m not going to rehash the contents of this book in this review, as many people have already done this, and this would be mammoth of a task, given the scope of this book.
The issue I found very interesting and which Olusoga devoted a lot of time to was the legal conundrum that the English hypocrisy locked them into. See, the English didn’t want the sin of slavery in their country, but they were happy with it in their faraway colonies. This, of course, presented a serious legal problem, when slave owners came to visit the home country and brought their slaves with them to a place where owning people was not a thing. It will be no spoiler to say the English never successfully resolved this issue, until they finally did away with slavery completely (something they curiously feel very proud of, considering the only reason they had to abolish it was because they really got the thing going in the first place).
I also learnt a lot about the rise and fall of ports in West Africa where the tragic process used to begin and how the changing societal attitudes towards slavery affected them. Olusoga also spends a lot of time tracking chicken and egg question of racism and slavery. Was it racism that allowed slavery to happen, or was racism invented later to justify the immorality of slavery? A little bit of both, I suppose, but insane racist theories were definitely invented and spread by people whom it served.
Speaking of vicious racists, I was surprised to see Thomas Carlyle Wikipedia page make no mention of it. Or at least that was the case back in March 2022, when I was reading this book. I’m happy to report that thanks to user Sinopecynic (if I understand the wiki edit history correctly) you can read all about Carlyle's disgusting views.
Olusoga did an amazing job recovering this history for us, filling the gaps wherever he could – a very hard task when trying to catalogue history of people purposedly excluded from it.
Other interesting topics covered that I would like to explore more were the treatment of black GI in Britain (and how white GI had a hard time accepting that outside of their country black people weren’t treated as subhuman), the strong link between the cotton industry built on slavery and the industrial revolution, and the first big wave of black immigrants from the Caribbean to the UK post World War II. Here I remember feeling particularly infuriated reading about some man (whose name I forgot and whose name is best forgotten) explaining on some TV talk show in the 60s (I think?) about what a danger to the society mixed race babies are, and how they are sure to have many genetic problems etc (rich coming from a country with a completely inbred royal family). Being pregnant with such a baby at the time of reading this I got so angry I dreamt of going back in time and punching that man in the face, maybe repeatedly.
November 13, 2016
Black British History that uncovers the lost connections and unwritten chapters!
What we often think of as Black British History, should not just be seen from just the perspective of events that began in the middle of the twentieth century with the arrival to these shores of communities of people from the Caribbean. But as part of a much wider narrative, linking Africa, Britain, and the Americas, that has been ongoing for centuries and continues right into the present.
"Black and British: A Forgotten History", which accompanies the BBC Two Television series is very extensive, uncovering many of the lost connections and unwritten chapters of British society that can be traced back to at least the Roman times. Recommended reading and very well presented, a reminder that to make sense of the present, it is necessary to look back at the past.
What we often think of as Black British History, should not just be seen from just the perspective of events that began in the middle of the twentieth century with the arrival to these shores of communities of people from the Caribbean. But as part of a much wider narrative, linking Africa, Britain, and the Americas, that has been ongoing for centuries and continues right into the present.
"Black and British: A Forgotten History", which accompanies the BBC Two Television series is very extensive, uncovering many of the lost connections and unwritten chapters of British society that can be traced back to at least the Roman times. Recommended reading and very well presented, a reminder that to make sense of the present, it is necessary to look back at the past.
July 27, 2020
This book is one of the ones I picked up recently to educate myself more on the history of slavery and black people in the UK, my home. I have to say, it's a real shame none of this was taught in school, as this was both horrific and fascinating to read about, and as it's the real history of the country it should be told to children so the mistakes of the past aren't then repeated again.
The author of the book does a fantastic job of moving through history and recounting the important events, moves, and laws that made our history as fraught with slavery as it is. He has a way with words which made it very easy to listen to (I have the audio) and I really enjoyed seeing the way that the UK went through their various phases of slave trade to abolition, to current day issues. There's a lot of information so I read this slowly and only when I was awake and alert to take it in well, but it's not 'difficult' to read for the writing is clear, it's just a harsh reality to face that the UK is one of the leading reasons for racism today.
Overall, I loved the personal stories the author was able to weave in, along with the big overarching historical moments and events. The world was a very different place back in the slave trading times, and it's ever so evident from reading this, but the ideas which were fostered by the elite in those times still trickle through today in some parts of our modern societies.
This made me want to learn more and question more about why this isn't the history we learn at a young age, Britain has done an amazing job of erasing black lives from our narrative and pointing the finger at the US and other countries for the racism and divisions we see, but actually if you dig deeper and make the effort to learn the reality, you can see that black people who came to the UK as slaves were discriminated against from the start and set up as 'aliens' in the country which purported to 'own' and 'support' them, the motherland. The UK isn't blameless in anything racism-based, and we need to own our history and learn from it, not continue to bury it and hope it goes away. 5/5*s and a must-read for anyone in the UK and beyond.
The author of the book does a fantastic job of moving through history and recounting the important events, moves, and laws that made our history as fraught with slavery as it is. He has a way with words which made it very easy to listen to (I have the audio) and I really enjoyed seeing the way that the UK went through their various phases of slave trade to abolition, to current day issues. There's a lot of information so I read this slowly and only when I was awake and alert to take it in well, but it's not 'difficult' to read for the writing is clear, it's just a harsh reality to face that the UK is one of the leading reasons for racism today.
Overall, I loved the personal stories the author was able to weave in, along with the big overarching historical moments and events. The world was a very different place back in the slave trading times, and it's ever so evident from reading this, but the ideas which were fostered by the elite in those times still trickle through today in some parts of our modern societies.
This made me want to learn more and question more about why this isn't the history we learn at a young age, Britain has done an amazing job of erasing black lives from our narrative and pointing the finger at the US and other countries for the racism and divisions we see, but actually if you dig deeper and make the effort to learn the reality, you can see that black people who came to the UK as slaves were discriminated against from the start and set up as 'aliens' in the country which purported to 'own' and 'support' them, the motherland. The UK isn't blameless in anything racism-based, and we need to own our history and learn from it, not continue to bury it and hope it goes away. 5/5*s and a must-read for anyone in the UK and beyond.
October 9, 2020
Essential reading. It is quite impossible to overstate the importance of this work, and the skill with which it marshals a huge amount of detail. In an ideal world it would be read by every British citizen.
At the very least go check out the accompanying BBC documentary series which is on iPlayer.
At the very least go check out the accompanying BBC documentary series which is on iPlayer.
January 29, 2021
Finally finished this beautifully read 21 hour audiobook and loved it (in the way that you can “love” reading a heartbreaking book like this). It felt like a mirror of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, but of course, examining the British Black history instead of the American one. Just like stamped from the beginning, it felt like a huge “this is what really happened”. No glossing over facts, no covering up events or letters, just the pure, raw facts of Black history. And goodness, it completely opens your eyes and throws everything into perspective. It honestly makes you question everything you learnt in school and the image - especially us, the British - give out regarding our attitude to racism, but most especially to our relationship to slavery. We love to be the first to shout loud and proud we abolished it, and yet cover up the fact we started it. We feel we washed our hands of blood by signing a piece a paper when they had already been stained to begin with.
So much of this book makes me ashamed to be British, and not because of our history, but our attitude to our history. The covering of the things we did (and are still doing) to Black people, and the facading of facts to polish up our image instead of owning up to our major involvement and addressing how it is our duty to keep reversing the damage we have done to so many countries, lives, and people.
Reading this book, and educating yourself on the facts, is at least a start. Here’s to hoping this book is what kids will be reading at school for history.
Huge credit to David Olusoga for the massive undertaking of research and thought into this book!
So much of this book makes me ashamed to be British, and not because of our history, but our attitude to our history. The covering of the things we did (and are still doing) to Black people, and the facading of facts to polish up our image instead of owning up to our major involvement and addressing how it is our duty to keep reversing the damage we have done to so many countries, lives, and people.
Reading this book, and educating yourself on the facts, is at least a start. Here’s to hoping this book is what kids will be reading at school for history.
Huge credit to David Olusoga for the massive undertaking of research and thought into this book!
May 29, 2020
This is a thick brick of a book, but it reads like a page-turning novel. Studying American racism from both its parallels to and its contrasts with British racism is soberingly instructive. Olusoga charts the historical evolution of each. Whereas New World racism emerged as a means of creating and upholding laws that categorized people of African descent as property on American soil, British racism evolved largely to justify the fortunes this triangular trade brought into Britain through a practice kept mostly far removed from, and out of sight to, most Britons. Yet, as Olusoga meticulously documents, contrary to popular misconception, black Britons have always been there, from Roman times onward. Their story is permanently entwined in English/British history, and not a later injection into it.
It was fascinating as an American reader to observe the history of the Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans from a non-American perspective that could report on American involvement dispassionately. BLACK AND BRITISH feels no obligation to sanitize America's participation in the obscenely lucrative traffic in forced African labor, nor to mythologize America's origin story. Thus it shines a clear light on the role the trade in enslaved Africans played in America's break with Great Britain, especially in response to the colonial uproar over a 1772 British court ruling in the famous Somerset case which declared that slavery could not be recognized on English soil. This meant American or West Indian slaveholders who could not bring their domestic enslaved laborers with them to Britain as personal servants, because as soon as they set foot on British soil, they were legally free. It was against this despoiling of America's "property rights" that without Parliamentary representation that American patriots north and south of the Mason-Dixon line protested so vehemently, ultimately agitating for independence from such British tyranny. (Of course this wasn't the only point of protest.) Notable founding fathers weren't simply gentlemen of their historical moment who participated in a common labor practice, they were strident defenders of their "right" to profit thereby, who went to great pains to hunt down their escaped "property" that had fought for Britain during the Revolutionary War in (mostly betrayed) hopes of subsequent freedom.
The story of Britain's abolition movement includes inspiring accounts of resilience, courage, and remarkable moral resolve. No ground gained could be considered secure, however; the empire struck back, so to speak. The general mood on questions of race in Britain wobbled erratically between fervent abolitionism and open hostility toward black Britons, thanks to reactionary surges in virulent racist-rhetoric, intended to justify: first, British trade in enslaved people, then Britain's trade with the cotton-growing American South which fueled the cotton mills of Britain's industrial revolution, then Britain's involvement in 19th & 20th Century imperialism. None of the mega-fortunes these endeavors produced for white Britain could have been realized without a relentless and deliberate campaign of racial hostility propagandized for decades in Britain to drown out the abolitionist and moralist voices of Britain's better angels.
In some ways, it's historical and cultural gazing into a Union Jack-tinted mirror. Necessary reading; skillfully rendered; highly recommended.
It was fascinating as an American reader to observe the history of the Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans from a non-American perspective that could report on American involvement dispassionately. BLACK AND BRITISH feels no obligation to sanitize America's participation in the obscenely lucrative traffic in forced African labor, nor to mythologize America's origin story. Thus it shines a clear light on the role the trade in enslaved Africans played in America's break with Great Britain, especially in response to the colonial uproar over a 1772 British court ruling in the famous Somerset case which declared that slavery could not be recognized on English soil. This meant American or West Indian slaveholders who could not bring their domestic enslaved laborers with them to Britain as personal servants, because as soon as they set foot on British soil, they were legally free. It was against this despoiling of America's "property rights" that without Parliamentary representation that American patriots north and south of the Mason-Dixon line protested so vehemently, ultimately agitating for independence from such British tyranny. (Of course this wasn't the only point of protest.) Notable founding fathers weren't simply gentlemen of their historical moment who participated in a common labor practice, they were strident defenders of their "right" to profit thereby, who went to great pains to hunt down their escaped "property" that had fought for Britain during the Revolutionary War in (mostly betrayed) hopes of subsequent freedom.
The story of Britain's abolition movement includes inspiring accounts of resilience, courage, and remarkable moral resolve. No ground gained could be considered secure, however; the empire struck back, so to speak. The general mood on questions of race in Britain wobbled erratically between fervent abolitionism and open hostility toward black Britons, thanks to reactionary surges in virulent racist-rhetoric, intended to justify: first, British trade in enslaved people, then Britain's trade with the cotton-growing American South which fueled the cotton mills of Britain's industrial revolution, then Britain's involvement in 19th & 20th Century imperialism. None of the mega-fortunes these endeavors produced for white Britain could have been realized without a relentless and deliberate campaign of racial hostility propagandized for decades in Britain to drown out the abolitionist and moralist voices of Britain's better angels.
In some ways, it's historical and cultural gazing into a Union Jack-tinted mirror. Necessary reading; skillfully rendered; highly recommended.
May 4, 2018
This took me a long time to get through. Being born in this country, the title denotes my nationality so I know instinctively what I was in for picking this up.
Man, was I wrong.
As a young lad, certain family members would earnestly impress upon me the need to research my history and "arm myself" with knowledge. Over the years, I have done... in certain areas, but as I progressed through the book, I found myself emotionally charged and impassioned at some of the shocking things I learnt. From the slaughter of Jamaican people in the 1860s (and Charles Dickens amongst the English gentry defending the irrefutably guilty perpetrator) to the "Race for Africa" in the early 1900s where Africa's sovereignty was almost completely lost in 10 years to the British Empire and other countries, to the despicable treatment of Black soldiers in the 40s by the British government (Attlee and Churchill were awful to Black immigrants).
However, not all is harrowing tales of my people's suffering. There are plenty of heroic figures to smile about finally getting widespread recognistion; Touissaint l'Overture, Henry "Box" Brown, Fredrick Douglass to name a few.
From ancient Rome Black people have been a part of British people (and even further due to recent findings) but my early educational days would have me believe that transatlantic slavery was the beginning of the history of my blood. The history uncovered in this book is what I wished I learnt as a boy, but maybe things are changing for generations younger than myself and I can relax a little. There's sooo much further to go to improve race relations the world over, but it's up to us alive and capable people to arm ourselves with the knowledge of our past to empower our future.
Man, was I wrong.
As a young lad, certain family members would earnestly impress upon me the need to research my history and "arm myself" with knowledge. Over the years, I have done... in certain areas, but as I progressed through the book, I found myself emotionally charged and impassioned at some of the shocking things I learnt. From the slaughter of Jamaican people in the 1860s (and Charles Dickens amongst the English gentry defending the irrefutably guilty perpetrator) to the "Race for Africa" in the early 1900s where Africa's sovereignty was almost completely lost in 10 years to the British Empire and other countries, to the despicable treatment of Black soldiers in the 40s by the British government (Attlee and Churchill were awful to Black immigrants).
However, not all is harrowing tales of my people's suffering. There are plenty of heroic figures to smile about finally getting widespread recognistion; Touissaint l'Overture, Henry "Box" Brown, Fredrick Douglass to name a few.
From ancient Rome Black people have been a part of British people (and even further due to recent findings) but my early educational days would have me believe that transatlantic slavery was the beginning of the history of my blood. The history uncovered in this book is what I wished I learnt as a boy, but maybe things are changing for generations younger than myself and I can relax a little. There's sooo much further to go to improve race relations the world over, but it's up to us alive and capable people to arm ourselves with the knowledge of our past to empower our future.
September 18, 2020
Essential reading if you're British (or even if you're not). The fact that I barely learned about any of the events in this book is, in a word, scandalous. Britain has downplayed its role in the slave trade (in history books etc) to the extent that the vast majority of people here have no idea that Britain was once the biggest slave-trading nation in the world. And despite its length, this book was well-written and clearly presented, and while I usually find books that are tie-ins with documentaries a little gimmicky, this was anything but, and I would be interested in watching the tie-in.
February 24, 2024
Content warnings: racism, racial slurs, slavery, colonialism, war, death, hate crimes, violence, police brutality, rape, physical abuse.
This has been on my TBR pile since I first heard about it, so obviously when I saw a copy in a Waterstones in Scotland last year, I picked it up straight away. And then I promptly put off reading it for about six months because it's chonky and I was intimidated.
Anyway. It was definitely chonky and it was definitely a one-chapter-at-a-time kind of a read. But it was fascinating. I particularly liked the early chapters, covering the Roman occupation and the medieval period because I've always been really interested in racial diversity in the Roman empire and how that changed in Britain after the Romans withdrew.
As interesting as the sections on the Georgian and Victorian periods were, they did also drag somewhat. There was a lot of talk about the establishment of settlements in Sierra Leone, about the impact of the US Civil War on British cloth production and the economy in general. And as a result, the experiences of Black Britons somewhat fell by the wayside.
And then it felt like the 20th century was rushed through at high speed? That being said, I think the chapter I found the most engaging was the discussion of Black American soldiers and their experiences in Britain during WWII. But then the story basically jumps from WWII and Windrush to the present day, with a brief mention of the 1980s on the way. And given that we got at least 100-150 pages on the end of slavery in Britain and its impact socially and economically, I feel like the second half of the 20th century could have been given a LITTLE more time than it got...
So overall, this was an excellent read. But I still feel like there are significant gaps in my knowledge and that kind of bums me out.
This has been on my TBR pile since I first heard about it, so obviously when I saw a copy in a Waterstones in Scotland last year, I picked it up straight away. And then I promptly put off reading it for about six months because it's chonky and I was intimidated.
Anyway. It was definitely chonky and it was definitely a one-chapter-at-a-time kind of a read. But it was fascinating. I particularly liked the early chapters, covering the Roman occupation and the medieval period because I've always been really interested in racial diversity in the Roman empire and how that changed in Britain after the Romans withdrew.
As interesting as the sections on the Georgian and Victorian periods were, they did also drag somewhat. There was a lot of talk about the establishment of settlements in Sierra Leone, about the impact of the US Civil War on British cloth production and the economy in general. And as a result, the experiences of Black Britons somewhat fell by the wayside.
And then it felt like the 20th century was rushed through at high speed? That being said, I think the chapter I found the most engaging was the discussion of Black American soldiers and their experiences in Britain during WWII. But then the story basically jumps from WWII and Windrush to the present day, with a brief mention of the 1980s on the way. And given that we got at least 100-150 pages on the end of slavery in Britain and its impact socially and economically, I feel like the second half of the 20th century could have been given a LITTLE more time than it got...
So overall, this was an excellent read. But I still feel like there are significant gaps in my knowledge and that kind of bums me out.
July 28, 2020
I was somewhat disappointed in this book, I know David Olusoga is a talented historian and writes very well, so I was looking forward to a detailed history of black British people that hadn't been told before. Instead, this book barely tells the story of any black individuals at all, but is instead focused on relations between Britain and black populations as communities with a major focus on slavery. The individuals who get mentioned most are mainly white e.g. Granville Sharp (35), Thomas Clarkson (12), Enoch Powell (14) . Frederick Douglass (who is of course American) gets only 10 mentions by contrast.
There is an odd victimisation narrative in a lot of history books I've read on slavery, which this book also follows. It says Black people today are suffering because of slavery/racism, due to a unbroken chain of history where Black people were oppressed as slaves, freed by white men who (racistly) still viewed black people were inferior and so for the next century or more, black people were still unable to break off the shackles of prejudice because of systemic bias. This victim-mentality is both corrosive and demonstrably untrue. The very narrative itself puts down Black people in exactly the way the "racist, patriarchal whites" contained in the narrative are supposed to have done and suggests that Black people lack the agency to succeed. It's all the more frustrating to read this nonsense when there are so many amazing Black people in British history to celebrate. Examples that don't get mentioned in this book, off the top of my head: Mary Seacole, Billy Ocean, Johnson Beharry, John Sentamu, Zadie Smith, Frank Bruno, Lenny Henry. Ira, Aldridge - one of the highest paid actors in the world of his time only gets mentioned in the introduction as having married a white woman - nothing about his own accomplishments and career, not even a passing reference that he was an actor!
Since Olusoga was extending his history of "Black and British" to cover not just the history of individual people who are both Black & British, but rather the wider impact of Britain on Black people around the world and Black people on Britain, then there are huge threads of history missing. The Anglican church is one of the most enduring legacies in former British colonies, surely Desmond Tutu and the phenomenal achievements in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission avoiding major bloodshed at the end of Apartheid would be worth mentioning. Or another big omission - the cultural impact of colonial/commonwealth links in art or literature - Wole Soyinka springs to mind.
The author has obviously faced prejudice and racism in his own life, so it's not really a surprise that he expects to see a thread of racism in history. Nonetheless, it feels like a real leap to say that Victorian Britain, which is acknowledged in this book as putting so much of its blood and treasure into ending the slave trade and where Uncle Tom's Cabin was a best-seller, was rampantly racist; even in a Olusoga's example of racism in society - a racist statement in a local newspaper - the black man who had been defamed received compensation from a court, hardly systemic discrimination.
When looking at more modern race relations/racism, Olusoga does point out that Enoch Powell got sacked for his speech and that the Race Relations Act was already on the books by the end of the 60s. The attempt to row back on the Nationality Act and restrict immigration may indicate racial bias in government policy, but more likely, as with today's points-based system, suggests that the local population tends to kick-off when there is large scale immigration and in a democracy that's a problem that politicians need to take notice of.
Ultimately, I see this as a missed opportunity. Rather than being a celebration of people who are black and British or looking at cultural enrichment, this is really a play-by-play of the abolitionist movement, which is not really a forgotten history since its on the National Curriculum.
There is an odd victimisation narrative in a lot of history books I've read on slavery, which this book also follows. It says Black people today are suffering because of slavery/racism, due to a unbroken chain of history where Black people were oppressed as slaves, freed by white men who (racistly) still viewed black people were inferior and so for the next century or more, black people were still unable to break off the shackles of prejudice because of systemic bias. This victim-mentality is both corrosive and demonstrably untrue. The very narrative itself puts down Black people in exactly the way the "racist, patriarchal whites" contained in the narrative are supposed to have done and suggests that Black people lack the agency to succeed. It's all the more frustrating to read this nonsense when there are so many amazing Black people in British history to celebrate. Examples that don't get mentioned in this book, off the top of my head: Mary Seacole, Billy Ocean, Johnson Beharry, John Sentamu, Zadie Smith, Frank Bruno, Lenny Henry. Ira, Aldridge - one of the highest paid actors in the world of his time only gets mentioned in the introduction as having married a white woman - nothing about his own accomplishments and career, not even a passing reference that he was an actor!
Since Olusoga was extending his history of "Black and British" to cover not just the history of individual people who are both Black & British, but rather the wider impact of Britain on Black people around the world and Black people on Britain, then there are huge threads of history missing. The Anglican church is one of the most enduring legacies in former British colonies, surely Desmond Tutu and the phenomenal achievements in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission avoiding major bloodshed at the end of Apartheid would be worth mentioning. Or another big omission - the cultural impact of colonial/commonwealth links in art or literature - Wole Soyinka springs to mind.
The author has obviously faced prejudice and racism in his own life, so it's not really a surprise that he expects to see a thread of racism in history. Nonetheless, it feels like a real leap to say that Victorian Britain, which is acknowledged in this book as putting so much of its blood and treasure into ending the slave trade and where Uncle Tom's Cabin was a best-seller, was rampantly racist; even in a Olusoga's example of racism in society - a racist statement in a local newspaper - the black man who had been defamed received compensation from a court, hardly systemic discrimination.
When looking at more modern race relations/racism, Olusoga does point out that Enoch Powell got sacked for his speech and that the Race Relations Act was already on the books by the end of the 60s. The attempt to row back on the Nationality Act and restrict immigration may indicate racial bias in government policy, but more likely, as with today's points-based system, suggests that the local population tends to kick-off when there is large scale immigration and in a democracy that's a problem that politicians need to take notice of.
Ultimately, I see this as a missed opportunity. Rather than being a celebration of people who are black and British or looking at cultural enrichment, this is really a play-by-play of the abolitionist movement, which is not really a forgotten history since its on the National Curriculum.
August 24, 2020
In some ways, this is a difficult book to read. For one thing, even discounting the bibliography and notes, it’s 526 pages of quite small print. I made a project of reading a chapter a day, more or less - the heatwave threw me off a little - and even broken down like that, it’s a lot of information to take in.
What really makes this a difficult book, though, is the subject matter. Olusoga is a sympathetic, meticulous and accessible writer - no part of this tome was too dull or too densely worded to make me want to stop reading - who takes pains to write about the best and worst of any time period. There is no bias or “agenda” here except to prove that Black people are and have always been a part of Britain, dating back to the Roman Empire. But the treatment of them has most frequently been truly horrific. Olusoga is unflinching about the harmful beliefs and actions of white Britons throughout this long history, and it’s probably just as well I chose only to read this book at home, because while I periodically gasped in horror, I more often swore violently at the (mostly) long-dead people on the page. It is a deeply upsetting and infuriating read for the most part, frankly because British racism is an ancient and vile institution.
Black and British is also a deeply fascinating book. I have an interest in history - and studied it for two years at university - and yet I didn’t know many of the events or people in this book, apart from the ones I’d found from watching Olusoga’s accompanying documentary, or other similarly “specialised” shows or books. So many of these people could be easily taught about in British schools or mentioned in the books or documentaries we use, and it’s maddening that they aren’t. Even in the 526 pages and the four generous sections of photographs there were times and people I wanted to know about and described images I wanted to see. In some cases there just isn’t the information, but in others I look forward to exploring the bibliography and reading other books on the subject.
Overall, I think this is vitally important reading, and I’ll be doing my part as a person and as a bookseller to encourage more people to read it.
What really makes this a difficult book, though, is the subject matter. Olusoga is a sympathetic, meticulous and accessible writer - no part of this tome was too dull or too densely worded to make me want to stop reading - who takes pains to write about the best and worst of any time period. There is no bias or “agenda” here except to prove that Black people are and have always been a part of Britain, dating back to the Roman Empire. But the treatment of them has most frequently been truly horrific. Olusoga is unflinching about the harmful beliefs and actions of white Britons throughout this long history, and it’s probably just as well I chose only to read this book at home, because while I periodically gasped in horror, I more often swore violently at the (mostly) long-dead people on the page. It is a deeply upsetting and infuriating read for the most part, frankly because British racism is an ancient and vile institution.
Black and British is also a deeply fascinating book. I have an interest in history - and studied it for two years at university - and yet I didn’t know many of the events or people in this book, apart from the ones I’d found from watching Olusoga’s accompanying documentary, or other similarly “specialised” shows or books. So many of these people could be easily taught about in British schools or mentioned in the books or documentaries we use, and it’s maddening that they aren’t. Even in the 526 pages and the four generous sections of photographs there were times and people I wanted to know about and described images I wanted to see. In some cases there just isn’t the information, but in others I look forward to exploring the bibliography and reading other books on the subject.
Overall, I think this is vitally important reading, and I’ll be doing my part as a person and as a bookseller to encourage more people to read it.
March 21, 2021
Olusoga explores the long history of Black people in Brtian, from the legions of Black soldiers who were part of the Roman Empire, to the Africans who were a part of Georgian Britain, to the many thousands of African-Americans who sided with British during the American revolution and were doomed to a life of destitutions thanks to the racial prejudices which pervaded British society and post-war Windrush generation. What is clear from Olusoga’s knowledgeable, yet accessible, book is how closely interwoven the history of Black people is in Britain, its threads run deep into the tapestry of British life and culture, in often surprising ways.
It would be difficult to talk about ‘Black and British’ without exploring concepts of race which have pervaded British society at various points in history. In many ways empire and the slave trade were the crutches upon which European racism were built; after it was only be dehumanising Africans and Asians that Europeans were able to justify enslaving people based on their skin colour or systematically subjugating and exploiting them under the specious guise of civilizing them yet it was far more complex than this. After all, abolitionism was pushed through on the broad shoulders of popular support, many of whom women whose contribution has been forgotten beneath the shadow of Wilberforce, yet just 40 years later notions of equality had dissipated beneath the weight of racial pseudo-science and colonialism.
Yet, beneath all of this, history is a story of individual as much as it is about society and Olusoga brilliantly draws out the lives of so many Black Britains, whilst setting them within the context of the society they lived in, from John Blanke, the Black trumpeter in the court of Henry VIII, to Francis Barber the surrogate son of Samuel Johnson, to the mysterious Beachy Head Woman who was born in Roman Britain, it is thanks to Olusoga that we are making steps towards Black history being unforgotten.
It would be difficult to talk about ‘Black and British’ without exploring concepts of race which have pervaded British society at various points in history. In many ways empire and the slave trade were the crutches upon which European racism were built; after it was only be dehumanising Africans and Asians that Europeans were able to justify enslaving people based on their skin colour or systematically subjugating and exploiting them under the specious guise of civilizing them yet it was far more complex than this. After all, abolitionism was pushed through on the broad shoulders of popular support, many of whom women whose contribution has been forgotten beneath the shadow of Wilberforce, yet just 40 years later notions of equality had dissipated beneath the weight of racial pseudo-science and colonialism.
Yet, beneath all of this, history is a story of individual as much as it is about society and Olusoga brilliantly draws out the lives of so many Black Britains, whilst setting them within the context of the society they lived in, from John Blanke, the Black trumpeter in the court of Henry VIII, to Francis Barber the surrogate son of Samuel Johnson, to the mysterious Beachy Head Woman who was born in Roman Britain, it is thanks to Olusoga that we are making steps towards Black history being unforgotten.
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January 5, 2022This book was one of the most important things I think I have ever read. Olusoga does an incredible job of laying out the facts, clearly and with so much detail, with absolutely no nonsense. For a really tough topic, this book was honestly the best it could possibly be. An absolute necessity for ANYONE to read.
November 17, 2017
I read this book for Black History Month, which is held in October in the UK and Netherlands (and not at all in other European former colonial and / or slave-trading nations). It is a very good, well written history book and I hope a lot more people read it.
There is not a lot in it that I did not already know about, but I had not looked at history from this point-of-view before. The author's emphasis is different, so anything not particularly relevant to Britons of African or Afro-Caribbean descent (the many wars of succession or religious denomination, for example) is left out. School History lessons have changed since the 1970s, so my daughters learnt far more about the lives of ordinary people than I did at the time. This is an improvement, history is not or should not be just about those at the top of the hierarchy, it should have some relevance to those studying it. When those at the top did not even look like the pupils studying them, it must have seemed even less relevant. David Olusoga's book addresses that problem.
The Roman Empire recruited its soldiers from all its dominions and there were Africans in Britain in Roman times. Carthaginians had been trading for Cornish tin in centuries before that. They then vanish from the historical record for more than a thousand years, before reappearing in the age of discovery, global trade and slavery. This is when the book becomes detailed. It continues through the years of Empire, when being British did not mean being white (although those at the top always were), and on to the divisive post-colonial years when some people thought it did.
Racism based on skin colour is not new and egalitarian rhetoric was rarely matched by reality, but it seems to have increased in Britain throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries largely due to contact with US propaganda and 'race' theories then exacerbated by economic difficulties. Perhaps what changed in the 1960s and 1970s was that racism came more out into the open. There had been speeches just as racist and inflammatory as Enoch Powell's, but they had received much less publicity. That overt racism resulted, among other things, in the Olusoga family being driven from their home. It also resulted in David deciding to study history and later to write this book.
There is not a lot in it that I did not already know about, but I had not looked at history from this point-of-view before. The author's emphasis is different, so anything not particularly relevant to Britons of African or Afro-Caribbean descent (the many wars of succession or religious denomination, for example) is left out. School History lessons have changed since the 1970s, so my daughters learnt far more about the lives of ordinary people than I did at the time. This is an improvement, history is not or should not be just about those at the top of the hierarchy, it should have some relevance to those studying it. When those at the top did not even look like the pupils studying them, it must have seemed even less relevant. David Olusoga's book addresses that problem.
The Roman Empire recruited its soldiers from all its dominions and there were Africans in Britain in Roman times. Carthaginians had been trading for Cornish tin in centuries before that. They then vanish from the historical record for more than a thousand years, before reappearing in the age of discovery, global trade and slavery. This is when the book becomes detailed. It continues through the years of Empire, when being British did not mean being white (although those at the top always were), and on to the divisive post-colonial years when some people thought it did.
Racism based on skin colour is not new and egalitarian rhetoric was rarely matched by reality, but it seems to have increased in Britain throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries largely due to contact with US propaganda and 'race' theories then exacerbated by economic difficulties. Perhaps what changed in the 1960s and 1970s was that racism came more out into the open. There had been speeches just as racist and inflammatory as Enoch Powell's, but they had received much less publicity. That overt racism resulted, among other things, in the Olusoga family being driven from their home. It also resulted in David deciding to study history and later to write this book.
January 12, 2022
An essential read, incredible this history isn't widely known or even acknowledged. The more we know about each other the closer we are, it all starts with education.
January 8, 2022
An easy 5 stars for a very important book.
Black and British tells the story of black British history through the centuries and shows how intertwined the lives of people living both in Britain and throughout the old empire are.
It's a devastating story of maltreatment, suffering, betrayal and injustice and David Olusoga brings it all into the light in this well-researched volume.
I hope many people find the time to read this book as it gave me a much better understanding of how the past impacts the present and the future. It is a dense volume and quite a commitment, but a very worthwhile read.
Black and British tells the story of black British history through the centuries and shows how intertwined the lives of people living both in Britain and throughout the old empire are.
It's a devastating story of maltreatment, suffering, betrayal and injustice and David Olusoga brings it all into the light in this well-researched volume.
I hope many people find the time to read this book as it gave me a much better understanding of how the past impacts the present and the future. It is a dense volume and quite a commitment, but a very worthwhile read.
November 10, 2020
This book will challenge your perception of British history, and is utterly brilliant how it reintroduces Black britons into their own past. It also shows how the British leaders and people idea of Black people has greatly changed many time throughout history. Cementing the idea that white supremacy and othering was essentially to further colonial and consumerist causes.
This is a book that you will experience not just read - but it is also a perfect springboard to allow us to question what stories and histories are we considering more important today.
This is a book that you will experience not just read - but it is also a perfect springboard to allow us to question what stories and histories are we considering more important today.
January 25, 2017
Insightful and eminently readable throughout the text and full of essential and interesting parts of our (British) history. However, it's the middle chapters on and around slavery that make you realise just how tightly woven Britain's fortune and history is to Africa. Again and again Olusoga reminds the reader of this plain facts and you see the tendrils leading to and away from this moment to lend a clarity which, in my school days, were sadly lacking.
Can't recommend enough!
Can't recommend enough!
February 28, 2021
An eye opener
I have to.say that i was clueless about the history of African and Caribbean in the UK. This book was outstanding and the author did a good research finding the true. The read was well worth it.
I have to.say that i was clueless about the history of African and Caribbean in the UK. This book was outstanding and the author did a good research finding the true. The read was well worth it.
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