‘The Boy Who Deluded Him Away’ - the legacy of child trafficking in eighteenth-century Britain
1753. London, England. A fourteen year old ‘Black’ boy with ‘long black Hair [and] a brown Livery Frock, which he has since chang’d with the Boy who deluded him away, and took him to Newmarket, from whence he set out alone on Tuesday last with the above Boy’s Coat, which is brown, with white metal Buttons; but ‘tis supposed has not chang’d Breeches, which are green Plush’.
1743. London, England. ‘Negro Boy, about seven Years of Age, and says his Name is Dover’, after four days, had ‘not yet been claimed by the Owner, nor [had s/he] advertised’.
[1709. London, England. ‘A Black Indian boy, 12 years of age, fit to wait on a gentleman, to be disposed of at Denis’s Coffee-house in French Lane near the Royal Exchange’.]1
1758. Inveraray, Scotland. Mrs. Campbell of Askomils (Inveraray) placed an advertisement for an unnamed ‘BLACK BOY, about 14 years of age’, with ‘short black curly hair [who has been gone] ‘About 15 or 16 days’.
1768. Cardiff, Wales. Mrs Sarah James posted no less than four adverts offering a ‘Five Guineas Reward, and reasonable Charges allowed’ for an ‘African Negro’ called Thomas Brown (Turpin), described as ‘well-set [who] has lost a Joint of one of his Fingers, his Teeth filed like those of a Saw, and has a remarkable Scar on his Back… [He] wears Curls instead of a Wig’.
1779. London, England. ‘MULATTO GIRL’ left in the care of the absconder, one Frances Gregory. ‘The said child is eight years old, tall and slim… Whoever harbours the said child, shall be prosecuted as the law directs’. (The threat of prosecution is repeated and strengthened in another publication.)
1765-66. Glasgow, Scotland. ‘A North-American Indian Boy. Looking to be about 14 years of age, of a very tawny complexion; stout made, broad, fat faced, black eye’d, with bristly black hair in his head, having the hair of one of his eye-lids white, his ears bored, a mixture of white hairs in his head, freckled like an adder in the neck, knees, and other parts of his body…. bare footed, and speaks English very imperfectly, strayed from his masters house in Glasgow... He answers to the name Bob.’ (The advertisements ran in both Glasgow and Edinburgh newspapers - June 1765 to August 1766.)
1724. London, England. A fugitive 9 year-old ‘East-India Boy’ named Pompey, with a ‘Hole through his right Nostril and an Ear-Ring in his Left Ear’, reported absent for almost a month.
1 Zelda Maude Ayres, The Advertisements of the Tatler (London, 1910), p15. Also, see advertised FOR SALE in the Edinburgh Courant (30 August, 1766), ‘A Negro Woman, named Peggy… [and her] young CHILD A NEGRO BOY’, James Walvin, Black and White: the negro and English society 1555-1945 (Allen Lane, 1973), p132.
Background
The above accounts, and the eight hundred and thirty others in the ‘Runaway Slaves’ database,2 challenge the official version of British history of this period that boasts limited numbers of people of African and Asian descent living on free British soil.3 They raise many questions, both individually and collectively about the conditions these stolen, traumatised, and often deliberately maimed individuals endured (or negotiated), especially after the newspaper notices were published. This article examines a cross-section of the advertisements during the eighteenth century. So much has already been written about those who were comfortable claiming people as property4 and, latterly also, their West African enablers in the supply chain.5 This is a rare opportunity to present a different narrative, despite still having to view the world of self-liberated or abducted human beings through the White enslavers’ prism. By concentrating predominantly on traditionally silent minors, some as young as 6 years old, from African, South Asian and Indigenous American backgrounds, it might be possible to explore different perspectives on freedom (or the threat of re-capture), over an area as far north as Stromness, Orkney Northern Isles, Scotland, and as deep south as Whitston[e], Cornwall6, England.7
The Black Curriculum
How is this relevant in 2023? The reasons are varied and complex, but overall, this type of compelling historical evidence adds strength to the arguments underpinning modern antiracism educational practice. The latest pushback on reversing the centuries-old Euro-American interpretation of African diasporan history lately, most vociferously, from Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis8- is not unfamiliar in the UK.9
2 Runaway Slaves in Britain: bondage, freedom and race in the eighteenth century. The database contains 836 entries from British newspapers with advertisements offering rewards for the return of ‘fugitive slaves’. It does not include a database on British ‘For Sale’ notices and ‘slave’ gravestones. https://www.runaways.gla.ac.uk/database
3 Although present, people of Asian descent, so far identified, represent a small percentage of the enslaved. Therefore, the main focus of this paper will be on residents of African origin, estimated .to be ten thousand strong (out of 63,000), in London at the time.
(https://www.runaways.gla.ac.uk/database).
4‘The British government borrowed £20 million… to provide reparations for enslavers following the abolition of chattel slavery in 1834. It was only in 2015, that… the loan was fully repaid.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Compensation_Act_1837
5 For example, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, ‘My Great-Grandfather, the Nigerian Slave Trader’ (New York Times, 15 July, 2018).
6. Note several ‘slave’ gravestones have been found in Cornwall.
https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/black-history-month-african-slaves-6010451 7 See Peter Fryer, Staying Power: the history of black people in Britain (London, 1984) for details on the court cases of Jonathan Strong (1767, England), James Somerset (1772, England), and Joseph Knight (1778, Scotland) .
8 See https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11658135/DeSantis-bans-high-school-students-taught African-American-Studies.html
Also, ‘Trump Tells Supporters They Must Fight To The Death To Stop Schools From Teaching Kids About Systemic Racism’ (Vanity Fair, 14 March, 2022), and his comments on The 1619 Project. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-trump-is-saying-about-1619-project-teaching-u-s-history 9 See ‘History Reclaimed – But From What?’, and ‘New History Wars’.
https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/snapshotsofempire/2021/09/15/history-reclaimed-but-from-what/ https://historyreclaimed.co.uk/can-we-trust-the-bbc-with-our-history/
Deliberate misrepresentations and omissions in this history are a conscious political act, especially in the twenty-first century. Organisations such as The Black Curriculum have been established to help challenge the Euro-American versions of history taught in our classrooms.10 Change is long overdue. Why? Well take the media circus that ensued when the college-educated, U.S. multi-millionaire rapper and entrepreneur, Kanye West, announced to the world that ‘400 years of slavery [sounded like] a choice’.11 The almost universal chorus of condemnation that followed, resulted in a public apology for his ignorance. Four years later, in 2020, Caribbean states reaffirmed to the British government, major financial institutions and businesses, as well as upper-class dynasties connected to history’s largest trade in humans, that ‘sorry’ was not enough.12
It is not only the far-right (from any ethnic group), or the political and wealthy classes who are challenged by the shift of moral power from Euro-American hegemony to the collective weight of people in the global majority. Two well documented, popular British stereotypes, and long part of the background noise to Black lives, come to mind. Firstly, the previously ubiquitous assertion in White popular culture that people of African and Asian origin did not contribute (at any level) to the twentieth-century World Wars. And secondly, the adoption of the Turkish-born St. George as the symbol of Anglo-Saxon ‘Englishness’, in the form of a flag. Extensive research, Internet blogs, podcasts, books, TV documentaries and films on these topics have left only die-hard White supremacists willing to publicly dispute the mass of evidence assembled to refute those earlier claims. These historical recalibrations were mainly achieved in the last third of the twentieth century.13
The underlying miseducation on African enslavement, however, is set to continue.14 To date, even younger citizens have had minimal exposure to facts about the enduring implications of Britain’s role as one of the top three trafficking empires before the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. This is mainly because the extant 2013 English National Curriculum for History (1745-1901) states that teaching “Britain’s transatlantic slave trade: its effects and its eventual abolition” is optional (non-statutory guidance) for schools (Key Stage 3).15 And, as 79% of English secondary-age children attend an academy or free school (2021), even this voluntary exercise could only reach, potentially, a small minority of state-funded pupils.16
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/american-historical-association-james sweet/671853/
10 https://theblackcurriculum.com/
There are other examples, not least, ‘Uncovering Britain’s secret history of bussing ethnic minority children’, The Guardian, 28 October, 2022.
11 The Guardian, 2 May, 2018.
12 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/what-to-know-about-calls-for-reparations-for-britains-legacy-of slavery-in-the-caribbean
Also, ‘Barbados plans to make Tory MP pay reparations for family’s slave past’, The Guardian, 26 November 2022.
13 There is no doubt that researchers from a range of ethnic backgrounds made this possible. 14“London street sign for former ‘Black Boy Lane’ vandalised after renaming” (The Guardian, 24 January, 2023). Since 2020 this criminal activity, and the accompanying vitriol, has been / is still being replicated across numerous sites on these islands, including the Black Bitch (female dog!) pub, The Blackboy clock (with blackface image), Black Boy Hill, and The Black Boy Inn, with logo (Wales) 15 2013 National Curriculum History. See also ‘Black British History: the row over the school curriculum in England’ (The Guardian, 13 July, 2020).
However, according to an Ipsos survey (2021),‘Six in ten Britons want schools to teach children about Britain’s involvement in the slave trade and its impact in the world today’,17 and in 2022, the Welsh government committed to integrate Black, Asian and ‘Minority’ Ethnic History into its National Curriculum.18 Nonetheless, major research projects such as the seminal work, led by Catherine Hall, at The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery,19 and the information in the Runaway Slaves in Britain: bondage, freedom and race in the eighteenth century database, for the most part, remain predominantly restricted to academic enquiry. These compendia can help shape a new public discourse only when the main lessons from them, and consistent, multi media exposure to their contents, are paralleled by the integration of Black British Histories in all state-funded schools in the four nations.
Such a policy reversal requires brutal honesty about Britain’s historical impact on global markets, and its legacy - structural and systemic poverty in a host of countries, and particular communities. In addition, more attention needs to be paid to these islands’ primary role in the forced (and the quasi-voluntary) movement of millions of enslaved people (and indentured workers) across the globe, with its attendant oppressive practices, and predisposition to ignite modern ethnic conflicts. The acknowledgement and acceptance of how these past acts played out on home soil in the early Forced African Migration Era, is also long overdue.
The ‘Runaways’ dataset
The ‘runaway slaves’ advertisements can help with this new perspective, through their snapshots (occasionally quite detailed) of a particular day in the life of each featured self-emancipated child or teenager, standing as a proxy for the presumably thousands of others unable to follow suit. The resilience, courage and ingenuity of these traded minors (as well as adults), in learning new languages, understanding alien cultures and navigating a form of living within a deeply oppressive regime, is remarkable; represented most forcibly by the percentage figuratively stamped ‘thief’. By interrogating what is published about them, it is clear that a lot had been deliberately maimed, scores had been branded, and most were diseased (primarily smallpox, also rickets, ‘consumptive coughs’, and dropsy). In multiple cases, their ages were guestimates, and names unknown, or sometimes changed an average of three times. Their specific countries of origin were rarely listed, but sometimes could be deduced: England (e.g. born in ‘Rygate’ – see note 20), North America, South Asia, Angola (or elsewhere on the African continent – ‘Africa Negro’), the West Indies (‘Creole Negro’) and Europe. Quite a number were wearing livery, or alternatively, ‘dirty’, hand-me-down clothes, but few left barefooted. Oddly, only one of the boys trying to evade capture appears to have been caught, relocated to a different address in north London, and recorded as an absconder a second time, a year later.
16 https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their characteristics (Excludes independent schools and non-maintained special schools.) 17 https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/six-ten-britons-want-schools-teach-children-about-britains involvement-slave-trade-and-its-impact
18 https://www.gov.wales/welsh-and-black-asian-and-minority-ethnic-history-and-culture-state-nation report-html
19 https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
This Houdiniesque youngster, along with the many hundreds of other advertised ‘fugitives’, had skills and occupied a position respectable enough to be published in daily or weekly rags, i.e. a role common in middle and upper-class homes, such as cooks, pages,20 and grooms (eg Lidiate, ‘an extreme good looking Black, is pretty strong and able. Speaks very good English. waits well at a Table, and has been both under a Groom and Coachman, in the Stables’. He ran from Liverpool and ‘spoke of going to the Forest of Delamere, in Cheshire’ in 1763). There were also musicians (including a violin-playing, ‘glazier, tinker’), needlewomen, bakers, barbers, (one of the latter in a ‘Ship Carpenters Business’), carpenters, a joiner, a clerk, multiple sailors (not least ‘a Steward on board the Phenix Hospital Ship’), wig makers, a handful of coopers, and a multi-tasker ‘[by] Trade a Cooper, a tolerable Carpenter, and a good Seaman, [who] can attend well at Table’ (1762).
Achievement, resilience and resistance
As the examples above show, there were nearly always just enough facts in each posting to appreciate every person as an individual. For instance, the West Indian, ‘Black’ boy, Sunderland, is ‘remarkably sharp and saucy [and] speaks good English’ (1762). Samuel Black was just ‘jolly’ (1761). Solomon was ‘clumsey’ (1760), and one unnamed teenager was described as ‘Very active in a house’ (1764), while another ‘[wore an engraved] Silver Collar about his Neck’ (1706). Unfortunately, Scipio (John Harrison), age 16 years, ‘talks English badly, and cannot pronounce the R at the End or St at the Beginning of a Word’; lisps and stuttering were in no way unusual. Even regional accents could be regarded as unfortunate. For example, the Rector of Heysham purchased four ads in 1765, trying to recapture a lad with ‘a broad Lancashire dialect’, and, Mrs Sarah Steele of Palace Hall, Berkshire, searched for an unnamed ‘East-Indian’ boy, who had a ‘Scotch accent’ (1751). Conversely, there is no disputing that the adverts about very young children, and certain women, reveal the least personal, but still intriguing details. Three examples stand out: Sylvia, with 5 guineas reward on her head, escaped bondage while pregnant. Madam Davis, ‘lodging at Mr. Slann’s at the White House in Lime-street, at the hither-end near leaden-hall-street, [had] a Mallato Maid, tall and slender, about 17 Years old, [who] went away from her said Mistress’. A different paper simply announced that ‘A Black Girl, about six Years old, was lost last Monday Night, [and] answers to the Name of Peggy’.
20 Described as ‘a Tawny Moor, with short curl’d Hair, born at Rygate’, 19 year-old Elias Blake, commonly called Caesar, was a former page of the Rt. Hon. the Countess of Neuburgh. [He stole] several Things of good Value’, but his new enslaver promised that if ‘said Blake do within 7 Days make appear where any Moneys, &c belonging to his Master, are mislay’d, so that it be had again, he shall be favourably dealt by’ (1714).
Alongside these mixed reports and summaries about the short lives of children trapped in a perpetually abusive system, appear little glimpses of hope for a different next stage in life, as an impressive number could read and write, at least a little. Andre, ‘lately seen in Westminster, at the Sign of the Sun in Butcher Row, in Cabbage Lane, and in Westminster Abbey [spoke] French, Spanish, and a little English’. Spotted 28.5 miles away from his starting point, the ‘Mulatto’, John Henry, was conversant in ‘French, Italian, Spanish and Arabick’. One boy named Jack – described as a servant from the West Indies - had ‘a flat nose, small legs, and bow shins, a real black, with every mark of the Negro visible to be seen … speaks tolerable good French, but very bad English’. An unnamed boy spoke Portuguese, French, English, and perhaps an unspecified first language, while 18 year-old Joan, ‘with very thick lips… Speaks nothing but English’. A second West Indian boy, Andrews, was described as having skin the ‘Colour between that of a Black and Malotto’, as well as being ‘woo[l]ly Head[ed]’. He was a French and English speaker, and could ‘write a little’. Last, but not least to mention, was the talented Jack. He reportedly ‘play[ed] the Taber and Pipe, imitates the Fighting of a Cat and Dog, the Roaring of a Lion, the Whistling of a Parrot, and the Voice of various other Animals’.21
Few were portrayed in such glowing terms as Jack, the competent mimic. However, there is the odd example that breaks the mould and divulges more information about the ‘secret’ or ‘underground’ lives of diasporan people, especially in London’s 10,000 strong Black community at that time. Esther, a fugitive from a Greenwich household was said ‘to have taken Shelter amongst the Negroes in some West-India Gentleman's Family’, and ‘almost every Thing she has taken with her, as well as herself, is the Property of her Master’.22 Maria Dellap (two adverts), ‘[had] Very tall long wool upon her head, well made, small eyes sunk into her head, thick lips and flat nose. Speaks good English and handy at her needle.’ She disappeared from Isleworth ‘[and] has been seen in company with two Negro men in brown liveries turned up with red’ (1765). New friends or old?
It is apparent that the majority putting distance between themselves and their enslavers had no companions or apparent support networks. For instance, in September 1760, Samuel Ramsay fled ‘Almrycross, near Arbroath, Highlands of Scotland… headed for Perth’, and Siriruas Monetanas left Lincolnshire, destination London. Of course, again, there were exceptions, including the sisters, Jane and Maria Gray (18 and 16 years respectively) who put their open-prison behind them. Waterford and Julius Caesar (18 and 16 year-olds) had lived in different Bristol residences, but took off on their quest for freedom together. While the desire to control their own lives, or to temporarily end the beatings, often caused sailors and stowaways to cross continents and jump ship, even when restricted by hand and leg irons. Although this was not the case for a specific group of four sailors, including the boatswain, who escaped the “Hampden’ and set off for Gravesend, as recorded in four separate advertisements in the Daily Advertiser. Interestingly, the boy called Hampton did the opposite: ‘[he was] supposed to be gone off with a Recruiting Serjant in the Marine Service, to go on board the Romney Man of War at Chatham’ (1762). 23
21 1764; 1764.
22 1760.
23 1758; 1745; 1759.
The many able to say ‘No!’
Clandestine travellers could not have found it always easy to disguise the variety and scale of injuries identified in the adverts – from missing fingers and toes and scaldings, to ears bitten off, lopped, or, in one case, the whole organ lost through violence. The range of scars over different body parts were reported as anything ‘[from a face] full of Pimples or Scrophules [to] some Letters inoculated in his Skin, which are not remembered’; possibly a tattoo (George Prince, 1761). The most common, permanent disfigurements were caused by smallpox. There is also an undercurrent that hints at high accident rates, a strict punishment regime, or naked sadism. Whilst horse kicks were especially brutal, and bowed or bandy legs and lameness were commonplace impairments, it is also clear that some disabilities were debilitating. Dick from Manchester, ‘[had] but one Eye’(1760) and Joe (Joseph) could claim to be one of the most incapacitated, as ‘his right Hand is cut on the Back so much, that he is almost disabled of it, and hangs the same as if useless’.24
There were a lucky few whose ‘plantation marks’ could be hidden under clothes, such as Dick (20 years). He had HARE burnt on his right breast. That branding often took the form of initials is well-known, but breasts were sometimes marked by pricked diamond shapes, apparently a popular motif, or possibly a marking from ‘home’. So, perhaps the designs on temples were less about indicating European ownership and more about facial scarification, or what Whites referred to as ‘country scars’. The state and style of hair was also often branded foreign and distasteful i.e. popularly labelled ‘lanky’ or ‘woolly’. It appears that only 14 year-old Beatrix ‘used to go with a coloured or white Handkerchief about her Wooly Head’ (1724); common practice for women and girls working in circum-Caribbean fields. On the other hand, Black men, with the exception of a few like John Essex ‘[who] wears his own black shock Hair’, popularised ‘[Brown] Bob Wig[s]’ (e.g. 1761; 1764), mimicking the height of fashion for European males at the time. Actually, ‘Master J. Bromley, Esq’s ‘Negro Man Prinpey, alias Harry Johnson… sometimes wears a Perriwig, [and] speaks English well’. Such assimilation tactics did not help those instantly recognisable because of poor or no English language skills. This was a particular problem for the youngsters arriving directly from the Congo, Guinea, Angola or elsewhere on the African continent. They inevitably stood less chance of achieving permanent freedom. From the outset, they were easy pickings for abusers and exploiters, whether professional child snatchers or opportunist kidnappers - conceivably, as in the U.S., an early iteration of Stop and Search policing25- and possibly, were then destined for a life of street crime, prostitution, hard labour on the high seas,26 or shipment to brutal West Indian plantations.
Equally interesting from a historian’s viewpoint are the enslaved people specifically referred to as Christians; including Henrietta (Henny), an ‘East-India Black’ (from ‘South Asia’) who was ‘[believed to have] been instigated [into absconding] thereto by some ill-designing wicked People’, and 20 year-old Sarah allegedly ‘[suppos’d to have been lately christen’d]’. No other religions are mentioned. By contrast, all the advertisements suggested a reward of some sort, generally ranging from 2-5 guineas. Dr. Nesbitt was angrily extravagant. He offered ‘five guineas reward’ for the unnamed ‘swarthy black slave, born at Martinico, 18 years of age’, with ‘remarkable large lips, has wool on, and a pointing head’. The sting in the advert was the statement: ‘Whoever will discover the person or persons who have debauched and detained him, so that he may be brought to justice, shall receive twenty guineas’, (but see note 27 for the same amount, and ‘I raise you, freedom and wages’.) On the other hand, some ‘runaways’ sought alternative, paid positions. The poster of an advert about a 20 year-old ‘Negro Fellow, named Cato, who was christened at St Giles's, on the 23d of April last, by the name of John Rowland’, [who] ‘reads, writes and speaks English pretty well, plays on the violin, dresses Hair that he may offer his Service to some Gentlemen, it is hoped they will not afford him any Encouragement; and whoever gives Information (so that he may be secured by his Master) ... shall receive Five Guineas Reward. N.B. If he returns of his own Accord, he shall be received, and his Misbehaviour will be overlooked; otherwise every Means will be used to discover and apprehend him: And whoever harbours and entertains him, will be prosecuted with the utmost Severity of the Law’ (1771).
From penalties and threats to alleged pampering, it is clear that some ‘fugitive slaves’ were well-known characters in their area. Jack (John Lesley; Butler) threw caution to the wind and took his chances at being recognised while on the run. He is referred to as ‘very complaisant and obliging [and] can do many things hand[i]ly …. and is well known by many in and about the city [of London]’. Others were well travelled, such as fashionable Jeremiah (Jerry Rowland), aged 23 years. He ‘wore a curl behind, that matched the other part of his own woolly hair, and has been pretty much at Bath, and the Hot-Wells, Bristol, with his master’.27 But the most confident character in the database is Philip. His tale is characterised by strategic planning, wit, and chutzpah. In 1769, Philip, ‘bought’ in Virginia, where he was originally earmarked for training to work on a battleship, escaped from a Glasgow property on horseback. When he reached Edinburgh, he sent a boy to take the animal to a stabler, and then hired a second horse for ‘the usual hire of 4s’. He set off for Haddington to continue his journey to London, carrying ‘a good deal of cash, [and] a silver watch’.28 Not surprisingly, Philip was a resourceful man in his twenties. Did he reach his final destination? Was he captured and returned to Glasgow? Or imprisoned? At this point, his fate is unknown, but it is possible that a determined historian could extend our knowledge about his adventures.
24 1757.
25 Jill Lepore, ‘The Invention of the Police: why did American policing get so big, so fast? The answer, mainly, is slavery’, The New Yorker (13 July, 2020).
26‘Whereas a proper tall made Negro Man, a Native of the Gold Coast of Guinea, brought from thence about three Years ago, was press’d from the Ship Matilda, belonging to the Port of Bristol, in or about May last, and carried on Board his Majesty’s Ship of War, the Lively, and from thence removed on Board his Majesty’s Ship the Advice, and was discharged from her at Spithead, about the latter End of November last; and he being a Servant, it is supposed may be gone on Board some Ship bound to Africa, or the West Indies.’ (1730)
27‘[Although] he reads and writes badly, he plays pretty well on the violin, and can shave, and dress a wig.’ There was a ‘reward if delivered to ship Coltrun, at Mill-stairs, Rotherhithe; on or before the 16th instant, [and the capturer/informant] shall receive Twenty Guineas reward, or Five Guineas for such intelligence of him, as may enable his master to apprehend him. N.B. As the said NEGRO knows his master’s affection for him, if he will immediately return, he will be forgiven, if freedom is what he wishes for, he shall have it, with reasonable wages. If he neglects this present forgiving disposition in his master, he may be assured that more effectual measures will be soon taken. Whoever delivers him to Capt. Malley, on board the Elizabeth, at Princes stairs, Rotherhithe, on or before the 31st instant, shall receive Thirty Guineas Reward, or Ten Guineas for such intelligence as shall enable the Captain or his Master effectually to secure him. The utmost secrecy may be depended on.’
28 Newcastle Courant, 07 January 1769.
‘Our History’ often translates as ‘what’s yours is mine’
Naturally, individuals and groups of mainstream academics continue panning for gold in this material.29 It is a gamechanger in British history. Except, in some ways, it isn’t. One of the threads that link the eighteenth-century stories and current narratives is that, again, our history will be interrogated through a majority European (or, increasingly, White or Asian U.S.) lens. Most importantly, these communities of interest continue to take charge of our history, and thereby, unduly influence and potentially limit our futures. Developing a meaningful antiracist education agenda for this century is one of several powerful strategies in delivering our commitment to raising healthy children. So, why do we allow others to ‘own’ our stories now, when we complain vociferously about past injustices, and rightly call for enslavement reparations?
First, the power imbalance in the economic, political and cultural fields has to be corrected. For instance, and except for a small number, posts in History departments in all four nations are occupied by people from a global minority, with self-replicating profiles. Therefore, the number of lecturers in British tertiary education not from UK minoritised groups must reduce over time. If the status quo is maintained, the huge societal deficit will continue, not only in all levels and types of roles in schools, colleges and Higher education, but also, the knock-on effect, for example, in the media industries (from screenwriters to directors),30 publishing (including writers, editors and marketeers), and all supporting professions and trades (from casting directors, lawyers and press officers, to distribution agents etc.) – currently none of these areas reflect the proportions of ethnic diversity in the society we live in.
Given the insularity of this historical moment, it is good to identify change initiatives designed to accelerate the increase in numbers of historians from the global majority, and expand the practice of History teaching in Britain. In addition to the work of the Welsh Curriculum Working Group and its successors, Glasgow University set up a £20M ‘slave reparations’ scheme in 2019.31 Also, in recent years, community-focused organisations have emerged, including The Black Curriculum and the Young Historians Project to design and produce education materials, influence policy, campaign for change and develop new research strands.32 Elsewhere in academia, a few bodies are consciously creating career pathways for future historians; to name but two - the OU, Cambridge and Oxford University’s “Black and Global Majority students in History” programme, and the ground-breaking Manchester Metropolitan University project supporting students from minoritised groups, under the leadership of Dr. Marie Molloy in the Department of History, Politics and Philosophy.33
In summary, this outline of the lives of eighteenth-century, mainly young, captive, trafficked labourers in the British Isles who defied many of the odds against them, should inspire professional34 and community historians to undertake follow-up research, and publish the results in accessible formats. The challenge for them is how to use their products to advance Black British Histories, particularly its adoption in national curricula in the four nations (i.e. all schools, all year, not just in ‘Black History Month’).35 If competent individuals and groups make a commitment during 2023, phase one of a comprehensive ‘Reclaiming Our History’ database could be launched as early as the 2024 International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.36
29 https://symposium.foragerone.com/duqgrs2022/presentations/37446
‘Coppers and coffeehouses: People and places in eighteenth-century British runaway slave Advertisements’
UK Research and Innovation – Connecting Digital Histories of Fugitive Slaves https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FS012524%2F1
Simon P. Newman, Freedom Seekers: escaping slavery in restoration London (London, 2022) 30 https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2020/g-July-20/UK-film-sector-failing-to-tackle systemic-discrimination-of-BAME-individuals
31 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/23/glasgow-university-slave-trade-reparations 32 https://www.younghistoriansproject.org/
33‘2022/23 competition, a minimum of ten awards are available for Home fee status Black and Global Majority students applying for doctoral study in an AHRC subject area through The Open University, University of Oxford or University of Cambridge. A minimum of two of these studentships will be awarded to candidates who identify as Black or Mixed Black, Bangladeshi or Mixed Bangladeshi, and Pakistani or Mixed Pakistani…’
https://www.oocdtp.ac.uk/black-and-global-majority-studentships
MMU “Schools and Widening Participation” project.
https://www.mmu.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/story/9527/
Also note Target Oxbridge: ‘a free programme that aims to help Black African and Caribbean students and students of mixed race with Black African and Caribbean heritage increase their chances of getting into the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge… Since launching in 2012, Target Oxbridge has helped over 350 students to secure Oxbridge offers.’
34 RaceB4Race – ‘an ongoing conference series and professional network community by and for scholars of color working on issues of race in premodern literature, history, and culture.’ (USA) https://acmrs.asu.edu/RaceB4Race
35 One of my ideas is to create 6th Form College Black British Histories hubs in major cities and towns, and the formation of an elders research group -OurHistoryGrandparentsOnline- is another. 36 March 25 is International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
https://www.un.org/en/rememberslavery/observance
10