Reconstructing the Black Past

Blacks in Britain 1780-1830

Dr Norma Myers, Norma Myers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780714645759
• eBook ISBN: 9781136300318
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book examines the character and composition of the black population of Britain between 1780 and 1830, previous studies of which have been hampered by a lack of demographic evidence. Drawing heavily from data collected from parish registers, contemporary newspapers and journals, parliamentary papers and the records of merchants involved in the slave trade, the author ventures beyond existing research to examine the age structure and sex ratios of the black population; family marriage patterns; and the occupations of black men and women.

1

The Historiography of Black People in Britain circa 1780–1830

Although black people have sustained a continuous presence in Britain for at least four centuries, they remain almost invisible in historical writing. This is partly a reflection of the ephemerality of evidence, but it also serves to indicate the economic and legal position of black people during this period. Hence the history of black people in Britain tended to remain marginal to the historiographical mainstream until the 1970s when it attracted interdisciplinary scholarship and generated quite a substantial literature. The historical study of blacks in Britain remains indebted to several factors for its apparently rapid progress. Among these are to be included the prominence of the African continent in world affairs, a development which from the 1950s stimulated an expansion of research into African history, and also the flowering of Afro-American and Caribbean studies. The influence of Edward Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, 1963), cannot be overestimated in redirecting historical research in general towards the path of neglected peoples; and to this should be added the role of those blacks in Britain who initiated a search for their own roots and culture.

The study of the history of black people in Britain remains then in its relative infancy; however, continuing research enables constant reassessments and reappraisals of this ethnic minority to be attempted. As outlined in the Preface, many of the studies on blacks in our period concentrate on a small group of relatively eminent black literary figures. This present survey adopts a much wider focus in seeking to reconstruct some part of the histories of the mass of the rank-and-file blacks in the period associated with the abolitionist controversy and before the termination of slavery in the British colonies. The half century spanning 1780 to 1830 is characterized by limited perceptions portraying a tantalizing diversity of popular steroetypes of blacks. Yet little is known about black numbers, occupations, family and community and the strategies of economic and psychological survival. The general purpose of this thesis is to fill in some of these gaps in our knowledge, and by concentrating on working class blacks it aims to redress the historical balance which focuses on the ‘leaders’ of the black community.

It is possible to argue that the mass of both the black and the poor white population underwent similar experiences at this time, and that cohesion along class, rather than colour lines might be discernible. It could further be posited that the few blacks patronized by the upper and the middle white class had little in common with the majority of their black brothers and sisters. The intention of this introductory chapter is, first, to survey available historical studies of British black people as defined by our chronological boundaries and secondly, to direct attention towards the limitations, but also the considerable potential, of the main groups of primary sources that inform this study.

I

The historiography of the black presence displays a tendency towards diversity, resulting in an accentuation of themes according to the particular discipline of the researcher involved. Hence there remains a tendency for some authors to concentrate on race or racism; others insert the history of black people in Britain into a broader conceptual framework, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between blacks and the wider host white society, while some focus on those individual blacks who achieved both prominence and upward social mobility. Until recently much of the scholarship has sufferred from the erroneous assumption that slavery in Britain ended with the Mansfield Judgment in 1772. However, Folarin Shyllon's seminal work in 1974 established categorically that British slavery continued well beyond the 1770s.¹

A decisive stage in the development of British scholarship originated in 1948, the date of the publication of Negroes in Britain written by Kenneth Little. Previously, apart from Dorothy George, only fleeting reference was made to black people in the historical literature of the eighteenth and the nineteenth century; thus the written history of blacks in Britain remained characterized by its sparsity.² M.D.George distinguished black people, weaving them into the framework of London Life in the Eighteenth Century.³ Her contribution is both pioneering and substantial, but has a tendency towards generalization. In the section entitled ‘London's Immigrants and Emigrants’, George briefly discusses the black presence within the wider context of racial tensions such as Jew-baiting and fights between the Irish and the English.

However, the work of Little remains primarily a study of race relations; his sociological investigations focused on an examination of

the social interactions and reactions resulting from the presence of coloured people in Britain, choosing as an example a coloured community in the dockland of Cardiff.⁴

Although this survey is primarily concerned with the twentieth century, hisanalysis of the historical and cultural context of race relations in Britain has serious implications for the past. In seeking the origins of race relations, Little examines the seventeenth century. Hence Chapter 7 of his study which spans the period from the seventeenth century to the time of publication, is pertinent to this study in particular, and crucial to the historiography in general. So too is Chapter 8, which traces changes in attitudes towards race throughout the period from ‘tolerance’ to prejudice. His work then encompasses the gamut of controversial themes which dominate the history of black people in Britain. Prominent among these topics are black numbers, which most historians assume to have increased in the eighteenth century and decreased in the nineteenth, the actual date of black arrival in Britain and the legality of slavery. The Sierra Leone Expedition of 1786–87 (which forms the basis of the following chapter in establishing the baseline for the minimum number of blacks in London at this time) receives some discussion by Little, but more importantly he examines attitudes towards race.

Little's local study set in the larger historical context represents both extensive and intensive research; however, the main focus remains on the modern era. The prime aim of his publication was to plead for scientific attention to be given to the study of race relations (or group relations) if the generic term be preferred, in its own right'.⁵ Michael Banton, a student of Kenneth Little, has also published widely on the subject of race relations. Again, his focus has been primarily concentrated on the twentieth century, but there is some reference in his works, The Coloured Quarter and ‘The Changing Position of the Negro in Britain’, to the nineteenth century context.⁶ In the discussion of studies which consider the extent to which a ‘black community’ existed in our period, I return to these two authors.

Race relations and attitudes towards race in the Victorian period are focal points of reference to the work of Douglas Lorimer and Christine Bolt. Studies such as these document, in detail, the rise of an indigenous racial ideology linked to imperial expansion and the emergence of a Victorian middle class dominated by the ethos of racial exclusiveness at home. Bolt indicates that in the 80 or so years that followed the era of abolition, the period directly concerned with this chapter, strong racial prejudices existed among the British bourgeoisie. She denotes contemporary ambivalence towards the terminology itself, so ‘although Victorians agreed upon the importance of racial theories and conflicts, there was a vagueness as to the exact meaning of the word “race” which brought… a dangerous confusion between biological and cultural concepts. Nor was racism a much more precise term’. ⁷ Bolt further comments on the differing stereotypes of Indians and Negroes, a theme which deserves exploration in Chapter 3 of this study.

Lorimer, however cautions against simple conceptualizations of racial attitudes in Colour, Class and the Victorians, and although the substantial body of his research concentrates on the era following 1830, it possesses relevance for the present study. The development of racism is traced with clarity in his chapter entitled ‘Racial Discrimination in England: the Black Experience 1600–1900’. He suggests that racial attitudes may derive direct inspiration from more immediate social circumstances than was previously imagined; thus any examination of racial attitudes is characterized by complexities. Divergent reactions to colour are apparent towards the end of the eighteenth century, ranging from hostility, as portrayed by Edward Long's overt biological racism, to sympathetic attitudes. Lorimer suggests that the changes that occurred were not so much the product of actual English behaviour towards blacks as the product of more abstract notions of the social status of blacks in Britain (a status which diminished with the onset of the process of industrialization). Thus his analysis of attitudes towards race delineates the mid-nineteenth century for apparent changes, but until this time, he posits that ‘blacks in England never constituted a threat to any other interest or group, nor did they present a convenient scapegoat for the failures and frustations of society’.⁸

Lorimer, Shyllon, and Michael Biddiss concur that racism was well established before Britain's participation in the ‘Scramble for Africa’. Biddiss emphasizes that imperial ambition, as an explanation for the genesis of British racism, is not feasible.⁹ Furthermore, Lorimer stresses that

the mid-Victorians, looking outward through ethnocentric spectacles, often perceived race relations abroad in the light of class relations at home. Blacks became identified with labouring tasks and the lower social orders and in the process respectable people extended conventional attitudes towards their social inferiors in England to all Negroes. This identification of blacks with inferior status was, in large part, the result of the historical experience of slavery.¹⁰

In ‘Bibles, Banjoes and Bones: Images of the Negro in the Popular Culture of Victorian England’, he argues that the mid-nineteenth century ‘nigger minstrel’ shows reinforced rather than caused the growth of racial conceit.¹¹

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Table of contents

• Cover
• RECONSTRUCTING THE BLACK PAST
• Cass Series
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• 1 The Historiography of Black People in Britain
• 2 The Black Numbers Conundrum: A Step Towards Quantification
• 3 Myths and Stereotypes: A Study of Changing Black Images
• 4 Servant, Sailor, Soldier, Tailor, Beggarman: Black Survival in White Society
• 5 Thief, Victim, Witness, Transportee: The Black Presence through Criminal Records
• 6 Lascars: Eastern Seamen in London
• 7 In Search of the Invisible: Black Family and Community
• 8 New Departures and Dimensions
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index