Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann: Book Note

Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann (2017) : Book Note Miranda Kaufmann is a British historian whom I had the pleasure of meeting at a conference in reparations to Africa in London, in 2008. This book is her doctoral thesis. Unlike most academics, Kaufmann can write for a general audience while still maintaining rigorous research standards. https://www.mirandakaufmann.com/ Black Tudors tells the stories of ten Black people living in England in Tudor times (1485-1603: the reign of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I). These individuals were not enslaved. I was surprised to learn from Kaufmann that there was no status of “slave” in England during Tudor times. Nor had the British slave trade started yet. In fact, Kaufmann recounts instances of people enslaved by Portuguese or Spanish traders trying to get onto British ships (and sometimes succeeding) because they had heard that the British did not enslave Africans. Quite a few of the Black people in England during Tudor times had arrived there via Morocco, Portugal, and/or Spain. Very little is actually known of the ten people about whom Kaufmann writes. She gleans much of her information from records of Christian conversion and death records. One of the most interesting stories is of John Blanke, a trumpeter in the court of Henry VIII. Jacques Francis was a salvage diver from a part of Africa where young men were trained to hold their breath for long periods underwater, while diving for pearls. He was employed to assists in salvaging a ship called the Mary Rose, which sank in 1545 during Henry VIII’s reign. Cattelena of Almondsbury was a Black woman who lived a quiet rural life. Kaufmann fleshes out her stories of these ten Black Tudors with explanations of the kind of life they led. Thus, we learn about sailing, domestic service, silk-weaving, and other occupations, as well as an enormous amount of Tudor history. Kaufmann has since also published Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance, and Caribbean Slavery.(2025) the true stories of nine women who inherited Caribbean slaves. Fans of Jane Austen might be interested in reading this. There is a lively debate about whether Jane Austen’s family was implicated in slavery, though it seems three of her six brothers were abolitionists. https://theconversation.com/3-of-jane-austens-6-brothers-engaged-in-antislavery-activism-new-research-offers-more-clues-about-her-own-views-230176 It also seems that there may have been some subtle clues as to Austen’s own abolitionist sentiments in her writing. For example, the title of one of Austen’s books, Mansfield Park, may refer to Lord Mansfield. He was a judge who in 1772 ruled that a Black slave brought to the UK from the Caribbean by his master was not obliged to return to the plantation where he’d been enslaved, but could stay in the UK as a free man. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/kenwood/history-stories-kenwood/somerset-case/ Lord Mansfield also had a Black great-niece, the daughter of his nephew and a deceased Black woman, whom he raised on his own estate alongside a white great-niece. There is a famous portrait of the two girls. https://philipmould.com/news/364-interracial-double-portraits-portrait-of-dido-belle-and-lady-elizabeth-murray/ If you’ve ever wanted to read British history without getting bored by ponderous academic prose, Kaufmann is the author for you.