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Black Tudors: The Untold Story
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Black Tudors: The Untold Story
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Black Tudors: The Untold Story
Ebook549 pages7 hours

Black Tudors: The Untold Story

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this ebook

Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2018

A Book of the Year for the Evening Standard and the Observer

A black porter publicly whips a white Englishman in the hall of a Gloucestershire manor house. A Moroccan woman is baptised in a London church. Henry VIII dispatches a Mauritanian diver to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose. From long-forgotten records emerge the remarkable stories of Africans who lived free in Tudor England…

They were present at some of the defining moments of the age. They were christened, married and buried by the Church. They were paid wages like any other Tudors. The untold stories of the Black Tudors, dazzlingly brought to life by Kaufmann, will transform how we see this most intriguing period of history.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 5, 2017
ISBN9781786071859

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Reviews for Black Tudors

Rating: 3.4814844444444444 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

27 ratings14 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Though the narrative gets lost in the weeds of Tudor history at times, this is a revealing piece in a body of work questioning assumptions on race in England. By focusing on ten Africans known to live in the country, Kaufman introduces evidence for hundreds more. The conclusion and author's note lay out the importance of this kind of work, and guide the readers to additional scholarship. Recommended.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Interesting and well researched look into the lives of African migrants in Tudor England.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The author obviously did a lot of research, but most of what she included in this book has absolutely nothing to do with the purported subject of the book. It's as interesting as reading an inventory. I do not care how much a tournament cost.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book is insanely well-researched. The notes and bibliography run about a hundred pages--and it's only a selected bibliography! Unfortunately, despite all of the research Kaufmann did, there just isn't a lot of detailed information on the lives of Black Tudors so there's a lot of speculation and digressions going on to pad out the page count. It's worth picking up for its information on a little-known topic, but it's not a very engaging read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    *I received this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.*I had never really given much thought to Africans living in Tudor England, but I'm glad this book introduced me to a few of their incredibly varied lives. In addition to highlighting less prominent historical figures, this book teases out plenty of details which histories focused on politics often miss. I particularly liked the chapter on the divers who salvaged items from the sunken Mary Rose. I had no idea this had been done in the 16th century, let alone that African divers had been recruited for the task. This book is filled with such details and this along with the strong challenge to my preconceived notions about the period made this book a great read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In Black Tudors Miranda Kaufmann puts forward evidence that black people lived in Tudor England as free persons as a matter of course. She looks at ten African citizens who, she says, have left more documentary evidence than most, and mentions many others who suggest that these ten are not extraordinary. Her thesis is that baptism into the Church of England was the crucial impetus for their acceptance in society, and that the racial prejudice that we accept as a fact of life was not a factor of theirs. She also notes that Tudor England had no need of slaves in great numbers; therefore, they were not necessarily our moral superiors. The ten lives are fascinating, among them a musician in Henry VIII's court, a sailor with Drake, an African prince come to England to learn the language in order to help his father's trade with England. I was particularly impressed with the fact of three women who left behind enough material to be included. Since there was not much written about any of these, Kaufmann expanded her work by delving into Tudor social history in general. I picked up all kinds of interesting insights into this ever-beguiling period.This expansion, though, is the reason that I took three months to read this little book. It was pretty obvious from the outset that Kaufmann adapted an academic project into a book. It was also pretty obvious that she had only a hazy idea of what people, who would be attracted to this topic, might know. Her tendency is to talk down to her reader, defining such words as "catechism," "steer," and "pewter." I did not appreciate being told about the prostitute, "Another consequence of having regular sex was that Anne Cobbie might have become pregnant," but that's a typical bit of commentary. Occasionally, Kaufmann quoted sixteenth or seventeenth century sources where explanations I would have welcomed were not offered.My strongest objection is to the fictional paragraph that introduces each subject. She places each person in context by imagining him doing something characteristic, the aforementioned Anne Cobbie, for example, rubbing unguent on her body (because she was referred to as "the tawny moor with soft skin.") I'm not sure that any writer is good enough to create a living character in such a limited number of words. Kaufmann certainly isn't, and I wish she had not cheapened her book by trying.On the other hand, she has renewed my ambition to read Hakluyt, so I thank her for that and thank ER for the opportunity to read this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A fascinating book about a topic I knew nothing about. Kaufmann mined sparse historical information to give voice to a history that is virtually unknown. I highly recommend this book to people interested in learning more about race in Tudor England and about tudor England in general as there is much background information fleshing out the world she is writing about.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. While I am well versed in the Tudor era, this subject matter was entirely new to me. Kaufmann presents information in 10 chapters, each "featuring" an African man or woman's story, but given the scarcity of the details, also provides context within the general Tudor society, and sometimes also interweaving the stories of other Africans. She argues convincingly that, during the Tudor era, Africans who joined the church were treated equally with others at the same level in society - they may have been servants, but were not slaves. In fact, Africans who had been enslaved and arrived in England were freed, causing some to seek out English ships to escape their captors. The Tudor period had no prejudices about interracial marriages, and Kaufmann notes that the recent trend toward DNA testing might explain some unexpected results for those who did not know, or had forgotten, this history. A worthwhile read - I just wish there was more information available to more fully tell these stories.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Kaufmann has focused on an intriguing topic about which little is known. Unfortunately, I did not find her book very enlightening. The fault, however, is not entirely hers: it lies in the fact that there are virtually no narratives of black lives in the period, and she is forced to rely on sketchy details in court documents, letters and chronicles. As a result, Kaufmann falls into speculation and digression to fill in the spaces. What we do learn is that few blacks entered England as slaves, and those who did so as slaves to foreign visitors could assert their right to freedom. Those with talents were given the chance to use them and were, for the most part, respected in society. We often read Othello as a reflection of Tudor racism, but Shakespeare does show us that the protagonist was admired for his military genius and accepted into Venetian homes as an equal--at least until his elopement with Desdemona. Kaufmann's work, however, indicates that there was little prejudice against interracial marriage in Tudor England. I came away from the book wishing for a more detailed description of the lives of black individuals, but, alas, that has to remain the work of fiction.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Interesting and well researched look into the lives of African migrants in Tudor England.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have read several outstanding books about everyday Tudor lives recently, and I'm delighted to add this one to my bookshelf. Solid and exhaustive research that makes excellent arguments not only for the presence of Africans in the everyday Tudor landscape but also their status as free persons who were ordinary members of the community. I also particularly love that each chapter is devoted to a person of a different social standing, so in addition to presenting the breadth of diversity in circumstances that the different subjects enjoyed, we also get a slice of many different sorts of Tudor lives.

    Kaufmann also does an excellent job modeling how one researches very specific subjects, and how much information can (and cannot) be inferred from something as brief as a will or a baptismal record. Her contextualization of the information she presents is a real pleasure to read.

    Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Edelweiss.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Black Tudors is exactly what the title says, the “Untold Story” of black Africans and their descendants who lived in Britain in the seventeenth century, not as slaves but as free citizens. Kaufman combed historical records for this largely overlooked story. She focusses on the lives of ten people, although she paints a wider picture of the Tudor period in which the ten lived.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It is said that history is written by the winners. While that is certainly true, the more insidious fact is that history is written by those who hold the pen. What this means in a practical sense is that those with little power, and little influence–whether or not they “won”–are often either diminished in the historical record or left out entirely. One of the great (or terrible) things about the emergence of the internet is that it has given voice to populations who, even fifty years ago, would not have been heard. The internet is going to change how histories are written in the future, the vast amount of data available, and the clamor of voices waiting to speak will need to be addressed by future historians.But enough digression. We’re talking here about the Tudor era. Very, very few people are literate, even in the upper levels of society. While high ranking men and officials had a decent literacy rate, women, lower classes, and minorities were overwhelmingly illiterate. The upshot of this is that we know quite a good deal about the rulers, the “important” folk, economics, etc. but very little about the daily lives of merchants, yeomen, women (especially poor women), and others not well represented in the written record.This fact makes Kaufmann’s book incredibly ambitious. There are no known surviving sources written by Africans in Tudor England. Kaufmann instead must play detective, inferring the shapes of these people’s lives through their interactions with higher-status (ie. record-leaving) contemporaries. What Kaufmann has found is the tip of a fascinating iceberg. The unusual wording of law in the British Isles (and notably not in her colonies) meant that there could be no slaves in England (though people could be, and were, treated as such). As a result, Kaufmann’s history isn’t one of slavery, but about the wide range of professions and lifestyles occupied by Africans in Tudor England. We are introduced to sailors and wreck divers, prostitutes and silk weavers, servants and princes. Some were able to live independently in cities and towns through the country, others were employees or servants. Some tales are inspiring. Others, like the fate of Maria, an African woman brought on board one of Sir Walter Raleigh’s ship for “entertainment” are horrible beyond imagining.Kaufmann has been able to unearth or infer quite a bit of information on the lives of African individuals in Tudor England. Her book is a fascinating look at a time before England’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade made the dehumanization of African people the norm. Her work will appeal to historians and anthropologists alike, and is a must read for anyone seeking more information on the role of minorities in history.A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Once upon a time, before there was racism...Well beyond being a nation of shopkeepers, the British are a nation of event recorders. There are registers, court records and all kinds of documents official and informal that detail the lives of Britons going back a thousand years. So it should be no great surprise that the stories of blacks in Britain can be broadly reconstructed. The good news is they were not slaves, but full-fledged citizens. The country did not allow slavery on its soil in the Tudor era, and anti-miscegenation laws didn’t begin until the 1660s. Black Tudors focuses on ten black men and women there during the reigns of Henry VII and VIII, Elizabeth I and James I. Records allow Miranda Kaufmann to trace life events and moves, and infer wealth and success.Along with black history, comes British history, the roles they played in it and how they were affected by it. One black man escaped Spanish slavery and worked for Sir Francis Drake, pillaging the world. Another, named Edward Swarthey, is famous for publicly beating a white man, unopposed, at the behest of his employer. There was a London silk weaver in the time of plague, and a deep diving salvager who recovered expensive ornaments from sunken royal vessels. They came in contact with royalty: one was one Henry VIII’s trumpeters, who is even portrayed – wearing a turban – at the Westminster Tournament celebrating the birth of Henry’s heir.This link to history is both strength and weakness in Black Tudors. While it gives context and perspective to all their lives, it also looms too large over them. There are far too many pages of politics and detail – which ships were seized for what debts in what ports and how their owners finagled their release, gypping each other along the way. Really nothing to do with the shipwright, other than in one case he had to go to court for back wages. There is way too much family treeing, having essentially nothing to do with the subjects.Henry VIII seems to have looked upon blacks as evidence of his own worldliness, and the global import of his little kingdom. At the time, the empire did not yet exist, and most of the wars he waged were simply across the channel. But blacks, given royal acceptance, were also accepted in general society. They were named in wills, testified at trials, and buried in churchyards. They were few in number, and so were notable they were noted every time they dealt with authority. It’s likely why Shakespeare was able to have black characters and references to blacks in his plays. It wasn’t until the mid 1600s that Britain really caught the slave trade bug, made blacks inferior, and joined with their American colonies in pushing blacks out of society. So, Kaufmann says, it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s not natural, inevitable or obvious.David Wineberg