91�ȱ�

Before slavery in the British Empire was abolished under the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, the status of black people in Britain was complex. This was because the law was not clear. British law allowed enslavement overseas, on the slave ships from West Africa and the West Indian plantations. Inside the British Isles, however, slavery was not legally sanctioned.

Some black people were held in conditions of enslavement here in Britain and some were violently abused. We know this from advertisements about runaways and from court cases. However most Africans lived here in freedom, as can be seen from parish records. Court documents show Africans accused of crime were treated in the same way as white people. A few Africans thrived in Britain: Ignatius Sancho who was born on a slave ship became a wealthy composer, actor, and writer and was the first black Briton to be allowed to vote in elections.

The case of James Somerset in 1772 was important. He had escaped from his master who then recaptured him in Britain and tried to force him to return to Jamaica. The Lord Chief Justice ruled that he could not be taken from Britain by force. While in Britain, he was free.

It is not clear whether there was a distinct black community in places like London and Liverpool, or whether black people lived as part of the wider working class. After 1833 and in the later 19th century, their presence is harder to trace because they were not recorded as ‘black’ in census returns. Paintings, cartoons and later photographs often show black people present in many parts of Britain, and it is likely that many people were of African descent, often through intermarriage. They appear to have been assimilated into the wider population.

The ‘Black Loyalists’ who had been promised freedom from enslavement if they fought for Britain in the American War of Independence, were brought here when Britain lost the war. Many of them ended up destitute, begging on London’s streets. Over 400 were transported to Sierra Leone in West Africa in a resettlement project by the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor.

William Davidson and Robert Wedderburn were both the children of black enslaved mothers and white fathers who became political activists against slavery and for the rights of working people. Davidson was hanged and beheaded for his part in the Cato Street Conspiracy - a plot to assassinate leaders of the government.

William Cuffay (from St Kitts in the Caribbean) was a leader of the Chartist movement for political reform, and was convicted of preparing to set fire to certain buildings as a signal for an uprising and was transported to Tasmania in 1848. Many of the Chartists’ demands are now an accepted part of our Parliamentary system, such as secret ballots in elections, votes for all and payment to MPs so that not only the rich could stand for election.

Some black people, such as Queen Victoria’s god-daughter Lady Sarah Forbes Bonetta, the nurse Mary Seacole and the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, achieved success and prominence in late Victorian society. There were several popular black entertainers such as the circus owner Pablo Fanque whose company travelled all over the country.

This was a time when ‘pseudo-scientific’ racist ideas, justifying enslavement and empire by dehumanising people who had been colonised, were widely held. One notable case was the African American actor Ira Aldridge. Although he was a highly successful performer of Shakespeare’s leading roles all over Europe, his performance of Othello in London received racist reviews and was forced to close.