A transformative history – in Tudor times there were Africans living and working in Britain, and they were free
Miranda Kaufmann is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of London’s Institute of Commonwealth Studies. She has appeared on Sky News, the BBC and Al Jazeera, and she’s written for The Times, Guardian and BBC History Magazine. She lives in Pontblyddyn in North Wales.
‘That rare thing: a book about the 16th century that said something
new.’
*Evening Standard, Books of the Year*
‘This is history on the cutting edge of archival research, but
accessibly written and alive with human details and warmth. Black
Tudors is a critical book that allows us to better understand an
era that fascinates us like no other.’
*David Olusoga, author of Black and British: A Forgotten
History*
‘Splendid…that rare thing – a work of history about the Tudors that
actually says something fresh and new…a cracking contribution to
the field.’
*Dan Jones, Sunday Times*
‘This is history on the cutting edge of archival research, but
accessibly written and alive with human details and warmth. Black
Tudors is a critical book that allows us to better understand an
era that fascinates us like no other.’
*David Olusoga, author of Black and British: A Forgotten
History*
‘Enlightening and constantly surprising… Far too many popular
studies of the Tudors return the same faces. To its great credit,
Black Tudors presents fresh figures and challenges the way we look
at them.’
*Jessie Childs, Financial Times*
‘Consistently fascinating, historically invaluable…the narrative is
pacy, the research sympathetically thorough.. Anyone reading it
will never look at Tudor England in the same light again'.
*Daily Mail*
‘[The] audience will find itself in the hands of a historian of
excellent investigative skills, who shows attention to detail, uses
evidence with appropriate caution, and has the sensibility of a
scholar.’
*Times Literary Supplement*
‘The industry and skill with which Miranda Kaufmann has hunted for
these sources and teased out their meanings are exemplary…
Kaufmann’s greatest skill is her ability to fill in the background
on every topic that arises, from piracy to silk-weaving to brothels
to Anglo-Moroccan diplomacy…In the hands of a lesser writer this
would be mere padding with secondary material, but she investigates
every subject in the same depth… a fascinating book, which brings a
sadly neglected part of our history to life, and grinds no
ideological axes in the process’.
*Daily Telegraph*
‘Both an eye-opener and a good read.’
*Sorted*
‘Miranda Kaufmann writes engagingly as she reveals the untold
stories of Africans who lived free, worked for wages, married and
died in 16th and 17th century England.’
*CHOICE*
‘Fascinating.’
*Sunday Telegraph*
‘Meticulous research draws on sources from letters to legal
papers…The detail [Kaufmann] unearths brings to life those absent
from the pages of history.’
*Observer*
‘A thought-provoking account of 10 remarkable people, and a
valuable corrective to some unthinking assumptions about both Tudor
society and the role of racial minorities in English history.’
*Times Higher Education*
‘A powerful and perceptive reassessment of a time that has too long
been sidelined by popular historical storytelling.’
*Press Association*
‘Impressively detailed and persuasively argued.’
*Diplomat*
‘Thought-provoking… [Kaufmann] takes readers on fascinating
excursions through Moroccan history, the European exploration of
South America, and the seedier side of London.’
*Christian Science Monitor*
‘An absolute joy.’
*Leanda de Lisle, The Times*
‘Black Tudors demonstrates
the way understanding of history is constantly
changing based on changing contemporary values
and perspectives. For someone dedicated
to an awareness of oppression throughout
history, Black Tudors is an important
but difficult read, inspiring a desire for more
information.’
*The Riveter Magazine*
‘In a work of brilliant sleuthing, engagingly written, Kaufmann
reclaims long-forgotten lives and fundamentally challenges our
preconceptions of Tudor and Jacobean attitudes to race and
slavery.’
*John Guy, bestselling author of Elizabeth: The Forgotten
Years*
‘Miranda Kaufmann has written a superb antidote both to the cliches
of Tudor history and to the assumption that Black migration to
Britain began with the Windrush. Her vivid portrait of Black Tudor
lives sweeps readers around the world in the company of Diego,
manservant to Sir Francis Drake, and back to the life of single
woman Cattelena in the Gloucestershire countryside. Grounded in
precise and detailed historical research, Black Tudors promises to
change perceptions of a period at the heart of Britain’s national
identity.’
*Catherine Fletcher, author of The Black Prince of
Florence*
‘The book is based on impeccable research in a rich array of
sources. But Dr Kaufmann wears her learning lightly and she tells a
series of fascinating stories with an elegance and wit that should
appeal to many readers.’
*Clive Holmes, Emeritus Fellow and Lecturer in History, University
of Oxford*
‘A brilliant example of how to use the most detailed kind of
archival data to present a broadly accessible picture of the past,
and one which has enormous relevance to the present controversies
about immigration and diversity.’
*Paul Kaplan, Professor of Art History, State University of New
York, Purchase*
‘The very concept of black Tudors may sound unlikely, but in
this highly readable yet intensively
researched book, Kaufmann…makes clear that people of
African descent were residing in England centuries before the
postwar Windrush generation and were not necessarily enslaved. By
examining in detail the lives of 10 previously obscure men and
women, Kaufmann depicts the great diversity of their experiences in
16th- and early-17th-century England… Kaufmann also persuasively
argues that the enslavement of Africans emerged as a response to
the socioeconomic conditions of England’s Caribbean and North
American colonies, rather than as an inevitable result of a
supposedly inherent racism within early modern English culture.
Kaufmann’s crucial contention, in conjunction with her lively prose
and fascinating microhistories, should draw some well-deserved
attention.’
*Publishers Weekly, starred review*
‘An eminently readable book that offers contemporary readers
valuable insights into racial relations of centuries past.’
*Kirkus*
‘Tudor England’s legendary history is a rich locus in the popular
imagination. Full of pageantry and larger-than-life personalities,
the period is a favorite of the Anglophilic world. But what if that
seemingly monolithic world was also black?… For a modern audience
acculturated to thinking of Africans in the West as either enslaved
or altogether absent, the picture that emerges challenges the
centrality of whiteness and slavery in the Tudor period. Kaufmann
takes pains to situate Great Britain on the national stage as a
minor nation emerging from civil war and fighting to be
acknowledged at the international level… Black Tudors concentrates
on individuals who are enmeshed in the historical narrative and
effectively places them right back where they’ve always
belonged.’
*Foreword Reviews*
‘Who knew that a diver from West Africa worked to salvage Henry
VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose? Based on a wealth of original
research, Miranda Kaufmann’s Black Tudors restores the black
presence to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England in all its
lively detail. Africans lived and worked not as slaves but as
independent agents, from mariners to silk weavers, women and men,
prince and prostitute. Black Tudors challenges assumptions about
ethnic identity and racism in Tudor England. It will be required
reading for anyone interested in new directions in Tudor
history.’
*Dr John Cooper, Senior Lecturer in History, University of York,
and author of The Queen’s Agent*
‘This meticulously researched book… it’s remarkable that she’s
created a book that so vividly paints a broad picture of Tudor
life, making it both entirely readable and utterly
fascinating.’
*Dorset Magazine*
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