Remember the Time

I see Romancelandia is having one of its moments about historical accuracy and the existence of

melanated folks in the Western world before the 20 Century. Again. 

Did I ever tell you that history was one of my favourite subjects? And if I’d chosen a different path,

I’d be one of those mad history professors, wearing bedazzled glasses, full maxi skirts and pencils in my hair to mark my most treasured textbooks. It always intrigued me that I would never see anyone with my skin tone in period dramas and be told it’s a matter of historical accuracy after all, black people were only slaves.

Huh. Weird then that the Romans who conquered nearly the entirety of Europe and a good portion of the North and East of Africa, whose peoples joined their armies and were promoted in their ranks never stepped foot in Britain - also conquered by the Romans. But yet they did. Evidence of that was found of a lady of mixed heritage buried with seriously expensive jewellery.  The Ivory Bangle Lady. It shows that there was intermarriage and integration into England. Beachy Head Lady dated to 245AD was found in East Sussex. An Arthurian romantic novel depicts the hero as dark, save for his teeth.

Edward III’s consort was said to be a woman of African decent - Philippa of Hainault from 14 Century.  

In trading in gold from West Africa, men travelled to England to be intermediaries, to be translators, already extremely wealthy as a result of the sub-Saharan trade routes in the early 15 Century. 

We are well aware that Catherine of Aragon, in the course of her marriage to Prince Arthur (King Henry VIII’s brother who tragically died and thereby gave us the biggest marital drama of all time) brought servants and ladies in waiting with her that were from Africa. There is a wealth of information detailing the black Tudors - some freed from the Spanish colonies, others settlers following the trade routes between West Africa and England, others family members of European traders such as the Netherlands, France and Spain. There were Africans in the Scottish Court of James IV. Diplomats and statesmen were part of the Courts of this country. From Benin, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Morocco, Libya.

Liverpool, outside of London, because it is a port, had what was considered to be a large black population, particularly in the 17 and 18 centuries, as not only did you have seamen of African descent settling in England, but you had attendants and servants, who married their white counterparts.

They were shopkeepers, composers, writers, musicians, cooks and soldiers. African Chieftains sent their sons to England to be educated - something that still happens to this day. 

On Nelson’s column, considered one of Britain’s greatest heroes at the battle of Trafalgar (a whole square is named after him!) he is depicted fighting alongside an unmistakably African man. Queen Victoria had a young girl gifted to her. That same girl, Sarah Forbes Bonetta, had a wedding that was a societal event as she was under Queen Victoria’s protection. Many former slaves found themselves at the patronage of rich Britons who gave them means and an education; not just as abolitionists but as just decent people. True Christians - who knew?

Far from writing a history lecture here - there are people who have done this much better and far more in depth than I have David, such as Olusoga’s magnificat Black and British: A Forgotten History, which has also a rather brilliant BBC series that accompanies it. It was his tv series that first alerted me to Nelson’s column and I went to have a look. I mean I live in London, it’d have been daft not to. 

Black people, especially in this country, have not been invented to guilt white people about anything at all. Simple acknowledgement of our existence in this country long before the general populace were able to read and write or even vote will suffice. If there can be hundreds upon hundreds of romance novels of earls and dukes of pale skin and sleek hair and all of their teeth and enormous penises that they know how to use(???), there can be and should be just as many of colour.

Not that I should tell any romance author how to write, but the threads of a thousand tales are woven in the very history of the U.K. They are multi-faceted as well as multi-coloured.

It’s not historically inaccurate to feature other races into a novel and to have those races lead, take your reader on the wildest of rides, to let them fall in love and be happy. The history is there: bold, accurate and realistic - let’s use it.