Britain's Black Past ed. by Gretchen H. Gerzina

Abstract

Reviewed by: Britain's Black Past ed. by Gretchen H. Gerzina Dr Onyeka Nubia Britain's Black Past. Edited by, Gretchen H. Gerzina. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020. … What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice … Carter G Woodson, The Journal of Negro History XII:2, 1927.1 Carter G. Woodson is often called "the father" of Black History Month. But Woodson was prescriptively antagonistic to the misanthropy of an all-White-American narrative, that claimed "the Negro has no history." Such narratives were promulgated by mainstream historians such as Edward Channing and Adam Bushnell Hart (American Historical Association). Of course, it is sometimes conjectured that this kind of racialised historiography is a peculiar quirk of Americanism, and that British history does not have an ethnocentric bias. Such a conceit may then support a fable that Britain's "multi-ethnic" past begins in modernity, when the Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury Docks in 1948. Moreover, that the pathology of racism was birthed only in the 1960's, as a reaction against the permissive society, liberalism and failed immigration policies. Proponents of this idea often conflate ethnicity with the "problem" of migration—and British narratives remain "a book with white pages and no black letters in."2 Historical amnesia follows, where the histories of BAME communities are explained away. It is this indifference that Gretchen Gerzina's edited volume of essays Britain's Black Past endeavours to overcome. However, for Black Past to succeed, the reader needs to know that Africans have been part of the fabric of the British Isles for thousands of years. And this presence has been persistent, from the African legions on Hadrian's Wall, to Romanised Africans at Londinium and Camulodunum. Readers may also be aware that an African presence in medieval England is not incongruous. And snapshots of this population reveal diversity in cosmopolitan communities in London and elsewhere. For example, in the thirteenth century, Bartholomew "was on the run" in medieval Nottingham and "the Ipswich Man" was part of the sodality of the local Greyfriars monastery. And we should not forget that in 1470, Maria Moriana, the medieval "oratice," was in court, being defended by her community against an employer who tried to treat her in a servile manner. But Black Past is not about these Africans—even though the introduction does sketch an earlier history; and Michael Ohajuru's chapter gives a personal glimpse of Africans in Tudor England. Rather, the strength of this book lies not in the far-distant past;—Black Lives is a commentary on notable Black Georgians. These Africans include Mary Prince in Sue Thomas' chapter. Thomas excavates the construction of "slave narratives" with Prince, who won her freedom with an autobiographical scream for help. She ignited abolitionist causes throughout Britain. Other important chapters in Black Past include Gerzina's on Dido Elizabeth Belle. Gerzina attempts to debunk some of the mythos surrounding Belle, who was of course, an heiress by birth and a member of the powerful Murray/Lindsay family. Consequently, she was the great-grandniece of Lord Mansfield, the primary adjudicating judge in the James Somerset legal case (1772). This case was about the legality of enslaving Africans in England, but despite the hyperbolic misstatements that the decision ended slavery, Mansfield only passed judgement on the question of force, detention and the deprivation of liberty. But Gerzina is right to imply that Belle, who also managed Mansfield's paperwork, may have influenced his decision making. A further African luminary discussed in Black Past is Francs Barber. Barber was the famous manservant-friend-adopted-son of Samuel Johnson. He had smart and caustic wit, but Michael Bundock's chapter concentrates on Barber's guilelessness. Johnson and Barber were co-writers of the first English Dictionary, although many modern historians view Barber's contributions as peripheral. In this regard, Bundock's work is biographically constructive; but Vincent Carretta's chapter that sits adjacent to it, is autobiographically deconstructive. Carretta critiques the authenticity of Olaudah Equiano's autobiography. And she suggests there is a strong likelihood Equiano infused his narrative with...