'This book brings history alive' BERNADINE EVARISTO WITH A FOREWORD FROM ZADIE SMITH 'Black
England is a book that will be relevant for ever' BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH ---------------- The
idea that Britain became a mixed-race country after 1945 is a common mistake. Georgian England
had a large and distinctive Black community. Whether prosperous citizens or newly freed slaves
they all ran the risk of kidnap and sale to plantations. Black England tells their dramatic
often moving stories. In the eighteenth century Black people could be found in clubs and pubs
there were special churches Black-only balls and organisations for helping Black people who
were out of work or in trouble. Many were famous and respected: most notably Francis Barber
Doctor Johnson's beloved manservant Ignatius Sancho a correspondent of Laurence Sterne
Francis Williams a Cambridge scholar and Olaudah Equiano whose Interesting Narrative went
into multiple editions. But far more were ill-paid and ill-treated servants or beggars despite
having served Britain in war and on the seas. For alongside the free world there was slavery
from which many of these Black Britons had escaped. The triumphs and tortures of Black England
the Ambivalent relations between the races sometimes tragic sometimes heart-warming are
brought to life in this wonderfully readable history. Black England explores a fascinating
chapter of our shared past a chapter that has been ignored too long.
