Tudor PoC

If you’re a fan of Medieval POC, or are generally interested in media representations of race, history, and race in different periods of history, you might be interested in a new book called Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England (though it might be difficult to get your hands on it if you live in the States).

Written by Onyeka Nubia, who goes by the pen name Onyeka, it uses a decade of deep research to show that Africans an established part of English society in the 1500s and earlier — and not just as slaves:

Indeed, the author found firstly that the term slave when used was a “temporary or transitory” term; additionally, there is evidence of Africans marrying English people and having children.

“A report in 1578 declared ‘I myself have seene an Ethiopian as black as cole…taking a faire English woman as wife [they] begat a sonne in all respects as blacke as the father.’ James Albert Gronniosaw (an African prince, enslaved at 15, who served in the British army and later wrote his memoirs) married an English weaver and settled in Colchester.”