Miranda Kaufmann’s Black Tudors: The Untold Story was a wonderfully written exploration of the lives of people of color during the Tudor reign of England. By using a variety of primary government and church sources, and secondary sources from other leading scholars on the topic, Kaufmann was able to paint a picture of what it was like to be Black living in Early Modern England. With this picture displayed for readers, she urges them to question what they think they know about Black people during history. Miranda Kauffman has an extensive history on the topic of Black people in England throughout time. This book, which won two awards and is now being used to inform a new TV drama on the topic is probably one of her most successful works. She currently works at the University of London where she is a research fellow with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. Kauffman has a slightly different career path than most historians because she also considers herself a journalist. She writes for popular news outlets about the topic of Black people in Early Modern England and often speaks at conventions, festivals, and schools on the topic. She seems very interested in making this topic available to people other than academics, which is reflected in this book that reads very easily. Some might argue that her “pop-history” interests may take away from her credibility as a historian writing on this topic, I would argue that she has plenty of experience and research under her belt that gives her credibility for the book. Overall, this book allows the topic and historical methods of uncovering Black people in Early Modern England accessible to people of all backgrounds.
The layout of this book highlights a different “Black Tudor” per chapter. While her research uncovered almost 300 Black Tudors within England at this time, she only chose to focus her book on 10 different people. However, the stories of the 200 some others are not lost within this book. Within each chapter, she provides great historical context for each person’s life, while also tying in the stories of other Black people who were known to have lived in England at the time. The first chapter starts by talking about the life of John Blanke The Trumpeter. John Blanke was a Trumpeter for Henry VIII who is visible in a giant piece of art depicting him playing music for a jousting tournament of Henry VII. Kauffman goes into great detail about the various other Africans that might have been present in similar ways in the royal courts of this time. Additionally, Kauffman goes on to prove that John Blanke likely had a lot of freedom and independence as a man employed by King Henry VII. Next, chapter two tells the story of a skilled diver from Africa, Jaques Francis. Francis was hired by the royal court to help recover remains from the shipwreck of the Mary Rose. Kauffman poses the question, Why were Africans so good at diving? Did his skill of diving impact how he was viewed in England? How was his evidence taken in Royal Court as a Black man? He was indeed ridiculed in court, not because of his race, but because the evidence he found went against the economic goals of the people testifying against his master. The third chapter is about Diego the Circumnavigator. He was an African enslaved by the Spanish in a village called Nombre de Dios in Panama. He eventually abandoned his master to join the voyage of Sir Francis Drake around the world.
The stories continue with Edward Swarythe the Porter who became the first man ever to publicly whip a white man. This story helps readers to reassess what they might know about how Black people were treated in Tudor England at the time. Chapter five talks about Reasonable Blackman, a silk weaver living on the outskirts of London. His story proves that like himself and his family, there could have been many other Black people living in England financially independent and making a life for themselves. Chapter six talks about Mary Fillis, a Morrocan who worked for a seamstress and eventually was converted to the protestant church. This shows that people of all backgrounds were accepted and welcomed into the Church of England at the time. Chapter seven talks about Dederi Jaquoah, the prince of a kingdom in west Africa. His story is significant because he spent a good amount of his life in England learning English and creating good relationships for trading success. In Chapter eight John Anthony’s story was significant because he was hired as a sailor during the same time period when the English started bringing slaves to Virginia. It is incredible how the lives of Africans differed from the colonies to mainland England. The last two chapters detail the lives of Anne Cobbie a prostitute and Catellena a modest countrywoman. Both accounts show the ability of women of color to lead independent lives for themselves in Early Modern England.
Kauffman did an amazing job writing this book, and she blends the historical academic world with the pop-history world. One of the biggest strengths of this book is the organization. She organized the book by the stories of individual people and their lives in Early Modern England. By organizing the book in this way she humanizes history. Oftentimes, academic history writing gets bogged down by facts, themes, sources, and rants. However, she attracts readers to this book by giving them sneak peeks into the lives of 10 different people of color living in Early Modern England. By doing this, she draws the readers in making them more hooked on the actual history that was happening at this time. Additionally, I think she used her sources exceptionally. For example, she mostly uses primary sources from the government, church, diary, letters, and trading documents. The fact that she is able to create such a colorful and vivid picture of these people’s lives from these dry documents is incredible. Although we cannot be sure that the conclusions she draws from these documents are 100% accurate, there is enough backup from both primary and secondary sources that give readers enough evidence to believe what she is saying.
As far as weaknesses, there were not many I could pick out. The only aspect of this book that may be considered a weakness is the fact that she often gets off track in the middle of the chapters. She will begin a chapter explaining the situation of the person that she is focusing on, and then in a few pages be “zoomed out” and explain the greater historical context of the situation. This can be good, however, I think she took it too far sometimes, and never really tied her chapters back together. This could have made it difficult for more non-academic readers to understand the purpose of this book. Overall, this was a great book that achieved its purpose of proving to the world that not all Black people during this time were enslaved. This book has the potential to reach both academic and popular audiences, which is good because this topic deserves to be talked about and explored further.
