Miranda KaufmannRezensionen

An account of ten black people living in Tudor and Jacobean England as glimpsed mainly through parish and court archives. A glimpse is all we get but then that's true of most of the population at that time. The author is able to cite enough other records to show that the ten people she's chosen weren't the only ones even if they were a very, very small minority. It seems intuitively obvious that once England started interacting with the wider world that the traffic would not have been all one way but it is fascinating that the author can actually point to these people.

I have read several outstanding books about everyday Tudor lives recently, and I'm delighted to add this one to my bookshelf. Solid and exhaustive research that makes excellent arguments not only for the presence of Africans in the everyday Tudor landscape but also their status as free persons who were ordinary members of the community. I also particularly love that each chapter is devoted to a person of a different social standing, so in addition to presenting the breadth of diversity in circumstances that the different subjects enjoyed, we also get a slice of many different sorts of Tudor lives.

Kaufmann also does an excellent job modeling how one researches very specific subjects, and how much information can (and cannot) be inferred from something as brief as a will or a baptismal record. Her contextualization of the information she presents is a real pleasure to read.

Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Edelweiss.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book!
What little info I'm able to cross check is valid.
Perspective is white British but content is fascinating.

Though the narrative gets lost in the weeds of Tudor history at times, this is a revealing piece in a body of work questioning assumptions on race in England. By focusing on ten Africans known to live in the country, Kaufman introduces evidence for hundreds more. The conclusion and author's note lay out the importance of this kind of work, and guide the readers to additional scholarship. Recommended.½

For most people, Black British history beings with the Windrush. Miranda Kaufmann's book shows that it extends much further back into history—not just into the earlier twentieth century, or even into the nineteenth, but into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There was a small but detectable population of people of African descent in Britain: west African royalty travelling to England for education, trumpeters at Scottish courts, divers and seamstresses and servants and sailors. They weren't slaves, but rather free people, who worked for others or owned their own small businesses; they were baptised into the Church of England and intermarried with English people. In both the big picture and the fine details, Kaufmann presents a history sure to undermine many assumptions about what the distant past looked like.

Black Tudors is not a set of conventional biographies. The book is as much about the contexts, the moment in history, within which these people lived as it is about them. As with the case with the vast majority of the inhabitants of early modern Britain, we have only scraps of knowledge about them and their lives. This may frustrate some readers, as may the fact that Kaufmann sometimes roams quite far from the subjects of her book. Despite that, however, this is still a fine, well-written book which adds appreciably to our knowledge of Britain's past.

Interesting and well researched look into the lives of African migrants in Tudor England.

Black Tudors is exactly what the title says, the “Untold Story” of black Africans and their descendants who lived in Britain in the seventeenth century, not as slaves but as free citizens. Kaufman combed historical records for this largely overlooked story. She focusses on the lives of ten people, although she paints a wider picture of the Tudor period in which the ten lived.

I really wanted to like this book. The topic sounds very interesting. However, the book was not as interesting.

I used to teach high school English, and my students had to write a research paper every year. Often the students would pick a topic they were interested in and dive into the research. Many would find great sources. Some would be able to piece the sources together and write a cohesive paper. Some would write what read like a list of facts, sometimes not even related to the topic. Many would struggle with transitions from sub-topic to sub-topic.

This book was in the last grouping. Each chapter started with a fictional re-creation/enactment of the character at hand. Then the chapter would end with a "transition" that amounted to "and here's what I'm going to discuss in the next chapter". In between, the facts may, or usually did not, relate to the chapter's character. For instance, in learning about a woman who held her own land as shown by her estate listing after her death, Kaufmann pointed out that another random person had named their cow "Fillpayle" because she was such a good milker. Mind you, not related to the original woman. It's impressive that Kaufmann dug into archives and found so many primary sources, but she seemed to struggle to tie everything together in a cohesive whole.

Overall, this book reads much better if the reader views it as a series of magazine articles and less as a cohesive whole. At times I enjoyed it, and at others I was very frustrated with it.

Kaufmann has searched through "parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials; other church and municipal records; tax returns; household accounts; legal records; voyage accounts; wills and inventories; diaries and letters" for her copious evidence of the presence of Africans in Tudor England. This is an essential text for anyone who's interested in - obviously - Tudor England and black history, but also the practice of constructing history, and the interaction of history with literature.

The account of each person's life is rigorously contextualized (so, when reading about the prostitute Anne Cobbie, we learn about the practice of prostitution in Tudor times, the history of the word "Moor" as a racial category as well as the additional designation "tawny," interracial relationships, and the history of Africans in Westminster, among other topics). Although we know little about the specific people Kaufmann profiles, we can imagine roughly what their lives might have been like by learning about their professions and their world. This method of bringing hard-to-reach existences to life may annoy some readers, but the details build a new picture of English history that adds up to something pretty important. On the independent singlewoman Cattelena, Kaufmann writes, "Cattelena's small-scale existence . . . does not have the excitement of adventure on the high seas or in the bustling streets of London. Nor can we picture her at the royal court. Yet her very ordinary presence, with her cow, on an English village common, is extraordinary. Imagining her darker face in the pastoral scene forces us to reimagine rural life in this period."

Fascinating, well-written, meticulously researched, and paradigm-shifting. Highly recommended.

This book is insanely well-researched. The notes and bibliography run about a hundred pages--and it's only a selected bibliography! Unfortunately, despite all of the research Kaufmann did, there just isn't a lot of detailed information on the lives of Black Tudors so there's a lot of speculation and digressions going on to pad out the page count. It's worth picking up for its information on a little-known topic, but it's not a very engaging read.

In Black Tudors Miranda Kaufmann puts forward evidence that black people lived in Tudor England as free persons as a matter of course. She looks at ten African citizens who, she says, have left more documentary evidence than most, and mentions many others who suggest that these ten are not extraordinary. Her thesis is that baptism into the Church of England was the crucial impetus for their acceptance in society, and that the racial prejudice that we accept as a fact of life was not a factor of theirs. She also notes that Tudor England had no need of slaves in great numbers; therefore, they were not necessarily our moral superiors. The ten lives are fascinating, among them a musician in Henry VIII's court, a sailor with Drake, an African prince come to England to learn the language in order to help his father's trade with England. I was particularly impressed with the fact of three women who left behind enough material to be included. Since there was not much written about any of these, Kaufmann expanded her work by delving into Tudor social history in general. I picked up all kinds of interesting insights into this ever-beguiling period.
This expansion, though, is the reason that I took three months to read this little book. It was pretty obvious from the outset that Kaufmann adapted an academic project into a book. It was also pretty obvious that she had only a hazy idea of what people, who would be attracted to this topic, might know. Her tendency is to talk down to her reader, defining such words as "catechism," "steer," and "pewter." I did not appreciate being told about the prostitute, "Another consequence of having regular sex was that Anne Cobbie might have become pregnant," but that's a typical bit of commentary. Occasionally, Kaufmann quoted sixteenth or seventeenth century sources where explanations I would have welcomed were not offered.
My strongest objection is to the fictional paragraph that introduces each subject. She places each person in context by imagining him doing something characteristic, the aforementioned Anne Cobbie, for example, rubbing unguent on her body (because she was referred to as "the tawny moor with soft skin.") I'm not sure that any writer is good enough to create a living character in such a limited number of words. Kaufmann certainly isn't, and I wish she had not cheapened her book by trying.
On the other hand, she has renewed my ambition to read Hakluyt, so I thank her for that and thank ER for the opportunity to read this book.

*I received this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.*

I had never really given much thought to Africans living in Tudor England, but I'm glad this book introduced me to a few of their incredibly varied lives. In addition to highlighting less prominent historical figures, this book teases out plenty of details which histories focused on politics often miss. I particularly liked the chapter on the divers who salvaged items from the sunken Mary Rose. I had no idea this had been done in the 16th century, let alone that African divers had been recruited for the task. This book is filled with such details and this along with the strong challenge to my preconceived notions about the period made this book a great read.

An interesting look at an infrequently recognized population in 16th century England. Each chapter focuses on a different person of African origin living in England. Since there's not a lot of information on the individuals, the chapter is filled out with details of their professions or daily life general.

It is said that history is written by the winners. While that is certainly true, the more insidious fact is that history is written by those who hold the pen. What this means in a practical sense is that those with little power, and little influence–whether or not they “won”–are often either diminished in the historical record or left out entirely. One of the great (or terrible) things about the emergence of the internet is that it has given voice to populations who, even fifty years ago, would not have been heard. The internet is going to change how histories are written in the future, the vast amount of data available, and the clamor of voices waiting to speak will need to be addressed by future historians.

But enough digression. We’re talking here about the Tudor era. Very, very few people are literate, even in the upper levels of society. While high ranking men and officials had a decent literacy rate, women, lower classes, and minorities were overwhelmingly illiterate. The upshot of this is that we know quite a good deal about the rulers, the “important” folk, economics, etc. but very little about the daily lives of merchants, yeomen, women (especially poor women), and others not well represented in the written record.

This fact makes Kaufmann’s book incredibly ambitious. There are no known surviving sources written by Africans in Tudor England. Kaufmann instead must play detective, inferring the shapes of these people’s lives through their interactions with higher-status (ie. record-leaving) contemporaries. What Kaufmann has found is the tip of a fascinating iceberg. The unusual wording of law in the British Isles (and notably not in her colonies) meant that there could be no slaves in England (though people could be, and were, treated as such). As a result, Kaufmann’s history isn’t one of slavery, but about the wide range of professions and lifestyles occupied by Africans in Tudor England. We are introduced to sailors and wreck divers, prostitutes and silk weavers, servants and princes. Some were able to live independently in cities and towns through the country, others were employees or servants. Some tales are inspiring. Others, like the fate of Maria, an African woman brought on board one of Sir Walter Raleigh’s ship for “entertainment” are horrible beyond imagining.

Kaufmann has been able to unearth or infer quite a bit of information on the lives of African individuals in Tudor England. Her book is a fascinating look at a time before England’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade made the dehumanization of African people the norm. Her work will appeal to historians and anthropologists alike, and is a must read for anyone seeking more information on the role of minorities in history.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.

Kaufmann has focused on an intriguing topic about which little is known. Unfortunately, I did not find her book very enlightening. The fault, however, is not entirely hers: it lies in the fact that there are virtually no narratives of black lives in the period, and she is forced to rely on sketchy details in court documents, letters and chronicles. As a result, Kaufmann falls into speculation and digression to fill in the spaces. What we do learn is that few blacks entered England as slaves, and those who did so as slaves to foreign visitors could assert their right to freedom. Those with talents were given the chance to use them and were, for the most part, respected in society. We often read Othello as a reflection of Tudor racism, but Shakespeare does show us that the protagonist was admired for his military genius and accepted into Venetian homes as an equal--at least until his elopement with Desdemona. Kaufmann's work, however, indicates that there was little prejudice against interracial marriage in Tudor England. I came away from the book wishing for a more detailed description of the lives of black individuals, but, alas, that has to remain the work of fiction.

A fascinating book about a topic I knew nothing about. Kaufmann mined sparse historical information to give voice to a history that is virtually unknown. I highly recommend this book to people interested in learning more about race in Tudor England and about tudor England in general as there is much background information fleshing out the world she is writing about.

I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

While I am well versed in the Tudor era, this subject matter was entirely new to me. Kaufmann presents information in 10 chapters, each "featuring" an African man or woman's story, but given the scarcity of the details, also provides context within the general Tudor society, and sometimes also interweaving the stories of other Africans. She argues convincingly that, during the Tudor era, Africans who joined the church were treated equally with others at the same level in society - they may have been servants, but were not slaves. In fact, Africans who had been enslaved and arrived in England were freed, causing some to seek out English ships to escape their captors. The Tudor period had no prejudices about interracial marriages, and Kaufmann notes that the recent trend toward DNA testing might explain some unexpected results for those who did not know, or had forgotten, this history.

A worthwhile read - I just wish there was more information available to more fully tell these stories.

Kaufman looks at the historical records of ten black people living in Tudor England. Slavery was illegal at that time and slaves who arrived there were considered free men or women. These individuals seem to have lived as equals with working class whites. The records are scanty. She supplements these with general descriptions of the environment they lived in and historical events at the time and much of the details of their lives are inferred from these. Some of these details are interesting and helpful in understanding how these people lived but in some cases the author seems to wander rather far from her subject.

This information was new to me and I suspect to most readers. I gave me a new look at the age of the Tudors. Any reader interested in this time period will find it worth reading.

Once upon a time, before there was racism...

Well beyond being a nation of shopkeepers, the British are a nation of event recorders. There are registers, court records and all kinds of documents official and informal that detail the lives of Britons going back a thousand years. So it should be no great surprise that the stories of blacks in Britain can be broadly reconstructed. The good news is they were not slaves, but full-fledged citizens. The country did not allow slavery on its soil in the Tudor era, and anti-miscegenation laws didn’t begin until the 1660s. Black Tudors focuses on ten black men and women there during the reigns of Henry VII and VIII, Elizabeth I and James I. Records allow Miranda Kaufmann to trace life events and moves, and infer wealth and success.

Along with black history, comes British history, the roles they played in it and how they were affected by it. One black man escaped Spanish slavery and worked for Sir Francis Drake, pillaging the world. Another, named Edward Swarthey, is famous for publicly beating a white man, unopposed, at the behest of his employer. There was a London silk weaver in the time of plague, and a deep diving salvager who recovered expensive ornaments from sunken royal vessels. They came in contact with royalty: one was one of Henry VIII’s trumpeters, who is even portrayed – wearing a turban – at the Westminster Tournament celebrating the birth of Henry’s heir.

This link to history is both strength and weakness in Black Tudors. While it gives context and perspective to all their lives, it also looms too large over them. There are far too many pages of politics and detail – which ships were seized for what debts in what ports and how their owners finagled their release, gypping each other along the way. Really nothing to do with the shipwright, other than in one case he had to go to court for back wages. There is way too much family treeing, having essentially nothing to do with the subjects.

Henry VIII seems to have looked upon blacks as evidence of his own worldliness, and the global import of his little kingdom. At the time, the empire did not yet exist, and most of the wars he waged were simply across the channel. But blacks, given royal acceptance, were also accepted in general society. They were named in wills, testified at trials, and buried in churchyards. They were few in number, and so were notable they were noted every time they dealt with authority. It’s likely why Shakespeare was able to have black characters and references to blacks in his plays.

It wasn’t until the mid 1600s that Britain really caught the slave trade bug, made blacks inferior, and joined with their American colonies in pushing blacks out of society. So, Kaufmann says, it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s not natural, inevitable or obvious.

David Wineberg

This book discusses the lives of black people in Tudor England, contradicting the assumption that they were not a part of English history at this time. The author attempts to tell the story of several individuals, and in so doing shed light on the variety of occupations and roles held by black people at the time, again contradicting an assumption that black people in England must have been slaves or servants. I liked that the author frankly discussed what is and what is not known from the historical record, especially as there were a lot of blank spaces in the lives of these ordinary people. When she made assumptions, she explained why she did so (for example, she theorized that one individual had immigrated from the Netherlands based upon the neighborhood in London where he lived). She also started each chapter with a brief passage from the imagined perspective of her subject, which I enjoyed as it made it easier for me to engage with the subject matter. I appreciated that the author included a significant bibliography and notes section, as these are sometimes lacking in popular nonfiction books. My interest in the Tudor era comes primarily from reading a lot of historical fiction, which often (and understandably) tends to stories about royalty or people associated with royalty. I appreciated the insight into ordinary people, and I hope that some historical fiction authors read this book and incorporate some of information in it to make for more interesting and diverse characters. I certainly enjoyed discussing the information I read in this book with friends.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.