Hello everyone and welcome to the history of England episode 301 Black Tudors.

Last time we talked about the increasing contact between England and the rest of the world,

and this week it's time to talk about Black Tudors' Ladies and Gentlemen.

In the last episode we also heard about the English trader John Locke, who incidentally was an ancestor of the super famous philosopher John Locke, in centuries to come.

Fab fact for you to share.

Although, since you can count the number of people who know of Elizabethan John Locke on the fingers of one hand,

it's probably not such a fab fact.

Anyway, when Locke returned to England from Africa, it was recorded that he brought with him certain black slaves.

There were five men, and in fact it seems they were not slaves at all.

They were there to learn English and be returned to Africa.

Although as you mentioned in the last episode, history does not relate, whether the five men were ever contacted again

and whether the partnership between them and Locke was continued, one thing seems pretty clear.

There's no sign of racial superiority here or of a violent relationship.

This is a straightforward trading partnership, which is curious.

It has often been argued that the racialized chattel slavery that developed in colonial America

came from a mindset ready made and imported from England.

But here's at least one example which seems to show that the contact between English and African

did not mean that slavery was the inevitable result.

This hopefully lead us gently and seamlessly into a discussion of the presence and lives of black people in England in the Tudor period,

a subject which has thankfully received a lot more attention than it once did.

In fact, Kathleen Chater maps the broad outline of the coverage by historians of black history in England,

and prior to the 19th century, it is thin-gruel indeed.

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