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AFRICANS IN BRITAIN - A BOOK REVIEW for AfricansBookClub
Exclusive Book Review by Ozodi Thomas Osuji Ph.D
Ray Costello. Black Liverpool: The Early History of Britain’s Oldest Black Community, 1730-1918. (Liverpool: Picton Press, 2001.) $18 US; 110 Pages
This is a must read book. It is a must read book because it opens the reader’s eyes to a reality that he probably did not know exists. I did not know that there were old African communities in Britain until I read this book. What a surprise to learn that Africans have lived in Britain for, may be, 500 years! What a small world!
This particular book traces the history of the black community in the city of Liverpool, England.
Originally, Bristol was Britain’s major sea port and most of the ships that went to the West coast of Africa to buy slaves and ferry them to the new world (West Indies) left from Bristol.
In 1699, apparently, Liverpool became a rival and, eventually, surpassed Bristol as the port of embarkation from which British Ships went to West Africa to buy slaves.
Ships left the Port of Liverpool in 1699 to Calabar (what is now Nigeria) and other West African slave town, bought slaves and took them to the new world (in what has come to be called the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade or Triangle Trade). After selling the slaves in the new world, the ships were loaded with goods produced in the new world, such as sugar, molasses, cotton etc and brought them to Britain, sold them and, off they went again to West Africa to buy slaves for the Americas.
Whereas, there were no plantations in Britain requiring slaves to be brought from Africa to Britain to do the onerous jobs, as slaves always do, nevertheless, some slaves were brought to Britain and sold to rich families to be used as domestic servants. Thus, it came to pass that gradually Africans began living in the Liverpool area and in other major cities of Britain. The book claims that a substantial African population emerged in Bristol, London and Liverpool in the 1700s and 1800s.
In addition to the African slaves brought to Britain, apparently, some free Africans came to Britain and decided to stay. The book narrated stories of how Calabar” kings” and other west African “kings” sent their children to Britain for education and how some of those children decided to settle in Britain, and for our present interest, in Liverpool.
After the American war of independence (1775-1783) some black Americans who had fought for and with Britain, loyalists, they were called, either went to Canada (Nova Scotia, Ontario) or came to Britain and settled in Liverpool, Bristol and London. This way a substantial black population arouse in Britain as in other European countries. (Many blacks also settled in France and even Germany and Russia; such famous European artists as Alexander Dumas, Beethoven, Pushkin, the book claims, had African bloods in them!)
Apparently, right from the get go some liberal do gooders identified with the plight of the African slaves in Britain. As early as 1709 there was already a movement afoot to eliminate slavery in Britain. The book narrated the history of this movement and the legal battles they fought in order to accomplish their goal. We are all aware of such abolitionists as William Wilberforce and his struggle to end slavery in Britain and eventually the British Empire.
The struggle to end slavery in Britain culminated in Parliament abolishing slavery in Britain in 1807 and in the British Empire in 1834. (However, slavery continued elsewhere; it was abolished in the USA in the 1860s and in Brazil in 1888; in Nigeria slavery existed to as late as 1902 when Lord Lugard and his West African Frontier Army finally stormed the Long Juju of Arochukwu and ended slavery “among the savages of the lower Niger”. Even then slaves were still sold from Northern Nigeria to Niger and Arab lands until much later in the twentieth century.)
Upon the abolition of slavery in England many of the Africans still living in the country found themselves unemployed (since they could no longer work as slaves) and, therefore, destitute. These homeless men and women roamed the streets of England’s major cities, begging for food. The question arose as to what to do for them. Apparently, the abolitionists raised enough capital and persuaded the government to buy a piece of land in what is now Freetown, Sierra Leon in 1887 to resettle the freed African slaves. Thereafter, the authorities rounded Africans on sight and bundled them into ships and sent them to Sierra Leone.The Africans were not given the freedom to decide whether to stay in Britain or go to Africa, as was the case in America when some freed slaves were returned to Monrovia, Liberia, in Africa. As these things always work out, those repatriated Africans who had some property lost them.
The effort to round up black folks from all over Britain and send them back to Africa (where racists believed that they belong) was a qualified success for some blacks still remained in Britain. According to the book, a substantial black population survived in Liverpool (and other parts of Britain). This population was added to when the British began their scramble to colonize Africa in the 1870s and exploring interior Africa. Hitherto, Europeans did not venture into interior Africa; instead, they stopped at coastal towns and made arrangements with coastal Africans, and the later went into the interior Africa to buy or kidnap slaves to sell to them. Beginning in the late 1800s, Europeans ventured into Interior Africa. Apparently, some English colonialists brought their African servants back to Britain and these added to Black Britain’s population.
Additionally, Africans were hired to work in ships as sea men (mostly performing manual jobs like coal loaders into the fire rooms that heated the steam ships engines, cooks, stewards and other such menial jobs). These Africans were generally housed in hostels in seaport towns such as Bristol and Liverpool. Africans fought for Britain during the first and second world wars and some of them came to live in Britain. During the second world wart a substantial number of African-Americans soldiers were in Britain. Some of them, apparently, stayed back, married English women and became part of the black population of Britain (or had children with English women and left those children as they left for home in America or were killed in the European war theaters, and those children became part of black Britain). During the economic boom years (the post Second World War era) many blacks from the West Indies came to work as laborers in Britain and some stayed, thus swelling the population of Black Britain.
Cumulatively, a substantial number of blacks now live in Brittan and are as British as the earlier settlers on that emerald Island (beginning with the Celts, then the Romans, then Germans, Scandinavians, French etc; the British is a hybrid race melted from the mixing of many groups).
Having provided us with a narration of how blacks came to live in Britain, the book then dwelt on the unfortunate issue of racism. Blacks were discriminated against. Indeed, they were treated as invisible men. Their presence was not even acknowledged until the 1960s.
Generally, in Britain blacks are the last hired, if at all, and the first fired during economic downturns. What else is new, it is the story of the black race, and will continue to be so until the race does what other races do: produce powerful countries that economically compete with other countries. I will not dwell on the story of racial discrimination in Britain for we all are familiar with how racism works.
The balance of the book is about what blacks are doing to consolidate their community in Liverpool. Borrowing from the “I am black and proud” movement in the Americas in the 1960s, blacks in Britain became less ashamed of themselves and quit trying to disappear into the white gene pool by marrying whites, and took pride in their color. There are now movements to empower Black Liverpool economically. This effort replicates what we have in America.
This is a short book (110 pages). Its worth does not lie in its length or literary grace (it could use editing) but in the powerful information it conveyed. I certainly learned a lot about the history and presence of Africans in Britain and think that you, too, could benefit from reading the book. I highly recommend the book to you.
Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD
April 24, 2007
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