Africans in East Anglia, 1467-1833: (Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social History)

This book examines the population of Africans in Norfolk and Suffolk from 1467, the date of the first documented reference to an African in the region, to 1833, when Parliament voted to abolish slavery in the British Empire. It uncovers the complexity of these Africans' historical experience, considering the interaction of local custom, class structure, tradition, memory, and the gradual impact of the Atlantic slaving economy. Richard C. Maguire proposes that the initial regional response to arriving Africans during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was not defined exclusively by ideas relating to skin colour, but rather by local understandings of religious status, class position, ideas about freedom and bondage, and immediate local circumstances. Arriving Africans were able to join the region's working population through baptism, marriage, parenthood, and work. This manner of response to Africans was challenged as local merchants and gentry begin doing business with the slaving economy from the mid-seventeenth century onwards. Although the racialised ideas underpinning Atlantic slavery changed the social circumstances of Africans in the region, the book suggests that they did not completely displace older, more inclusive, ideas in working communities.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations A note on dating, transcription, currency, weights and measures, and references Introduction. A Social History of Africans in early modern Norfolk and Suffolk One. Identifying the African Population in Early Modern Norfolk and Suffolk Two. Beginnings: The Establishment of the African Population, 1467 to 1599 Three. 'Strangers', 'Foreigners', and 'Slavery' Four. The Seventeenth Century. The Early Shadow of Transatlantic Slavery Five. The African Population, 1600-1699 Six. Eighteenth-Century Links to the Atlantic Economy Seven. Eighteenth-Century African Lives Eight. The 'Three African Youths', a Gentleman, and Some Rioters Epilogue: Reconsidering the Social History of Africans in Norfolk and Suffolk Appendix A: The African and Asian Population identified in Norfolk and Suffolk, 1467-1833 Appendix B: The Surname 'Blackamore', 1500-1800 Appendix C: Plantation Ownership in Norfolk and Suffolk, 1650-1833 Bibliography

About the Author :
RICHARD C. MAGUIRE is Honorary Senior Lecturer in the School of History at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. He is the author of Africans in East Anglia, 1467-1833 (Boydell Press, 2021).

Review :
Maguire has written an excellent book that... reveals the limitations of a perspective that diminishes the study of diversity to large British metropolitan port cities such as: Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool, and London. This work will become a standard reading for anyone researching slavery, labor and African populations in East Anglia, as well as providing methods for understanding a more local background of African populations in Britain during the early modern era. An important and valuable book... unequivocally challenges an idea that diversity is only a matter of a few metropolitan port cities such as Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool and London. Although scholarly literature on people of color living in Britain has grown over the last 30 years, this book is unusual in its focus on a region outside a major metropolis. By delving into county records, Maguire shows that people of African descent were a small but significant presence in these counties. This is a meticulously researched study and readers are very well served by a 30-page bibliography, which provides much information about the primary source material which scholars with interests in this field might benefit from examining. The index is also commendably thorough, enabling easy navigation throughout the text. [...] a text greatly to be admired for its bold assertiveness and direction [...]