"Black and British: A Forgotten History" First Encounters

1 00:00:08,120 --> 00:00:13,040 It's time to tell the history of Britain in black as well as white. 2 00:00:13,040 --> 00:00:15,320 I'm a fifth-generation black person 3 00:00:15,320 --> 00:00:18,080 and what my great-grandparents went through 4 00:00:18,080 --> 00:00:20,720 really paved the way for everything that I am today. 5 00:00:23,360 --> 00:00:27,760 It's the story of people who came here to make a better life... 6 00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:29,960 Nursing was calling me, 7 00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:35,080 so I came to England to pursue the career that I wanted so badly. 8 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:41,080 ..the story of people who were carried here by force. 9 00:00:41,080 --> 00:00:44,120 I'm the seventh-generation descendant 10 00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:48,720 of a ten-year-old boy brought on the slave ships to this country. 11 00:00:50,520 --> 00:00:53,600 It's a history written into the landscape 12 00:00:53,600 --> 00:00:56,640 and into the faces of the people who live here, 13 00:00:56,640 --> 00:00:59,680 the story of a relationship between Britain 14 00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:02,560 and people whose origins lie in Africa. 15 00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:05,400 And the relationship between these small islands 16 00:01:05,400 --> 00:01:09,800 and that vast continent stretches back far beyond living memory. 17 00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:16,280 'From the first black Briton almost 2,000 years ago...' 18 00:01:16,280 --> 00:01:18,040 That's just incredible. 19 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:22,240 ..to the black sailors who fought at Trafalgar... 20 00:01:25,320 --> 00:01:28,520 ..and Queen Victoria's African goddaughter. 21 00:01:31,960 --> 00:01:34,600 But British history has been whitewashed, 22 00:01:34,600 --> 00:01:38,840 so in this series, I'm going to put black history back on the map... 23 00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:41,520 APPLAUSE 24 00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:44,320 ..joining forces with people all over Britain, 25 00:01:44,320 --> 00:01:48,320 the Caribbean and Africa to set the story straight. 26 00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:56,840 Where people and events have been erased from memory, 27 00:01:56,840 --> 00:02:00,960 we're putting up new reminders in cast iron and stone. 28 00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:07,960 "There is a feeling of terror among the coloured people of the city. 29 00:02:07,960 --> 00:02:10,200 "Had we arrived a few minutes earlier, 30 00:02:10,200 --> 00:02:12,360 "we probably could have saved him." 31 00:02:14,960 --> 00:02:19,480 What it means to be British is an increasingly contentious question. 32 00:02:19,480 --> 00:02:22,360 Remembering the full story of how we got here 33 00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:24,680 is now more urgent than ever. 34 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:31,280 A black history of Britain brings together some familiar landscapes 35 00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:33,440 with some unfamiliar faces. 36 00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:36,200 It tells us that our common heritage binds us together 37 00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:39,440 in ways that are as surprising as they are revealing. 38 00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:42,240 Ultimately, this is our national story. 39 00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:44,960 This is British history. It belongs to all of us. 40 00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:47,760 We've just never heard it told this way before. 41 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:55,074 Support us and become VIP member to remove all ads from www.OpenSubtitles.org 42 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:01,080 Right, what have we got here? 43 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:03,440 This one's of a Roman soldier. It's a Roman soldier. 44 00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:04,960 This is the Roman fort Aballava. 45 00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:06,800 This is the fort that was right here? Yeah. 46 00:03:06,800 --> 00:03:08,560 'Our black history begins here 47 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:11,360 'in the Cumbrian village of Burgh by Sands.' 48 00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:14,360 This is a house that a Roman family would have lived in. 49 00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:16,440 'During the second century AD, 50 00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:19,200 'this village was the site of a Roman fortress 51 00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:22,280 'near the western end of Hadrian's Wall.' 52 00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:25,160 And is that the fort, that other one? Yeah. 53 00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:28,840 'The villagers have been proud of this history for centuries, 54 00:03:28,840 --> 00:03:31,880 'but today's children are learning what that means 55 00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:34,000 'in a way that was unimaginable 56 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:36,800 'when I was growing up in the north-east of England.' 57 00:03:42,400 --> 00:03:46,120 I first came here to Hadrian's Wall on a school trip when I was a boy. 58 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:48,480 And back then, pretty much everything I knew 59 00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:51,240 about Roman Britain came from books like this - 60 00:03:51,240 --> 00:03:55,200 from Ladybird books. This is Julius Caesar And Roman Britain - 61 00:03:55,200 --> 00:03:57,280 An Adventure From History. 62 00:03:57,280 --> 00:03:59,640 And what I really loved about these books, to be honest, 63 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:01,160 were the illustrations, 64 00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:04,760 the pictures of Roman life and the pictures of the Roman army. 65 00:04:04,760 --> 00:04:07,240 And this was the image I had of the Romans - 66 00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:10,800 of men in armour striding manfully across the landscape. 67 00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:13,520 Now, I knew that Rome was in Italy, 68 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:17,560 so I think I must have presumed that the Romans were Italians, 69 00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:18,840 but what seemed obvious, 70 00:04:18,840 --> 00:04:21,120 and what books like this seemed to make clear, 71 00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:24,400 was that there can't have been anybody back in Roman Britain 72 00:04:24,400 --> 00:04:26,760 who looked like me or my family. 73 00:04:31,960 --> 00:04:35,360 We're now learning that this is far from the truth. 74 00:04:35,360 --> 00:04:37,680 Hadrian's Wall was the northern limit 75 00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:41,960 of a multiracial empire that stretched as far as North Africa, 76 00:04:41,960 --> 00:04:45,200 where Libya, Algeria and Morocco are today. 77 00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:49,280 And the image of the Roman Imperial force 78 00:04:49,280 --> 00:04:51,320 is starting to look very different 79 00:04:51,320 --> 00:04:53,880 to archaeologists like Richard Benjamin. 80 00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:59,960 For me, it was a way in, it was a conduit to kind of my past. 81 00:04:59,960 --> 00:05:02,920 You know, I'm from a small Yorkshire town, 82 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:05,000 but I'm from, you know, a diverse background. 83 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:06,880 My dad's from, you know, British Ghana. 84 00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:08,400 But when I was at school, you know, 85 00:05:08,400 --> 00:05:10,960 I was never taught about African history. 86 00:05:10,960 --> 00:05:12,440 Although I knew I was different, 87 00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:14,600 sometimes, you're made to feel very different. 88 00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:17,520 And what evidence is there for people from the African parts 89 00:05:17,520 --> 00:05:19,840 of the empire here in northern Britain? 90 00:05:19,840 --> 00:05:23,160 We've got some inscriptions on stone tombs. 91 00:05:23,160 --> 00:05:27,360 We've got Victor. Victor was maurum, 92 00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:30,800 so he was a Moor, so from the North African provinces. 93 00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:32,480 This tomb was found in South Shields. 94 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:35,120 That's on the Tyne near Newcastle. That's right, yeah. 95 00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:37,560 There's a document called a Notitia Dignitatum, 96 00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:39,520 so it's a Roman military list. 97 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:42,880 It mentions forts and individuals who were on those forts. 98 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:44,640 And there was a particular unit 99 00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:47,800 called a Numerus Maurorum Aurelianorum, 100 00:05:47,800 --> 00:05:50,640 named in honour of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, 101 00:05:50,640 --> 00:05:53,120 and it was a unit - an auxiliary unit - of Moors, 102 00:05:53,120 --> 00:05:54,920 so from the North African provinces. 103 00:05:54,920 --> 00:05:58,200 They were stationed at Aballava, which is modern-day Burgh by Sands. 104 00:05:58,200 --> 00:06:00,480 The likelihood is it would have been a rather mixed unit, 105 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:02,800 but we know that the nucleus came from North Africa. Yes. 106 00:06:02,800 --> 00:06:06,920 They were named because they were Moors from North Africa. 107 00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:09,080 That's why the unit was named that. 108 00:06:09,080 --> 00:06:11,600 Do we have any idea what these people would have looked like? 109 00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:14,040 We may not know exactly what they looked like, 110 00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:16,680 but the likelihood is they were brown or black. 111 00:06:16,680 --> 00:06:17,800 Not all of them, 112 00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:20,520 but, equally, people can't say to me that they weren't, 113 00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:23,520 that this unit were all white by the time they got here. 114 00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:25,200 For me, personally, 115 00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:28,640 I realised that there may have been Roman soldiers, 116 00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:30,240 you know, 2,000 years ago, 117 00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:33,600 who actually may have looked like me or members of my family. 118 00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:36,400 That gave me a sense of identity. It made me very proud. 119 00:06:45,600 --> 00:06:48,000 After some 1,800 years, 120 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:51,160 the people of Burgh by Sands are reawakening the memory 121 00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:54,400 of their village's African Roman heritage. 122 00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:01,160 Septimus Severus. Ah. So, this is the emperor? Yeah. 123 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:03,160 Who we know was from North Africa. 124 00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:06,560 It's spectacular that Romans came from Africa 125 00:07:06,560 --> 00:07:10,000 and this is where the Aballava fort was. 126 00:07:14,320 --> 00:07:16,360 Few traces of the fort remain, 127 00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:19,600 but at the village church, we can see stones from the wall 128 00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:22,800 that were used to build the tower 1,000 years later. 129 00:07:25,240 --> 00:07:28,280 There could have been as many as 500 soldiers 130 00:07:28,280 --> 00:07:31,000 occupying the fortress that stood here, 131 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:33,600 and the culture and beliefs they brought with them 132 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:36,840 would have shaped life around the fort. 133 00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:39,080 Beyond the walls of the Roman fortress 134 00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:41,520 was the vicus, and this was a civilian area. 135 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:43,520 Roman soldiers were pretty well paid 136 00:07:43,520 --> 00:07:46,440 and so there was no shortage of traders and merchants 137 00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:49,280 only too happy to provide them with everything they needed. 138 00:07:49,280 --> 00:07:52,960 So, out there, there would have been bars and gambling houses 139 00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:57,040 and grocers and takeaways and doctors and spirit guides. 140 00:07:57,040 --> 00:08:00,520 Now, some of these merchants will have travelled across the empire 141 00:08:00,520 --> 00:08:03,040 with the legions, but so, perhaps, 142 00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:05,360 would some of the families of the soldiers, 143 00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:07,160 and they would have settled here. 144 00:08:07,160 --> 00:08:09,520 So, what we have here at Aballava 145 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:12,360 is the first community that we know of in Britain 146 00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:14,680 that included people from Africa. 147 00:08:21,840 --> 00:08:24,760 It's quite amazing that a small village like Burgh by Sands 148 00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:27,000 can have such, like, big history. 149 00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:31,040 If you think about the songs that the soldiers would have sung 150 00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:34,080 and the bedtime stories 151 00:08:34,080 --> 00:08:37,800 that would have been told in the civil settlement, 152 00:08:37,800 --> 00:08:43,040 they would have been African songs and African stories here. 153 00:08:43,040 --> 00:08:45,960 It's such a long time ago and they travelled so far. 154 00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:49,080 In the Roman times, it probably would have took a while 155 00:08:49,080 --> 00:08:50,640 to actually get here, 156 00:08:50,640 --> 00:08:54,240 since there was no, like, aeroplanes, if you know what I mean. 157 00:08:54,240 --> 00:08:57,080 Members of the African and Caribbean communities 158 00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:01,280 who live alongside Hadrian's Wall today have joined the celebrations. 159 00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:03,640 Tony, would you come and do the honours 160 00:09:03,640 --> 00:09:06,280 of unveiling one of our plaques here? 161 00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:11,000 I'm privileged for me to unveil the plaque 162 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:13,760 to signify the Africans who were here. 163 00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:19,400 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 164 00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:29,840 For me, what started here was the black presence in Britain, 165 00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:33,680 the presence being real rather than just in a history book. 166 00:09:35,680 --> 00:09:39,000 In times when multicultural Britain seems to be breaking down, 167 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:42,720 I think it's quite interesting that, before the formation of Britain, 168 00:09:42,720 --> 00:09:47,120 there were foreign African Romans working here to protect the borders. 169 00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:51,240 So, yeah, it makes me proud to be African and proud to be British. 170 00:09:52,760 --> 00:09:58,800 I'm so pleased that the African army taught the children African songs. 171 00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:01,280 So, children, we promise you, 172 00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:04,040 if you want to learn any African songs, let us know. 173 00:10:04,040 --> 00:10:06,400 I will come and teach you. LAUGHTER 174 00:10:06,400 --> 00:10:08,640 THEY SING 175 00:10:11,160 --> 00:10:13,760 I'm fourth-generation in this village. 176 00:10:13,760 --> 00:10:16,520 In Cumbria, we go back to the 1100s, 177 00:10:16,520 --> 00:10:20,320 but not as far as the black history that we've revealed today. 178 00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:26,560 This is now part of our story in a very real, special way. 179 00:10:35,520 --> 00:10:37,640 I think, if you ask most people to guess 180 00:10:37,640 --> 00:10:39,720 where one of the first encounters 181 00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:42,040 between Britons and Africans took place, 182 00:10:42,040 --> 00:10:46,400 they wouldn't guess that it was in this tiny Cumbrian village. 183 00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:48,480 And I think, if you asked those same people 184 00:10:48,480 --> 00:10:50,760 to guess when that encounter took place, 185 00:10:50,760 --> 00:10:54,440 they wouldn't dream that it was nearly 18 centuries ago. 186 00:10:54,440 --> 00:10:58,600 But the people of this village are genuinely proud and excited 187 00:10:58,600 --> 00:11:02,080 that their village and the African Romans who were stationed here 188 00:11:02,080 --> 00:11:05,240 are the first chapter in this long history. 189 00:11:19,200 --> 00:11:22,160 The records suggest that the Africans carried here 190 00:11:22,160 --> 00:11:26,160 within the Roman Imperial army didn't simply occupy Britain. 191 00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:29,000 They settled and raised families here, too. 192 00:11:34,480 --> 00:11:38,800 And now newly emerging evidence can bring us face-to-face 193 00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:41,280 with those first black Britons. 194 00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:57,880 The basement of Eastbourne Town Hall is a place of unsolved mysteries. 195 00:12:02,840 --> 00:12:06,960 For decades, the remains of 300 unidentified bodies 196 00:12:06,960 --> 00:12:08,520 have been stored here. 197 00:12:11,200 --> 00:12:14,360 Then, in 2012, archaeologist Joe Seaman 198 00:12:14,360 --> 00:12:17,440 set out to discover who one of them was. 199 00:12:25,880 --> 00:12:28,520 The story behind this woman 200 00:12:28,520 --> 00:12:31,680 did take us on such an unexpected journey... 201 00:12:34,320 --> 00:12:38,000 ..and one that I couldn't help getting emotionally caught up in. 202 00:12:41,880 --> 00:12:44,360 There were few clues to go on. 203 00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:50,280 Her remains had been found more than a century ago 204 00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:53,080 in the seemingly tranquil village of East Dean 205 00:12:53,080 --> 00:12:55,680 near Beachy Head in Sussex. 206 00:12:55,680 --> 00:12:57,720 As Joe found out more about her, 207 00:12:57,720 --> 00:13:01,960 he saw that she was going to change the way the village saw itself. 208 00:13:05,720 --> 00:13:07,960 Not only is she a big story in herself, 209 00:13:07,960 --> 00:13:09,920 but it's making us rethink the history 210 00:13:09,920 --> 00:13:11,840 of this area of Sussex, as well. 211 00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:17,000 What are the techniques available to you 212 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:18,760 to try and find some more information? 213 00:13:18,760 --> 00:13:22,040 The first technique is to look at radiocarbon-14 dating. 214 00:13:22,040 --> 00:13:25,120 It was very successful cos her bones are in fairly good condition, 215 00:13:25,120 --> 00:13:27,800 and we got a solid Roman date... 216 00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:29,640 A Roman date? A Roman date, yeah. 217 00:13:29,640 --> 00:13:32,360 ..between 125 and about 240 AD. 218 00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:37,000 'A Roman find in this area was unexpected, 219 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:39,920 'but did she come here or was she from here? 220 00:13:39,920 --> 00:13:44,120 'To find out, Joe used a technique called isotope analysis.' 221 00:13:44,120 --> 00:13:46,880 By examining the chemicals in the teeth, 222 00:13:46,880 --> 00:13:49,360 chemicals that are picked up in food and in water, 223 00:13:49,360 --> 00:13:53,440 they're then absorbed into the tooth enamel and they can be traced. 224 00:13:53,440 --> 00:13:56,440 So, it's almost like a geographical fingerprint, 225 00:13:56,440 --> 00:14:00,560 and the great news was that that geographical region was right here, 226 00:14:00,560 --> 00:14:03,520 the Eastbourne area. So, she had lived in Eastbourne? 227 00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:07,280 She had lived and grown up in this area of chalk downland 228 00:14:07,280 --> 00:14:08,880 in the south-east of Britain. 229 00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:16,360 'She became known as Beachy Head Woman, 230 00:14:16,360 --> 00:14:21,280 'and Joe had one last trick up his sleeve to help identify her. 231 00:14:21,280 --> 00:14:26,120 'He called in a forensic pathologist to reconstruct her face.' 232 00:14:33,360 --> 00:14:35,160 So, here is... 233 00:14:36,640 --> 00:14:39,040 This is Beachy Head Woman, yes. 234 00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:44,600 The biggest surprise of them all was that it was clear 235 00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:48,320 that she was actually sub-Saharan African in origin. 236 00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:50,480 So, she's a black Briton? 237 00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:56,440 Yes, yes. And as far as we know, the earliest black Briton. 238 00:14:56,440 --> 00:15:00,600 So, she's the same as me? She's somebody who is both, 239 00:15:00,600 --> 00:15:02,960 but who spent their life in this country? Yeah. 240 00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:05,880 Just 1,700 years ago. Yeah. 241 00:15:05,880 --> 00:15:09,480 HE CHUCKLES That's just incredible. It is. 242 00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:16,360 She spent her childhood here, she grew up, 243 00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:19,360 she experienced the same things that my children do today 244 00:15:19,360 --> 00:15:21,560 when they're running around on the Downs. 245 00:15:22,920 --> 00:15:25,880 That's what she was doing. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. 246 00:15:30,200 --> 00:15:32,760 Up until now, we've had to build a picture 247 00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:37,760 of African Roman Britain from elusive inscriptions and engravings. 248 00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:40,240 With the discovery of Beachy Head Woman, 249 00:15:40,240 --> 00:15:42,720 that story now has a face 250 00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:46,960 and it tells us that Afro-Romans came not just from North Africa, 251 00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:49,760 but also from beyond the Sahara. 252 00:15:49,760 --> 00:15:54,640 It's come as a total surprise to the people of East Dean. 253 00:15:54,640 --> 00:15:57,120 This seems like a sort of very English place, 254 00:15:57,120 --> 00:15:58,720 and yet, clearly, it was connected - 255 00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:00,920 interconnected - with the Roman world. Indeed. 256 00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:03,920 We've always described ourselves as a quintessential English village. 257 00:16:03,920 --> 00:16:07,200 The fact that we've now got a sub-Saharan African woman 258 00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:09,000 as part of our heritage, 259 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:11,280 I think that will make us all sit up and think 260 00:16:11,280 --> 00:16:12,840 and change our perspective. 261 00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:16,640 'What would it have been like 262 00:16:16,640 --> 00:16:19,680 'to grow up as a black African in Roman Britain? 263 00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:22,640 'That's the kind of question 264 00:16:22,640 --> 00:16:26,240 'that Professor Mary Beard has been asking for years.' 265 00:16:28,480 --> 00:16:31,160 What do we know about how the Romans 266 00:16:31,160 --> 00:16:33,560 viewed those human physical differences? 267 00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:36,400 I don't, in what I'm going to say, want to give you any impression 268 00:16:36,400 --> 00:16:39,880 that the Romans were particularly nice and angelic about this. 269 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:43,480 The Romans certainly said pretty nasty, 270 00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:46,480 hateful things about foreigners, you know, and the Brits. 271 00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:48,600 The poor little Brits came in for quite a lot 272 00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:51,560 of Roman stereotypical propaganda. 273 00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:55,680 But what the Romans weren't is racist, in our terms. 274 00:16:55,680 --> 00:17:00,320 And there is no sense that skin colour 275 00:17:00,320 --> 00:17:04,920 is really the thing that marks you out 276 00:17:04,920 --> 00:17:07,080 for your position in your culture. 277 00:17:07,080 --> 00:17:09,560 There's one early-third-century emperor 278 00:17:09,560 --> 00:17:11,840 who comes from Africa - from North Africa. 279 00:17:11,840 --> 00:17:14,720 We don't actually know what his ethnicity was. 280 00:17:14,720 --> 00:17:17,920 And that's unimaginable now. Yes. When we think of somebody famous, 281 00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:20,600 their race is always part of how we describe them. 282 00:17:20,600 --> 00:17:22,960 You know, you could say, "Look at President Obama," 283 00:17:22,960 --> 00:17:24,880 you know, what's always said about him, 284 00:17:24,880 --> 00:17:26,840 "The first non-white American president." 285 00:17:26,840 --> 00:17:30,640 The prejudices of the Roman Empire, you know, they were awful and nasty 286 00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:33,320 and they were a murderous lot of thugs, 287 00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:35,880 but it wasn't racist prejudice. 288 00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:44,240 Now Beachy Head Woman is about to complete her journey 289 00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:47,840 from unidentified human remains forgotten in a basement 290 00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:51,160 to the most ancient black Briton we know of. 291 00:17:51,160 --> 00:17:53,200 This plaque means a lot to me 292 00:17:53,200 --> 00:17:57,360 because the subject of that is incredibly important, 293 00:17:57,360 --> 00:18:00,480 both to me and, I think, to this whole area. 294 00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:03,960 Without further ado, I'd like to hand this plaque over to East Dean 295 00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:06,320 for it to be displayed. 296 00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:09,480 APPLAUSE 297 00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:21,680 One of the things that modern archaeology 298 00:18:21,680 --> 00:18:27,320 is showing us more and more is that Britain, 2,000 years ago, 299 00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:32,520 1,700 years ago, was a really mixed community. 300 00:18:32,520 --> 00:18:37,120 Beachy Head Lady symbolises that mixture better, I think, 301 00:18:37,120 --> 00:18:41,080 than any other discovery in the province of Britain. 302 00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:44,800 So, you really have got something to celebrate here. 303 00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:50,320 It's quite a challenging idea to us in the 21st century 304 00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:51,800 that, when it comes to race, 305 00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:54,160 the Romans were more liberal than we are now. 306 00:18:54,160 --> 00:18:56,360 Yeah, I think we live with the kind of myth 307 00:18:56,360 --> 00:18:59,760 that somehow we've got less and less prejudiced over the centuries, 308 00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:01,600 and that's simply not true. 309 00:19:01,600 --> 00:19:04,360 I think one of the points of looking at the Romans, 310 00:19:04,360 --> 00:19:06,280 one of the lessons they've got for us, 311 00:19:06,280 --> 00:19:10,120 is they remind us that some of the prejudices we hold 312 00:19:10,120 --> 00:19:12,040 haven't been held forever. 313 00:19:12,040 --> 00:19:14,000 And there's something a bit optimistic in that 314 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:16,040 because it might actually mean that 315 00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:19,360 we won't go on holding them one day. 316 00:19:19,360 --> 00:19:21,440 Who knows? Who knows? 317 00:19:27,880 --> 00:19:31,720 We may never know how many African Romans settled in Britain. 318 00:19:33,560 --> 00:19:37,640 But re-examining well-known Roman cities, such as York, 319 00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:41,120 is giving us a startling new picture of our past. 320 00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:45,120 These are the results of studies of bodies 321 00:19:45,120 --> 00:19:48,560 exhumed from two Roman sites in York. 322 00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:53,200 What the analysis suggests is that around 10% of the sample 323 00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:55,040 were of African descent. 324 00:19:55,040 --> 00:19:58,360 What that means is that there were parts of Roman York 325 00:19:58,360 --> 00:20:02,560 that were more multicultural than parts of modern York are today. 326 00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:06,960 If Britain once had these pockets of African Romans, 327 00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:11,160 why is there no trace of them in the local populations today? 328 00:20:11,160 --> 00:20:13,880 The answer can be found hundreds of years later 329 00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:19,440 in the story of a descendant of a black Georgian named Francis Barber. 330 00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:21,920 Francis had a son called Isaac, 331 00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:26,160 Isaac had a son called Enoch, Enoch had a son called Edward, 332 00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:30,400 Edward had a son called Norman, and Norman had a son called Cedric, 333 00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:33,000 and that's me, and it's as direct as that. 334 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:35,920 That's my family tree on my father's side 335 00:20:35,920 --> 00:20:38,480 going back 250 years. 336 00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:48,480 Francis Barber might have been lost to history 337 00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:50,400 had he not been part of the household 338 00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:54,560 of the 18th-century writer Dr Samuel Johnson. 339 00:20:54,560 --> 00:20:57,600 I've been to this house many times over the years 340 00:20:57,600 --> 00:21:00,160 cos I'm an admirer of Samuel Johnson 341 00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:02,560 because he was, in my view, a genius, 342 00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:05,240 but he wasn't some detached intellectual. 343 00:21:05,240 --> 00:21:08,160 He was a man who loved his friends, who loved conversation, 344 00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:10,480 who was funny and witty and compassionate. 345 00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:12,640 And he was one of the giants of his age, 346 00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:15,080 not just intellectually, but also physically. 347 00:21:15,080 --> 00:21:17,080 He was an absolutely huge guy. 348 00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:19,680 And when you come to this time capsule of a house, 349 00:21:19,680 --> 00:21:23,720 you get a strong sense of who he was and of the times in which he lived. 350 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:37,120 Johnson lived at the centre of Georgian London's cultural life. 351 00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:41,800 This is a picture of what was called Johnson's Club. 352 00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:44,800 It was a gathering of some of the most interesting, 353 00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:46,880 most creative people of the age, 354 00:21:46,880 --> 00:21:50,040 and they would regularly get together with Johnson 355 00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:52,160 for drinks and conversation. 356 00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:55,360 So, it was like your dream party guest list. 357 00:21:55,360 --> 00:21:58,880 Here's Johnson and here's his biographer Boswell. 358 00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:03,200 And this is the Georgian portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. 359 00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:08,840 Reynolds gives us a glimpse into the black history of Georgian London. 360 00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:13,720 This is a copy of his portrait simply entitled A Young Black. 361 00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:16,240 It is really rare for a black person 362 00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:19,400 to take centre stage in a Georgian portrait 363 00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:21,880 and to be the subject of the portrait 364 00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:25,560 and not some exotic detail in the margins. 365 00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:29,320 This portrait has hung here for years, 366 00:22:29,320 --> 00:22:32,040 so the boy in the painting was always assumed to be 367 00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:34,800 Dr Johnson's servant Francis Barber. 368 00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:37,600 The latest research throws that into doubt - 369 00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,440 another sign of how elusive this history can be. 370 00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:45,280 What we know for certain is that Francis Barber was born in Jamaica 371 00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:46,800 and that he was born a slave, 372 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:50,320 and he was brought to Britain by one of Johnson's friends. 373 00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:54,080 When Johnson's wife died, Francis, at about the age of ten, 374 00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:58,120 was sent to this house to become part of Johnson's household. 375 00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:02,160 The two formed an unlikely friendship. 376 00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:04,520 Johnson became like a father to Francis 377 00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:06,560 and changed the course of his life. 378 00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:10,280 These are copies of the little slips of paper 379 00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:11,600 that Samuel Johnson used 380 00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:14,160 when he was writing the book that would make him famous. 381 00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:17,720 This book - his Dictionary Of The English Language. 382 00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:19,960 But on the back of this one, 383 00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:24,560 the young Francis Barber has practised writing his signature. 384 00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:27,640 And on this one, he's been practising writing the word England, 385 00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:30,080 the country that's now his home. 386 00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:31,960 And I just want to smile when I see this 387 00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:34,160 because it is just such an innocent, 388 00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:36,640 such a classically teenage thing to do. 389 00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:38,480 It's what we all did when we were kids 390 00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:41,720 and we were imagining what it was going to be like to become an adult 391 00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:44,360 and what it was going to be like to go out into the world. 392 00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:50,080 And then you remember that the teenage boy who wrote this 393 00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:53,600 had been born a slave. He'd been born the property of somebody else. 394 00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:55,200 He had been born a thing 395 00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:59,240 that, legally, could be bought and sold or whipped and beaten. 396 00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:02,400 So, for the teenage Francis Barber to sit in this room 397 00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:06,800 and imagine a future in which he would be the author of his own life 398 00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,920 and the owner of his body was miraculous. 399 00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:14,920 And in the years that the two of them are living in this house 400 00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:18,280 and being this Georgian odd couple were the same years 401 00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:22,760 in which Britain was exporting millions of Africans into slavery. 402 00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:29,560 Francis went on to enjoy the life of a freeman. 403 00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:32,600 He married a white Englishwoman and raised a family, 404 00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:36,000 but he always remained close to Samuel Johnson, 405 00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:40,640 sharing his house and naming his first-born son after him. 406 00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:43,200 And Johnson took the unusual step 407 00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:47,280 of leaving this former slave the lion's share of his fortune - 408 00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:50,400 more than £100,000 in today's money. 409 00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:57,800 But it's not only through documents that Francis is remembered. 410 00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:02,000 Cedric Barber is his great-great-great-grandson. 411 00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:06,760 Historians sometimes say that there's a mystery 412 00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:09,680 about the disappearance of the black Georgian population 413 00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:11,480 that we know numbered thousands. 414 00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,200 But, really, the answer to that mystery is you. Yes. 415 00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:18,240 We're going around in disguise, in camouflage. 416 00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:21,360 We're walking about the place and many people don't know. 417 00:25:21,360 --> 00:25:22,840 But I'm glad that I know. 418 00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:25,400 I'm proud of that because they're mine 419 00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:27,160 and because it's my history, 420 00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:29,960 and I feel sorry for people who don't know. 421 00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:32,880 Cedric lived most of his life not knowing. 422 00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:36,360 He only became fully aware of his link to Francis Barber 423 00:25:36,360 --> 00:25:39,080 through a cousin when he was in his 50s. 424 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,280 It was at a time in my life when 425 00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,920 most people will have settled into their ways 426 00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,520 and become, you know, fixed in their views. 427 00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:48,320 But all this information - 428 00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:51,120 emotional information, factual information - 429 00:25:51,120 --> 00:25:54,560 flooded into me and it changed my life in a big, big way. 430 00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:56,680 So, when you read those accounts of slavery, 431 00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:01,080 knowing now that your ancestor was Francis, who'd been a slave, 432 00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:03,600 that had a different emotional impact on you. 433 00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:06,360 Yes. Two things running alongside. 434 00:26:06,360 --> 00:26:10,040 Black history? "Well, what a shame for people 435 00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:12,480 "that that should have happened so many years ago, 436 00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:15,000 "it can't be important now," to thinking, 437 00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:17,040 "This was my family they were doing it to. 438 00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:18,240 "These were real people." 439 00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:26,960 Cedric's story reveals how our black Georgian past 440 00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:29,120 can so easily be lost. 441 00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:35,600 It also shows the power of remembrance. 442 00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:40,000 The unveiling of our plaque 443 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,800 is bringing together other descendants of the black Georgians, 444 00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:48,320 friends of the Johnson House and Francis Barber's biographer. 445 00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:50,600 And I'm delighted now to be able to call 446 00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,680 on one of those direct descendants, Cedric Barber, 447 00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,720 to unveil the plaque to commemorate the life of his 448 00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:01,560 great-great-great-great-grandfather, Francis Barber. 449 00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:06,360 APPLAUSE 450 00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:20,560 All the black side of the family were a big inspiration to me. 451 00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:23,920 We've turned white now, but they're still part of me 452 00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:25,840 and I'm very, very proud to be here today, 453 00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:28,840 very, very proud of this. Thank you very much. 454 00:27:41,360 --> 00:27:44,840 I keep trying to put myself back into Frank's shoes. 455 00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:49,080 It's like coming home, in a way, I suppose. 456 00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:59,400 We just don't know exactly how many black people 457 00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:01,560 were living in Britain in the 18th century 458 00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:04,240 when Francis Barber was living here in this house, 459 00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:06,360 but there are estimates from the time 460 00:28:06,360 --> 00:28:11,000 and they put the figure at between 10,000 and 15,000. 461 00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:13,960 Now, if those black Georgians had the average number of children, 462 00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:16,040 and the average number of their kids survived 463 00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:18,040 and went on to have their own children, 464 00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:21,080 what that could mean is that, in Britain today, 465 00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:24,320 there are between two and three million people 466 00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:28,400 who have a black ancestor, who are related to the black Georgians. 467 00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:40,360 Through intermarriage, the black Georgians disappeared without a trace, 468 00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:42,840 as did the African Romans before them. 469 00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:50,360 Yet even when there was no visible black presence in Britain, 470 00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:56,200 the idea of Africa and Africans burned brightly in the imagination, 471 00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:59,240 most vividly during the Middle Ages. 472 00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:06,120 It's something we can still feel to this day. 473 00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:10,480 This is Jesus and this is Joseph 474 00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:12,880 and these are the Three Wise Men. 475 00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:15,200 And this is Balthazar. 476 00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,640 Balthazar brings frankincense. 477 00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:23,880 The children at Our Lady and St Joseph's Catholic School 478 00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:27,240 in East London, like countless generations before them, 479 00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:30,000 are learning the Christmas story. 480 00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,960 In your nativity play, which of the kings are you playing? 481 00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:35,960 Melchior. You're Melchior. 482 00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:37,440 And which of the Kings are you? 483 00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:39,560 Casper. You're Casper. 484 00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:42,000 Which means that you're playing...? 485 00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,280 Balthazar. You're King Balthazar. 486 00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:03,680 But which direction should we go in now? I'm not sure, Balthazar. 487 00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,800 It just so happens, in this play, that the role of one of the 488 00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:10,080 three kings is being played by a little African girl. 489 00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:13,480 But when I was growing up, and I was asked to play one of the 490 00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:16,720 three kings in my school, it wasn't an accident. 491 00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,600 What I didn't know then, and what I think my teachers didn't know, 492 00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:25,080 is that by asking a little black boy to play one of the three kings, 493 00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,440 we were all taking part in a medieval tradition. 494 00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:29,760 I bring frankincense. 495 00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:34,960 Because this idea that one of the three kings is an African, 496 00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:38,280 is a black man, emerged in the Middle Ages. 497 00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,400 It's tradition that was built upon, and eventually, 498 00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:45,720 he went from just being an African, a black king, to being a character. 499 00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:51,120 ALL: Merry Christmas! 500 00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:54,760 The black king is something we've just become accustomed to. 501 00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:57,360 But we've forgotten where he came from. 502 00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:01,880 And his story illuminates Africa's place in the medieval imagination. 503 00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:07,760 ..incredible stone coming from round here. 504 00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:12,640 We can get an insight into that lost world here, at Hereford Cathedral. 505 00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:15,720 With the help of medievalist Dr Janina Ramirez, 506 00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,640 I've come to see what secrets it can reveal... 507 00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:23,560 ..starting with the early-14th-century map 508 00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,000 of the world - the Mappa Mundi. 509 00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:31,800 So, to us, everything about this map is wrong. 510 00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:34,560 It doesn't make sense if you look at it straight on. 511 00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:36,840 But if you turn your head to the side... 512 00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:42,160 ..then it all starts to make a bit more sense. 513 00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:47,760 The northern part of the map is up here. 514 00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:50,840 That's actually facing towards the east. 515 00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:53,200 This is Asia. Asia. 516 00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:54,800 Europe. 517 00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:56,400 Africa. Right. 518 00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:00,000 And you've got, right at the very centre, Jerusalem. 519 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:02,200 So this is a map of Christendom. 520 00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:07,440 Christianity had reached Ethiopia in the early fourth century. 521 00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:09,480 By the time the English drew this map, 522 00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,720 it was an important stronghold of the Christian faith. 523 00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:17,200 This area around here, which is Ethiopia - you can see that 524 00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:19,840 there's a rather glorious little palace there. 525 00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:22,600 This is a place that is being celebrated, 526 00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:26,640 it's as beautifully depicted and civilised as these European places. 527 00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:31,680 Beyond the known Christian world, 528 00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:35,760 Africa is a place of imagined tribes and mythical beasts. 529 00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:38,800 All around it are the unknown. 530 00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:42,280 And even fictional types of humans as well. 531 00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:45,640 So this is a mandrake, a sort of man plant. 532 00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:48,000 Half man, half tree. Half man, half plant, yeah. 533 00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,000 So all of these monstrous peoples 534 00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:52,360 occupy these unknown parts of Africa. 535 00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:55,280 Yes. We're talking sub-Saharan Africa. 536 00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:56,600 To the medieval eye, 537 00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:00,400 the portrayal of Africa conveyed a more powerful message. 538 00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:03,320 Here, we have this idea of three Christian continents, 539 00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:04,880 all bound together - 540 00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:08,760 Africa, Europe, Asia - these become, 541 00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:12,200 in the later Christian tradition, the Three Wise Men. 542 00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:18,320 We can see how the three continents took on human form as the 543 00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:22,680 three kings of the Christmas story in one of Hereford's rare artworks. 544 00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:28,840 This is a 1530-ish altarpiece. 545 00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:31,720 But the idea that the three magi represent 546 00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,480 the three Christian continents - 547 00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:36,600 Europe, Asia and Africa. 548 00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:38,080 So he becomes African, 549 00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:41,560 he evolves into an African persona in the Middle Ages. 550 00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:43,880 He does, he does. And it's very, very clear. 551 00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:45,760 You can see this is a great example, 552 00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:48,360 because his colour is very distinctive. 553 00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:50,960 But so are his facial features. He's very clearly African. 554 00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:52,640 VERY clearly African. 555 00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:54,840 And he's contrasting with the other kings there. 556 00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:58,080 You can see he's got his got his gift shaped as a cornucopia - 557 00:33:58,080 --> 00:33:59,760 as a horn of plenty, if you like, 558 00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:02,960 really revealing how the medieval mind saw Africa - 559 00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:04,640 it was rich and plentiful. 560 00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:06,200 He's a young man. 561 00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:10,920 He's a Christian king, but he symbolises a continent that might be 562 00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:13,480 a continent full of bounty and riches, 563 00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:16,240 that might change the world and enrich Christendom. 564 00:34:16,240 --> 00:34:19,720 Enrich Christendom - that's the phrase, that's exactly it. 565 00:34:19,720 --> 00:34:21,440 Because it's not about exclusion, 566 00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:24,920 it's about including them into this Christendom, 567 00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:29,600 this fraternity that binds these people together across great spaces. 568 00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:31,800 It wasn't just about riches. 569 00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:35,320 At a time when the Christian and Islamic faiths were engaged in 570 00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,360 a battle for hearts and minds, 571 00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:41,480 the image of the African king was a potent symbol. 572 00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:44,200 So you could see this as like one of those Second World War posters 573 00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:47,080 that shows the Russians and the Americans and the British and, 574 00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:49,000 "Look, we're not alone in this struggle." 575 00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:50,360 This is a form of propaganda. 576 00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:53,280 It's a propaganda that is encouraging all the people 577 00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:55,720 that would have come to worship in front of it 578 00:34:55,720 --> 00:34:58,080 to start to see themselves as Christians, 579 00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:01,280 part of a unified Christendom, that's bringing in Africa, 580 00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,560 and very much wholeheartedly wanting Africa to be onside. 581 00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:10,960 The idea of Africa as a land of riches would endure 582 00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:13,400 throughout the Middle Ages. 583 00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:17,720 It would eventually inspire the British to try to reach its shores. 584 00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:27,640 But first, Britain would see the arrival of more Africans. 585 00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:38,200 Their reappearance in Britain was due, in part, to a royal saga... 586 00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:47,320 ..a familiar cast of characters, whose schemes and desires led to 587 00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:50,960 one of the most tumultuous events in British history - 588 00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:52,000 the Reformation. 589 00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:59,640 Right where I'm standing is where Greenwich Palace once stood. 590 00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:03,520 And this is what it looked like back when it was the grand Tudor palace. 591 00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:05,560 Now, almost nothing of it remains, 592 00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:08,560 but the lay of the land is still pretty much the same. 593 00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:12,000 And this view is still, clearly, that view. 594 00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:13,200 And this hill here, 595 00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:17,280 is now the hill where the Greenwich Observatory stands. 596 00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:20,880 Now, Greenwich Palace was one of the stages on which the grand drama 597 00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:22,840 of the Tudor dynasty was played out. 598 00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,840 Henry VIII was born right here, 599 00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:29,200 as were both of his surviving daughters, Mary and Elizabeth - 600 00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:31,280 both of them, future queens of England. 601 00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:34,920 And it's through the ambitions of the Tudor dynasty that we can 602 00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:38,760 find evidence for the re-emergence of a black presence in Britain. 603 00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:43,240 MUSIC: John Blanke Theme by Randolph Matthews 604 00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:57,920 In 1501, the 16-year-old Catherine of Aragon came here for her 605 00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:02,080 long-awaited marriage to Prince Arthur, heir to the English throne. 606 00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:06,120 Catherine was a princess of the Spanish court, 607 00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:10,120 one of the most powerful and cosmopolitan in Europe. 608 00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:11,160 And it showed. 609 00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:20,640 The entourage she brought to England 610 00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,280 was both multicultural and multiracial. 611 00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:32,120 We know that among Catherine's entourage was a Spanish Moor, 612 00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:34,480 a North African woman called Catalina. 613 00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:36,320 Now, she was a lady of the bedchamber. 614 00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:39,360 One of her jobs was to change the Queen's sheets. 615 00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:41,560 And in royal and aristocratic circles, 616 00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:44,880 the condition of the bedsheets was taken as proof or not 617 00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:48,040 as to whether a marriage had been consummated. 618 00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:51,920 So Catalina found herself drawn into the great Tudor saga 619 00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:54,120 that was about to unfold. 620 00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:56,640 TRUMPET PLAYS A LAMENT 621 00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:11,440 Within six months of their marriage, Prince Arthur died of a fever. 622 00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:14,400 Catherine was now betrothed to his younger brother, 623 00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,280 the ten-year-old Henry. 624 00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:24,920 They married seven years later, once Henry had come to the throne. 625 00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:27,640 And in 1511, Catherine gave birth to the son 626 00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:30,360 they hoped would secure the Tudor dynasty. 627 00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:35,880 Henry celebrated the birth of his son with a great extravaganza 628 00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,240 of music and jousting called the Westminster Tournament. 629 00:38:39,240 --> 00:38:42,920 And it was recorded in this, the Westminster Tournament Roll. 630 00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:45,720 And it shows all of the great aristocratic families on their 631 00:38:45,720 --> 00:38:47,920 horses, in their best clothes. 632 00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:51,080 It shows that all the great courtiers, who were in favour, 633 00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:52,280 were all in attendance. 634 00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:56,000 And that this was a very public and very important event. 635 00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:59,240 This is a depiction of Catherine and her ladies-in-waiting. 636 00:38:59,240 --> 00:39:03,080 And this knight is believed to be Henry. 637 00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:05,840 And right at the beginning of the Westminster Tournament Roll 638 00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:07,440 are the royal trumpeters. 639 00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:11,120 Their job was to announce the arrival of important people 640 00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:13,040 by blowing fanfares. 641 00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:17,720 And among the six trumpeters is a black guy. 642 00:39:17,720 --> 00:39:19,680 And he's not just here at the beginning 643 00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:21,440 of the Westminster Tournament Roll, 644 00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:24,240 there's another picture of him here, at the end of the day. 645 00:39:24,240 --> 00:39:26,840 But this time to announce that the jousting's over, 646 00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:30,000 and the festivities and the banquets are about to begin. 647 00:39:31,240 --> 00:39:33,440 Not quite a fanfare... 648 00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:36,880 For diversity... 649 00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:39,880 The trumpeter's appearance in the records around this time 650 00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:42,760 suggest he also arrived with Catherine. 651 00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:47,480 The records also give us his name - John Blanke. 652 00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:50,200 In the Norman French 653 00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:57,400 The name has a ring that's nice 654 00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:01,760 Not John Blanke 655 00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:04,720 Jean Blanc! 656 00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:08,600 To be precise. 657 00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:14,240 This is a letter from John Blanke to his employer, to Henry VIII. 658 00:40:14,240 --> 00:40:18,360 And, to put it bluntly, what he's asking the king for is a pay rise. 659 00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:22,360 He explains that his current wages are not enough to keep him and 660 00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:26,720 allow him "to do your Grace like service as the other trumpeters do". 661 00:40:26,720 --> 00:40:29,000 So he's saying he can't perform as well as they can, 662 00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:31,480 because he's not paid as much. 663 00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:33,240 LIVELY JAZZ SOLO 664 00:40:33,240 --> 00:40:36,400 But, reading between the lines, what seems also to have happened, 665 00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:39,000 is that John Blanke has discovered that one of the other 666 00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:42,080 trumpeters is paid more than he is. 667 00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:45,320 So he's writing to demand not just a pay rise, 668 00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:47,600 but for his pay to be backdated. 669 00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:52,320 Now, there is something wonderfully human 670 00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:54,800 about this little Tudor soap opera. 671 00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:57,680 It tells us that John Blanke was somebody who believed that his 672 00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:01,920 skills were valuable, and he had the right to be paid the same 673 00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:04,080 as somebody else doing the same job. 674 00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:09,520 And, incredibly, he is successful in his petition. 675 00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:12,680 And we have Henry's signature agreeing to his pay rise. 676 00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:17,840 APPLAUSE 677 00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:24,800 The presence of John Blanke and Catalina in England was 678 00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:28,800 a reflection of the Tudor court's links to the Mediterranean world, 679 00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:31,080 and its connections with Africa. 680 00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:33,200 We know all these details about their lives, 681 00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:36,920 because they were part of this inner world of the Tudor court. 682 00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:39,560 And that makes both of them really special. 683 00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:44,520 But what makes John Blanke unique is that he's the first black Briton 684 00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:48,080 for whom we have not just a name, but also a picture. 685 00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:49,800 We can look into his face. 686 00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:54,160 And through that picture, and through the records and the 687 00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:56,840 archives, we can gain some idea of his character. 688 00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:00,200 And it's for that reason he's being remembered here today. 689 00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:07,760 Blanke's modern-day counterpart, Lance Corporal Lawrence Narkum, 690 00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:10,560 has come to herald his Tudor predecessor. 691 00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:17,280 For some black Britons, John Blanke has become 692 00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:19,440 something of a cult figure. 693 00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:25,880 I think this is a great moment of invocation and exorcism. 694 00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:29,000 Blanke also plays a role in a pivotal moment in our 695 00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:34,160 national story, that's usually presented as exclusively white. 696 00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:39,320 But it's also invoking the hope for connectedness, 697 00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:44,640 in the sense that John Blanke should not be seen 698 00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:50,600 as the possession of the black people. 699 00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:56,800 It is an intricate part of the fabric of British history. 700 00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:58,920 FANFARE 701 00:43:00,720 --> 00:43:02,880 APPLAUSE 702 00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:19,600 We know Blanke went on to marry. 703 00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:23,600 Henry VIII sent him a royal wedding gift, a matching cap and gown. 704 00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:29,000 Yet, after this, John Blanke disappears from the records. 705 00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:34,160 But Catalina, the lady of Catherine's bedchamber, 706 00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:37,720 makes one last appearance in the Tudor saga. 707 00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:46,680 Catherine and Henry's son had died in infancy. 708 00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,720 They went on to lose a further three sons, 709 00:43:49,720 --> 00:43:52,840 leaving Mary as their only surviving child. 710 00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:59,320 Henry was convinced that he'd been cursed by God for marrying 711 00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:03,840 his brother's widow. He sought to have his marriage annulled. 712 00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:08,320 Catherine protested that her first marriage had never been consummated. 713 00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:11,920 To help settle the matter, the court appealed for witnesses. 714 00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:16,880 If there was anyone who was in a position to know whether the 715 00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:20,320 marriage between Arthur and Catherine had been consummated, 716 00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:23,880 it was Catalina - the woman who had made the Queen's bed. 717 00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:26,440 But she'd already gone back to Spain, got married, 718 00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:28,040 had a family of her own. 719 00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:30,640 And despite searching, she was never found. 720 00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:36,640 Eventually, Henry got his annulment. 721 00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:38,840 But at huge cost. 722 00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:44,000 Henry was excommunicated by Rome. 723 00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:47,840 The English were left isolated and envious of the wealth 724 00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:49,920 of the great Catholic powers. 725 00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:55,680 In time, the tables would be turned. 726 00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:20,320 While other European nations were establishing trade links with 727 00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:23,880 Africa, for the English, it had remained a distant shore. 728 00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:31,680 As rumours of the wealth of the continent spread, 729 00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:34,680 they became increasingly difficult to resist. 730 00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:49,200 Now, English merchants and traders set sail for Africa, and its riches. 731 00:45:50,560 --> 00:45:52,960 But they would have a fight on their hands. 732 00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:01,040 The first English traders to reach West Africa arrived here, 733 00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:03,160 on what was then called the Guinea Coast, 734 00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:05,640 back in the middle of the 16th century. 735 00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:09,760 And they came here not as conquerors or as empire builders, 736 00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:12,120 but as something pretty close to pirates. 737 00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:15,080 And that's because, officially, they had absolutely 738 00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:16,760 no business being here. 739 00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:19,280 The first to reach this coast, the Portuguese, 740 00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:21,520 had pretty much stitched everything up. 741 00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:24,640 They'd made deals with the local leaders, they'd built trading posts, 742 00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:27,400 and most importantly, they'd got the Pope 743 00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:30,880 to give them a monopoly over all trade from this coast. 744 00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:36,480 So these English traders were interlopers. 745 00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:40,440 They were rogue traders. And they were here illicitly and illegally. 746 00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:50,440 Upon arrival, the English would've been confronted by Portuguese power, 747 00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:53,720 and places like this - the fortress of Elmina. 748 00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:06,000 Built in 1482, some 70 years before the English arrived, 749 00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:09,800 it's the oldest European structure in all of sub-Saharan Africa. 750 00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:18,560 But Elmina is not all that it seems. 751 00:47:27,240 --> 00:47:29,160 People come to this fortress today 752 00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:31,680 to remember the victims of the slave trade. 753 00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:36,920 But it's easy to forget that this fortress wasn't built as 754 00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:40,880 a slave fortress - it was repurposed for the slave trade later on. 755 00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:46,680 Elmina is a relic from an era in the relationship between 756 00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:49,960 Africa and Britain that we often forget about. 757 00:47:51,240 --> 00:47:54,640 The land this fortress was built on isn't conquered land, 758 00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:56,440 it was negotiated for. 759 00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,400 This fortress wasn't a military headquarters from which 760 00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,760 Europeans launched military raids - it was a trading centre, 761 00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:05,320 from which they sent out diplomatic missions. 762 00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:10,800 So you can see this place as a symbol of African power. 763 00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,080 This was a phase in which the Europeans fought one another 764 00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:23,880 for access to African kingdoms that they couldn't dream of dominating. 765 00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:27,800 It was also a phase in the 16th century, under the Tudors, 766 00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:31,360 in which the English had one of their great bursts of fascination 767 00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:33,440 with this continent and its people. 768 00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:55,400 Ultimately, it wasn't the Portuguese the English had to win over, 769 00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:56,720 but the local kings. 770 00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:03,400 We know that the first English traders who arrived in 771 00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:07,000 West Africa held audiences with the local kings. 772 00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:10,320 And they probably sat around like this, in the sun, 773 00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:12,800 waiting for their ceremonial arrival. 774 00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:16,000 We also know, from the accounts of those traders, that the relationship 775 00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:20,000 between the English and the Africans was one of trading partners. 776 00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:22,480 Now, that's because they were dealing with societies who 777 00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:24,560 were worldly, who were savvy. 778 00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:27,800 They had been in contact with the Berbers and the Arabs, 779 00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:30,120 trading with them since the fifth century. 780 00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:32,560 And the Portuguese had already been here for decades, 781 00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:34,880 so they weren't people who were easily duped. 782 00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:37,960 So one English trader tells us that, 783 00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:41,000 "The Africans are very wary in their bargain, 784 00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:44,560 "and they will not lose one sparkle of gold of any value." 785 00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:47,880 There's a Dutch trader, he says, "When we have brought them things 786 00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:51,680 "that they did not like, they have mocked us in a scandalous way." 787 00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:11,160 We can still get a glimpse of what those early traders experienced. 788 00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:16,480 The Ashanti are the direct descendants of the Akan, 789 00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:17,920 the people who were here 790 00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:21,040 when the English first set foot on African soil. 791 00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:29,240 And in the procession of the Ashanti king, there's a vivid display 792 00:50:29,240 --> 00:50:31,840 of what first drew the English to this place... 793 00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:38,000 ..gold, and in quantities that confirmed the medieval legend 794 00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:40,480 that Africa was a land of riches. 795 00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:14,320 The sense you get being here, with the Ashanti, 796 00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:19,160 is of a people for whom gold has been important for 1,500 years. 797 00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:23,400 These are people who started trading in gold back in the fifth century. 798 00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:26,240 And there are people here - the kings and the chiefs - 799 00:51:26,240 --> 00:51:28,600 who are literally dripping in the stuff. 800 00:51:28,600 --> 00:51:31,240 Gold is everywhere, and it's part of a moment 801 00:51:31,240 --> 00:51:34,720 in the history of Africa and Europe that we forget about, 802 00:51:34,720 --> 00:51:37,600 when it wasn't about slavery, when it was about this stuff - 803 00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:40,000 it was about gold and the wealth of Africa. 804 00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:54,200 If you look carefully, when the king shakes someone's hand, 805 00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:57,760 another hand comes up from underneath to support his arm, 806 00:51:57,760 --> 00:52:01,440 because he's wearing so much gold, he needs help with the weight. 807 00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:03,960 So there is a figure at the court of the Ashanti king, 808 00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:06,440 who is the official Propper of the Royal Arm. 809 00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:12,560 The Ashanti kingdom is now part of Ghana, a modern democracy. 810 00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:15,880 But the king of the Ashanti still has an influential role. 811 00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:23,960 Like most royals, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II rarely speaks to the media. 812 00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:26,120 It's part of his regal mystique. 813 00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:33,760 But he has granted us an interview with his deputy, 814 00:52:33,760 --> 00:52:36,360 Oheneba Odwesi Puku Ashanti. 815 00:52:42,720 --> 00:52:44,880 It's difficult not to notice that you're wearing 816 00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:47,640 quite a lot of gold today. Yes, sir. 817 00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:50,560 You can't tell the history of the people of this part of the world 818 00:52:50,560 --> 00:52:51,960 without talking about gold. 819 00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:55,400 Part of protecting the kingdom, historically, has been to keep 820 00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:58,960 invaders away from the gold mines, the source of the wealth. Yes. 821 00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:02,000 That was the original idea. 822 00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:06,000 Why the attack took so many campaigns - 823 00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:09,120 to preserve the gold mines for Ashantis. 824 00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:13,040 It was the British who decided to colonise the Ashanti. 825 00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:17,880 But so late, it was the 1890s they get up here. 826 00:53:17,880 --> 00:53:21,360 So it's 400 years of defeating colonial ambition. Yes. 827 00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:25,760 The Ashantis were determined to make life unbearable for them. 828 00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:30,920 Most of the British people who died outside their country... 829 00:53:32,280 --> 00:53:35,080 ..died in Ashanti, because of the gold. 830 00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:38,840 And they wanted to take it away from Ashanti. 831 00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:40,000 Ashanti said no. 832 00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:51,720 The West African kings were canny enough to work out the arrival 833 00:53:51,720 --> 00:53:55,000 of the English was an opportunity for them. 834 00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:58,000 Because, up until that point, the Portuguese had been using 835 00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:02,080 their monopoly position on the coast to keep the price of gold down. 836 00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:04,720 So when the English and other Europeans turned up, 837 00:54:04,720 --> 00:54:07,720 it introduced some competition back into the market. 838 00:54:07,720 --> 00:54:10,480 So the Africans even offered the English goods on credit, 839 00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:13,520 with the profits payable on the return journey. 840 00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:20,440 So this is long-range, long-term financing of international 841 00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:23,800 trade deals, between African kings and English traders. 842 00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:31,120 Those first English visitors had proved the viability 843 00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:32,280 of a trade with Africa. 844 00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:36,680 So more than 1,000 years after the first Africans came to 845 00:54:36,680 --> 00:54:39,000 Britain as soldiers of the Roman Empire, 846 00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:42,160 the English had gained a tentative foothold in Africa. 847 00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:58,160 From that moment on, there would be increasing two-way traffic 848 00:54:58,160 --> 00:55:01,120 between this vast continent and the British Isles. 849 00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:14,440 Those first traders returned home with pepper, ivory and gold. 850 00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:16,680 But they also went a step further. 851 00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:24,200 This book is Richard Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, 852 00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:27,480 Voyages, Traffiques And Discoueries Of The English Nation. 853 00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:30,840 It's a 16th-century compendium of all the travel accounts and 854 00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:34,720 journals of England's merchants and adventurers and pirates. 855 00:55:34,720 --> 00:55:37,840 It tells us that one of the first expeditions to Africa, 856 00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:40,920 led by the merchant John Lok, brought back to England 857 00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:44,920 not just a stash of African gold, but five African men. 858 00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:47,160 They came from the small fishing town of Shama, 859 00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:49,600 which can still be found on the coast of Ghana. 860 00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:54,000 And three of them were given new names - Anthonie, Binne and George. 861 00:55:56,760 --> 00:55:59,960 While they were in London, the five men learned English. 862 00:55:59,960 --> 00:56:03,120 The hope was that they would act as intermediaries and 863 00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:06,680 interpreters for future trade missions. 864 00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:09,320 We don't know much about their time in England, 865 00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:10,880 other than what Hakluyt tells us. 866 00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:13,960 He describes them as tall and strong men, 867 00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:17,160 and says that, "They could well agree with our meats and drinks, 868 00:56:17,160 --> 00:56:20,760 "but that our cold and moist air doth somewhat offend them." 869 00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:26,840 Within a couple of years, all five men were safely returned home. 870 00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:39,560 Just as the first seeds of an equal trading relationship were 871 00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:43,680 taking root, a devastating new chapter was about to open. 872 00:56:52,120 --> 00:56:55,720 Seven years after the five men from Shama had been brought to London, 873 00:56:55,720 --> 00:56:58,520 a trader from Plymouth, called Sir John Hawkins, 874 00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:00,680 set sail for the coast of Africa. 875 00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:02,840 Hakluyt tells us that once off the coast, 876 00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:06,840 Hawkins got into his possession 300 Negroes. 877 00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:11,000 Now, what Hakluyt means by that, is that Hawkins intercepted some 878 00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:14,680 Portuguese ships, captured the enslaved Africans on board, 879 00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:17,440 took them to the Spanish colonies in South America 880 00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:19,040 and sold them into slavery. 881 00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:26,720 Through that one expedition, 882 00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:30,080 Hawkins made himself an enormous personal fortune. 883 00:57:30,080 --> 00:57:33,560 But more than that, he had demonstrated that the trade 884 00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:37,400 in human beings was just as profitable as the trade in gold. 885 00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:41,000 He had become a pioneer of the English slave trade - 886 00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:42,960 a trade that, in the coming centuries, 887 00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:46,080 would consume the lives of millions of Africans. 888 00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:57,480 Next time... 889 00:57:57,480 --> 00:57:59,720 the Atlantic slave trade... 890 00:57:59,720 --> 00:58:04,000 If you're looking happy bedtime stories, you're on the wrong island. 891 00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:05,440 ..a Georgian superstar... 892 00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:09,280 ..and the fight for freedom. 893 00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:15,280 If you'd like to find out how to research black history in your area, 894 00:58:15,280 --> 00:58:16,880 there's an iWonder guide, 895 00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:18,880 with links to our partners at... 896 00:58:19,305 --> 00:59:19,827