Britain's first black community in Elizabethan London »
Most of us tend to think that black people came to Britain after the war - Caribbeans on the Empire Windrush in 1948, Bangladeshis after the 1971 war and Ugandan Asians after Idi Amin’s expulsion in 1972.
But, back in Shakespeare’s day, you could have met people from west Africa and even Bengal in the same London streets.
Of course, there were fewer, and they drew antipathy as well as fascination from the Tudor inhabitants, who had never seen black people before. But we know they lived, worked and intermarried, so it is fair to say that Britain’s first black community starts here.
There had been black people in Britain in Roman times, and they are found as musicians in the early Tudor period in England and Scotland.
So, tell me again that it’s not historically accurate to include POC in media set in Europe before slavery. Go on, reality & I will be here mocking you.
Srsly guise, even your precious northern/western Europe was not monochrome. Even when there weren’t actual communities, guess what? People travel.
