Black and British: A Forgotten History, from the acclaimed historian and star of 'Celebrity Traitors'

by David Olusoga

From the sixteenth century onwards, the legend that Africans were the ‘sons of Ham’ was often invoked to explain their blackness. The legend was also to have far-reaching and dismal consequences, as it was later deployed as a justification for New World slavery. According to scripture, Ham had humiliated his father, and as punishment for his transgression Noah had placed a terrible curse upon Ham’s son Canaan. This curse was to be passed on to all of Canaan’s descendants in perpetuity. In the relevant passage of Genesis, Canaan was condemned to become ‘a servant of servants . . . unto his brethren’, and that same status was to be passed down to each generation for all time.