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

by David Olusoga

The denial and avowal of black British history, even in the face of mounting documentary and archaeological evidence, is not just a consequence of racism but a feature of racism.

the invention of the Commonwealth as an institution that complicated and delayed the severing of links between the former colonizer and formerly colonized

immigrants ‘are here because you were there’,

Afro-Romans arrived in the British Isles during the third century ad,

Africa was, after all, a land of the Bible,

Portugal’s cartographers and navigators had built upon Islamic learning and were far in advance of most of their competitors.

Portugal’s first base on African soil was the city of Ceuta,

three sons of Noah were the progenitors of the three acknowledged races of mankind. As

Medieval mapmakers at times used the names of the three sons of Noah to denote the three known continents.

there is no question that the full-blooded brutality of plantation slavery was a colonial phenomenon,

‘She hath always two necessary Implements about her, a Blackamoor, and a little dog; for without these, she would be neither Fair nor Sweet’.

The black pageboy had become firmly established as an essential accessory among the richest and the most fashionable, but also as a symbol of morally dubious extravagance and show.

if the slaves died a natural death, it would be the loss of the owners of the ship; but if they were thrown alive into the sea, it would be the loss of the underwriters’.