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

by David Olusoga

There were two revolutions in the American colonies during the 1770s and 1780s.6 In the first, the white colonists rose up against British rule and fought to realize their independence. Without any embarrassment the rebels and patriots of that revolution used the term ‘freedom’ to allude to their political aspirations, and the word ‘slavery’ to describe their exposure to British taxation. Even before the American patriots had issued a Declaration of Independence that professed ‘all men equal’, their hypocrisy had been noted and ridiculed. In 1775 Samuel Johnson, writing from the London town house he shared with Francis Barber, asked, ‘how is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?’7