Black Tudors: The Air of Freedom
Before the British Empire and the Atlantic slave trade, Africans lived freely in Tudor England.
Juan Gelofe, an enslaved 40-year-old Wolof man from West Africa, had a conversation with an English sailor, William Collins, in a Mexican silver mine in 1572. Juan remarked that England ‘must be a good country as there were no slaves there’. Collins confirmed: ‘It was true, that there they were all freemen.’ Spanish officials sang the same tune: in 1586 Pedro de Arana wrote to the Spanish House of Trade from Havana, commenting that in Francis Drake’s country ‘negro labourers’ were free.
When the question arose in an English court of law in 1569, it was resolved ‘that England has too pure an Air for Slaves to breathe in’. This was consistent with the absence of any legislation on the status of slavery under English law. Parliament never issued any law codes delineating slavery to compare with the Portuguese Ordenações Manuelinas (1481-1514), the Dutch East India Ordinances (1622), France’s Code Noir (1685) or the codes that appeared in Virginia and other American states from the 1670s.
To continue reading this article you need to purchase a subscription, available from only £5.
Start my trial subscription now
If you have already purchased access, or are a print & archive subscriber, please ensure you are logged in.
Please email digital@historytoday.com if you have any problems.
