Black History Month 2025

Black History Month is an important opportunity to explore the histories of people who have often been excluded from popular narratives. While the idea of one month on Black history might appear tokenistic or simplistic, it does not have to mean sticking to already well-known characters or limited themes. Therefore, this year we have chosen to break with some of the regular focuses and instead we are using Black History Month to demonstrate the longevity of Black British history by highlighting the growth and interactions of Black settlement in Britain during the eighteenth century.

Much of these interactions were not driven by choice but due to the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, of which Britian was a leading power in the forced enslavement of African peoples, primarily transporting captured Africans to British colonies in the Americas, for huge profit.

However, to view these interactions solely through the large lens of slavery is to ignore the complex personal relationships that developed in Britain during that century. Black Africans began to settle in the UK, sometimes through slavery and at other times through choice and taking up a number of occupations. That presence took on a mixture of domestic regularity for some, while for others it was a position from which they campaigned against slavery and for greater equality as part of the wider political movements of the time. Key Black social commentators such as Ignatius Sancho became household names, but the majority of people of colour living in the UK would be invisible to those in power if not to those immediately around them.

A key theme of the eighteenth century is the development of demands for power, equality and rights amongst the growing working and middling classes. In recent years more attention has been paid to public sources to determine the extent and everyday reality of Black people living in eighteenth century Britain and that research provides a valuable insight into the long term presence and direct contributions of Black people into British society at that time. All of which serve as a reminder, that Black History is British history, when the latter is seen through the breadth of its people rather than through a narrow interpretation of 'authority and key events'.

As part of the Historical Association’s collaboration with academics to create our new film series on Power and Freedom in Britain, Dr Montaz Marche and Dr Ryan Hanley discuss their research and interpretations of Black British life in the eighteenth century.

Selected resources

Primary

Secondary

General interest